Ladies and Gentlemen of the Class of '22, while you might think that you have recently gone through strange times, let me assure you that in the grand story of humanity this is normal. The incidence of wars, famines, pestilences, plagues, droughts, floods, ice ages, crop failures and years and years of rolling drudgery has been common to people since before recorded history.
The century which immediately preceded this one, brought forth technological advancements and wonders, also visited humanity with the destruction of several hundreds of millions of people in unpleasantness which included people from all over the world and the realisation that the bringer of nuclear fire was none other than ourselves. Yet even the destruction which was exacted by humanity upon humanity, pales in the light of the destruction caused by agents of chaos in the form of viruses who care not for national borders. In fact the Covid pandemic of 2019-2022 looks very similar in both cause and response. The ugliness of humanity which includes xenophobia, racism, and blame shifting, looks identical to the response to the pandemic of one hundred years ago; as I suspect that it will also do for a very easily imaginable pandemic of 2119-2122.
We as people in the broadest sense, do not change.
The problem is that life is far too complex a thing for any of us, who are limited within space and time, to fully comprehend. We can try to eke out some kind of reasonable amount of order in the time and space immediately around us but the truth is that kosmos itself can not be controlled, held, or properly described by any one of us. You should probably then, consider it a gift that life is going to chuck at you all kinds of tests and challenges come at you from all sides.
You are allowed to be sad and while sadness and grief are legitimate responses to what the world will throw at you, emotion generally isn't a good enough long-term response to be useful. Under pressure though, someone's character which has been built over a very long time, is suddenly pushed out into the open. People's character is either work hardened under stress or it breaks; which means that the work of the situation will happen in the quiet spaces and far away from the public's prying eyes.
Stress and hardship; which might include the drudgery of slowly walking through the treacle of boredom, pain, loneliness, is worth enduring. The work of being under pressure, is important and produces character which is mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
Ask people for help. One of the great unspoken lies of the world is that any of us have a clue in what we're doing. Some people look super confident but scratch the surface and underneath the papier-mache, is a delicate balloon which is just as liable to burst as anyone else is. I know for a fact that the only real difference between myself at age 43 and age 13 is that I have gotten taller. I am still that same scared and stupid little person who only wants other people to be nice to me and in that respect, I have even less of an idea of what I am doing.
If you are a scared little person and you don’t know what you’re doing, ask for help. Any decent person should be willing to give their help without condescending to you when you ask for it. Ask boldly and believingly, without a second thought because people who merely throw their worries into the world are like wind-whipped waves being tossed on an endless ocean. They're never going to get anything by remaining all adrift at sea, keeping their options open.
When those people who have had everything that life can possibly hurl at them, finally get a break, cheer! When those people who have made their living by riding on the backs of other people, or worse, walking on the heads of other people, are finally brought down to size, cheer!
Prosperity like poverty, is very much a matter of luck. Nobody gets to choose the circumstances into which they are born and while people's occupation is important and praiseworthy, the temporary current state of relative comfort of someone is really only fleeting. Do not ever count on it.
Remember the Morning Glory that clings to the fence which runs alongside the railway line. They bloom, they last about four days, then the sun beats down its scorching heat and what was once a lovely purple flower is now brown. The flower withers. The petals wilt. What used to be a glorious splash of purple a week ago, is now nothing more than a barren brown stem. That there is a good analogue for what the world thinks is a good and prosperous life. At the very moment that everyone is heaping praise upon someone, their glory has already begun to wilt, their glory has already begun to rot, and ultimately to fade away to nothing. Run the clock out far enough after someone has died and eventually there will come a time when there will be nobody left who can actually remember them at all.
Those people who have walked through treacle, who have met stress and hardship and who have come out the other side having built character and been work hardened by the circumstance are very fortunate indeed. If the worst that life can throw at them has already happened to them, then what is left is life, life and more life.
Don't be tempted to play the blame game when you yourself were the one who did it to yourself. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! 'Sin' is an unpopular word which is sneered at by the same world which doesn't want to be held to account but is equally offended when someone has been unkind and unjust to them. Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. One only needs to read through the first ten pages of a newspaper or watch the opening seven minutes of a news bulletin to notice the homicides, theft, and corruption in the world. It takes a deliberate act of lying to one's self, to think that the same drivers which cause these things do not lurk underneath the surface of your own mind.
I think that our heads are themselves a useful object lesson. We've been given two ears, one tongue, and one bum. Those are probably useful ratios to remember. Listen about twice as much as you speak and be careful about what kind of emissions that you release, lest you create such a stink that you clear out the room. Lead with your ears, follow with your tongue, and let anger stay behind.
The fundamental problem with anger is that it is a reactive emotion. Of itself it doesn't produce any useful work of character at all. The moral products of goodness, kindness, justice et al., are built in the quiet spaces. Having a mind aware of what is noble, just, good, kind, simply doesn't grow from the expression of anger. Expressing anger to defend what is noble, just, good, kind, and people who are vulnerable, is the proper deployment.
In principle this suggests that virtue if it is displayed, is temporary like the Morning Glory and when spoiled, should be thrown into the rubbish bin. If we've been given two ears and one tongue and the act of listening is a fundamental activity which is done in the quiet spaces, then that infers that above all of the moral products, the product and the activity of simple humility is the most useful tool in doing any landscaping of one's mind.
Don't for a second think that mere listening is going to cut it either. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are listening when in fact, you are not. How many people say one thing and do another? What's the point of hearing good counsel, if it goes in one ear and then spills out of the other? Act on what you hear!
People who hear important things and good advice and then don't act on that advice, are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. If you look in the mirror and have a giant booger hanging off the end of your nose, you'd hope that a normal person would wipe it off.
Anyone who catches a glimpse of what it's like to live a life of good character, and then actually makes the effort to live that out, is no distracted scatterbrain but someone of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action. The world will probably hate them for it as well. Most of the world would quite frankly, like to be left alone; especially if they have worked out some private advantage, some secret vice, or a perk that they can get others to pay for.
Be very suspicious of anyone who claims to be a religious person or claims to have secret answers to questions. It is very easy to talk up a good game but to actually do the hard work of what belief in something entails, is quite another. If people have faith in something or claim to believe in something, even if you do not have a formal idea what what they say they believe, check out what they do. Religion that walks out the door of a church on Sunday and immediately starts spinning a song for a shilling on Monday, is very likely to be nothing more than hot air.
Real religion, the kind that passes muster is the kind that reaches out to the homeless and loveless in their plight. It says the hard things that need to be said (which are sometimes unpopular) and it gives away of itself. The world is already full of shysters and hucksters all trying to spin spinning a song for a shilling; so watch and see just how far a so-called religious person steps away from corruption.
In a display of pure hypocrisy, I can not live up to the ideals contained within these paragraphs; neither can you. Nevertheless, to give in and to assume the role of someone who will not fight, is pathetic. Life is a marathon which none of us signed up for but which it is impossible to back out of. There are no prizes for being a boofhead and while you might win money, fame, and power, in a while, nobody cares. Keep at it. Run faster, run longer, run harder. Run as though there was a prize. Do better. Be better people.
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