to my graduating friends:
just about every valedictory address begins, ends, or spends a great deal of time mentioning that those four years in high school or college will later be the four years one looks back on with so much fondness. one would recall the first times, and many of the firsts were so charged with emotion, and one would recall firsts and turn emotional (or hint at it nonetheless). there is this underlying sense that with every repetition, the novelty of an act, idea, feeling, wears off a little. danilo reyes captured it perfectly when he said that the first time i love you is said, it is meant the most. with each succeeding mention, the words lose their power. when one looks at everything in the long term, everything is a fad, and at some point, the meaning of what we do, say, or feel has approximated the empty can we would once use as a telephone.
it is up to you to make sure that never happens.
dear friends, i pray that should you ever hear the words the best years of your life, you think of the here and now, not tomorrow nor yesterday. that if words, deeds, ideas, start turning into old toys or words existing only to fill the dead air, then you shall speak into that empty tin can and dead air and give it life. i pray that as you leave behind what may be the last time you'll ever call yourself students, you bring with you that same passion that ignited you through dark nights of accounting or philosophy or filipino 14. i challenge you to not have to look backward or forward to find the inherent beauty of everything--i challenge you to take the climax of your journey, extend it, and bring it with you everywhere.
then, i hope that you will never have a quiet moment. i hope that after these years, you will still be the same person whose catchphrases and witty quips speak volumes, whose whispers are heard across hallways, whose reach extends beyond the greatest of academic and economic distances. and in the end, i pray that you look back on today as just another ordinary day when you conferred upon yourselves the title of bachelor. and that you look back in fondness, you look to the future in anticipation, and yet still, in that very moment, you feel infinitely alive.
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it is up to you to make sure that never happens.
dear friends, i pray that should you ever hear the words the best years of your life, you think of the here and now, not tomorrow nor yesterday. that if words, deeds, ideas, start turning into old toys or words existing only to fill the dead air, then you shall speak into that empty tin can and dead air and give it life. i pray that as you leave behind what may be the last time you'll ever call yourself students, you bring with you that same passion that ignited you through dark nights of accounting or philosophy or filipino 14. i challenge you to not have to look backward or forward to find the inherent beauty of everything--i challenge you to take the climax of your journey, extend it, and bring it with you everywhere.
then, i hope that you will never have a quiet moment. i hope that after these years, you will still be the same person whose catchphrases and witty quips speak volumes, whose whispers are heard across hallways, whose reach extends beyond the greatest of academic and economic distances. and in the end, i pray that you look back on today as just another ordinary day when you conferred upon yourselves the title of bachelor. and that you look back in fondness, you look to the future in anticipation, and yet still, in that very moment, you feel infinitely alive.
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