{From President Hunter Rawlings III Comencement Address to the Cornell Unviersity Class of 2003}
...
"Salute" by Archie Ammons
May happiness
pursue you,
catch you
often, and,
should it
lose you,
be waiting
ahead, making
a clearing
for you.
.....
Congratulations and Godspeed.
I happened to be browsing the web, and came across the commencement address for this year's graduating class (and in keeping with my somewhat central theme of missing college) - I thought that I would write about it. Its been awhile since I've had the chance to write about things - and technically, I don't even have this "chance" to write about things (too much to do, too little time to do it in), I've decided to take this little time out of the day to write - since every now and then, you need to do something for yourself...
So... I only looked over the text for the speech - but it was the last portion of the speech that struck me... The poem was nice, and I think that I will adopt it in some way or form for myself... But the best part was the line immediately after the poem... "Congratulations and Godspeed". I like that line. Its simple, elegant, and conveys a wide variety of feelings in three words. I think that I first heard the words "Godspeed" in the movie "The Rock" - when Sean Connery explains to Nicholas Cage that the origin of his character's last name (which was Goodspeed) was Godspeed... and at the time, I thought that it was rather cheesy. As a person who tends not to be religious (for whatever reasons) when it was expressed in the movie, it sounded stupid.
I guess those three words mean a lot right now because it reminds me of graduation... and the sense of excitement, accomplishment, and fear that the day invokes in people. I'm feeling somewhat stupid for obsessing over a moment that happened three years ago, but I think that to a certain extent, it is current a moment in time that defines things for me.
I think that graduation to me conveys a certain sense of hope - lost in a sea of fear - but hope nevertheless. I fear to a certain extent that I might never regain that place in life again - where hope was present. Not that I am not hopeful now. But "hope" is different these days. The scope of "hope" has changed. The meaning of "hope" is not the same. I guess that when you graduate, "hope" (well... to me...) is this boundless sense of opportunity... where few doors are closed... and everything has possibility.
So here I sit now... realizing that the "hope" of a few years ago has been tempered by the reality of job-security, retirement, and starting a family... And I sit here wondering, will I ever return to that "hope" of a few years ago? (and more importantly, should I even be trying to get back there?)
I know that this post was somewhat convoluted and unclear... But that's the way the world looks to me these days.
a) Never create a diary online when you're too afraid to let people read your writing.
and
b) Never create an electronic diary where erasing an entire "page" worth of an entry is as easy as hitting the delete key.
I know that its been awhile since I've last written - but its hard to write these days since I have become a defacto early morning person (not by choice, but by employment) - and I am generally used to writing at night, when I have time to express all of the random thoughts that happen to be going on in my mind.