Grad Speech

Crossroads

Welcome to the end. Welcome to the beginning. As we graduate, let’s reflect on the past, so that we can chart a course into the future.

Our time at Bangor High School has given us many gifts. Knowledge is power, and our studies have shown us: the history of the world thus far, how to communicate effectively—both in our own language and in others, how make our ideas reality through the mediums of art, technology, and music, how to appreciate and apply the beauty of the multiverse through math and the sciences, and how we can better ourselves and our society in this ever changing world.

Time moves fast. Almost unbelievably so. Time can feel agonizingly slow in the moment, but in hindsight—fleeting. Four years ago we started together. Now we finish together. As a class we faced the unprecedented turbulence of Covid-19 and its slew of related side-effects: remote school, quarantining, and general uncertainty.

But this is the world we live in, And these are the hands we’re given, so as we reflect on where we’ve come and where we’ll be going, now is a valuable time to pause and really ask yourself some important questions. What are your goals? What do you want to do with your life? These are questions whose self-guided answers are extraordinarily valuable, yet we rarely find the time for introspection. Day to day life is fast. You blink and it’s next week. You blink again and you’ve graduated high school. Maybe the next time you blink, you’ll be a Bitcoin millionaire. But finding out what we want to do with the incredible gifts we have, the gifts of life, of youth, of education, of privilege, is powerful. Realize how much potential we have. But with great power comes great responsibility. And we have the power to determine the future of everything.

Facing the great challenges of our time: climate change, pandemics, fighting for democracy, sustainable energy generation, is either a duty, a destiny, or an opportunity, depending on how you look at it. Everything is up to you! You are the one who will do what you want to do. No one else can live your life for you. The only thing separating where you are now from where you want to be is doing the WORK to make it a reality.

Today I see the people I’ve had the incredible fortune of sharing countless experiences with. I see the future paths diverging into the great, vast unknown. Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be. We are poised to change the world. Actually, we change the world regardless of what we do. The only constant is change.

I would like to thank Douglas Adams, Elon Musk, Jack Kerouac, Satoshi Nakamoto, and of course everyone else who has ever lived. We stand on the shoulders of giants. We will become those giants.

And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance! For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool By making their world a little colder.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.