Despite the fact that college commencements have been cancelled, I have been chosen to remotely address the Class of 2020. Having reviewed Dorothy’s 2019 commencement address I could just have easily suggested that it be re-played because it was so 2020 in both scope and content. But, people who know me, know I never take the easy way out. I am loyal to a fault.
To all the members of the Class of 2020 I say that this year turned to shit. It will go down in academic history as a real WTF year. We all know that, so let’s move on because that’s what we not only have to do, it’s what we should do.
I would like to follow commencement history by beginning my talk with a quote that is supposedly attributed to Confucius. He said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Think about it. Today you are here. Tomorrow you won’t be here, you will be there wherever there might be. You have no choice but to go there to a place that is as forbidding as it is foreboding. It’s a place called the future, a place that we continually think we can control. It’s the place you are dreaming about.
Six months ago no one on this planet would have ever thought the future was so frightening. We thought we had it all figured out. And then we were hit by a virus that introduced us to an oft repeated term, the “new normal.”
I am here to tell you that we should celebrate the “new,” but get down on our knees and pray that we don’t aspire to a “normal,” new or otherwise. Normal is just another word for “ordinary,” and that’s not our purpose. We all need to strive to be extra-ordinary.
You are about to step on what Paul McCartney called the “long and winding road.” There is no doubt it will be long, and thank God it will be winding because who wants to travel a straight and narrow road.
People might tell you the world is in a chaotic state. I can’t argue with that, but I should hasten to point out that in Greek mythology Chaos was the origin of everything and the first thing to exist. From Chaos sprang the future.
You, the class of 2020 should consider yourselves the origin of everything that is to follow. You have a chance, not to follow in the footsteps of other generations, but to be pioneers on the long and winding yellow brick road that will lead you home because as Dorothy said, “there’s no place like home.”
Keep in mind that Dorothy meant that home was a place in your heart. She was telling us to find that home in us on our yellow brick road. I challenge you to be the first genuine generation. A generation that does not discriminate. A generation that has no borders. A generation that breathes new meaning into those forgotten words of the Great Seal of the United States: Novus Ordo Seclorum (a new order of the ages).
Let me bring this home by letting me tell you that you won’t be alone on your journey. No matter how dark it might get, don’t worry, you will be found.
Along The Yellow Brick Road 