Commencement Address

The wonderful weeks of early May. The weather is mild, the sky is a nice shade of light blue, with wonderful dusks that fill one with a sense of joy and endless possibility. Loyal loves this time of year, and likens it to the feeling of getting circulation back into one's limbs after they've fallen asleep. So many wonderful sensory memories of this time of the year. But mostly these weeks signal the end of the school year, with all the attendant events.


It is that time of year again. Time to trot out the bagpipes. Time for the undergrads to stagger, reeking of beer and bad credit, towards their uncomfortable metal chairs to endure commencement. Loyal has been fortunate to have had some good commencement speaker experiences. Loyal has always toyed with the idea of making a commencement speech. Loyal will now address a commencement speech to the entire graduating class of 2005, high school and undergrads alike.

Ahem.

It is graduation day. A day on which certain words will be uttered which will never be uttered with you in mind again. Future, hope, possibility, promise, dreams, talent.

Look to your right and to your left, especially those of you in the high school audience. Right now, you either feel heartbreakingly close to these people, or, if your graduation experiences were like Loyal's, you wish you could have manuevered your last name sufficiently enough so that you could have sat next to people you actually gave a rat's ass about and who didn't treat you like a cipher. Both of Loyal's graduation experiences consisted of Loyal sitting perturbed and annoyed by some extraneous circumstance. Commencement, after all, in Latin means: "double parked."

Look to your right and to your left. You will never see these people again. If you do, you will wish you hadn't. You will move on, they will move on. You will meet people who are funnier, smarter, better-looking. Many of your classmates will end up in nightmares. Some things are hard-wired into the human brain. The conversation is always the same: in December you will come home and say to a person to whom you inexplicably still speak, "Wow, didn't Person A get real *fat, *gay, *depressed, *slutty, *beaten up by her 40 year old alcoholic janitor boyfriend?"

This will happen. It will.

But that's okay. You are a fool to think that you will keep this moment. That you can revisit these places that you loved. They're gone. The time is gone. It moves on. You must learn to accept that life is a continuous series of losses, interrupted only by the rate at which you are successful at making incursions into the ebbing away.

That rate of success is also known as the rate of diminishing returns.

But, cheer up---you're graduating today!

Loyal is somewhat older than you. Loyal is of a different generation, even though not many years separate us when one thinks about it. You are far better at compartmentalizing, at multi-tasking, at recognizing the need for skill sets and incremental, well-rounded development. You have been scheduled and trained and fit into the mold of the achiever. You will go on recognizing organizations, assessing how you can fit, what skills you need to fit, what goals you need to achieve, and you will achieve them. Then you will move on, like a field of achievement oriented locusts. You're so much more accomplished, so much what corporate America wants in trainees. You have been prepared for the new paradigm---that of the lateral life. Where you do not move upward so much as you move sideways, attempting to keep your balance.

You look smug. You should be. You're very talented, very driven, very accomplished. But Loyal has some dire news for you all.

As long as the upper middle class holds out, the next generation is going to be even more adept than you.

So you're going to be in trouble when these wolverines come with their rich resumes and their keen understanding of organizational physics.

But Loyal has some advice.

Learn how to fail. That's right. That's your one negative trait. You don't know how. You've never failed. You take the steps to achieve, and the achievement you seek occurs. That's just expected. But when the day comes when they brush you aside--the question is, will you shrug and lateral yourself until you lateral yourself into irrelevancy?

Don't you have any guts? Don't you want to stop being so cautious? Why don't you fail?

Loyal isn't advocating failure, really. Loyal isn't saying drink yourself into a stupor, don't attend class, be content with working at Video 2 Rol and going home to a warm glass of butter. Loyal is saying that failure gives you the confidence that you've faced the hole, and really, it's not that bad. It gives you the freedom to take the big risk, to go for the gusto.

If you want to play by the rules, and never think of putting your stamp on anything, just disregard what Loyal has said.

Failure teaches you regret, it teaches you humility, and it teaches you that things don't end until you're dead or in a persistent vegetative state. And even then, Tom DeLay might swoop in to save you!

Loyal has tasted failure. Loyal lived in fear before that moment and shortly afterward that failure of any sort might jeopardize the assured reality destined for Loyal that one day Loyal would be an international corporate lawyer. Loyal then realized there were plenty of better destinies, and that maybe failure had opened the door to a different way of living. The Buddhists have it right---once you learn to give things up, you are lighter than you ever were.

Loyal thinks about how clueless Loyal was before failure. Smug, assured of Loyal's destiny, assured of Loyal's place in the world, and of the importance Loyal had
in that world. Then failure happened. Suddenly, Loyal realized that the friends Loyal had didn't like Loyal, that no one had rememebred a single important thing Loyal had said. The destiny Loyal was assured of evaporated.

It was great.

Well, it wasn't great at the time. It sucked, quite frankly. But Loyal grew some bigger, better balls. More importantly, Loyal gained perspective. You are sorely lacking in perspective.

Most of you will do just fine. It's an increasingly rough world you're going into. Fail now, so you can taste it, so it can nourish you---and prepare you to have the vision and guts and initiative to do something other than lateral your way through life. Because someone will always be better than you, and have a better skill set. And you should not expect that this phase of existence we are enjoying now will last forever. It will be much harder if you fail then, than if you take the time to assess your true destiny.

Your true destiny is to be a prisoner of fate, health, and of your own limitations.

Loyal is not happy. But Loyal has a good sense of balance. This is much more important. Loyal has failed. Loyal has many regrets, and many bad choices, and many moments of obliviousness. But Loyal can see that the pattern of letting go and doggedly having the guts to ride the whim of fate is working out in a strange fashion. Loyal cannot predict that it will not end in doom--but Loyal now has the confidence that it is possible to thrive and survive.

Loyal knows you are anxious to get out there and have unwise sex with someone who will someday resent you fondly. So Loyal will close with heartfelt wisdom from a man who Loyal has great respect for. You might be surprised.

"But if you are reasonably intelligent and if your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance, while those who have everything are sitting on their fat butts..."
---Richard Nixon

Remember, never to fear failure. Remember never to listen to those who tell you that anger is an impolite emotion. They only seek to derail you.

Thus endeth the lesson.