Words of Wisdom to the SHS Class of 2025
It's that time again...
Background: Every year from 2003 to 2011, I contributed my "Words of Wisdom" to the "Staff Advice" portion of the Senior issue of the Stevenson Spotlight.
Then, like many newspapers, The Spotlight went on hiatus in 2012 (even if it had a resurgence in 2014–16), so I still needed to share my wisdom somewhere. I've gone longer form in recent years, and well, since the cost of digital ink is low, I'm OK with that.
But I still wished the Seniors who friended me on Facebook good luck. So, here are my Words of Wisdom for the Class of 2025.
My sincere congratulations and a fond farewell to the Class of 2024. My standard disclaimer to begin: Be careful. Be safe. Be smart. And remember, only you can prevent forest fires.
By late May, I have a solid sense of what form my remarks to the departing senior class will look and feel like. I've written a few of these; I've written on patience, Abbey Road, the journey, learning experiences, fear, friendships, knowledge, failure, ghosts, lifelong learning, and liminality. Some of the issues for me lie in that I've covered a lot of the ground that a commencement speaker might only have to do this once in their life, if even that. When I'm linking to my back catalog, it partly tells me I can't reheat some leftovers and call it a balanced meal. But I like a challenge, and so here we are again.
"Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round."
"This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) by The Talking Heads - 1983
It was something I wrote in passing earlier this month. I didn't intend it to be as profound a statement as it ended up being, but it is just a statement of fact. This year marked my 24th year as a teacher at Stevenson, and since I am going on 47 years old in late August, I have worked at SHS for more than half of my life.
I have no way of proving this without getting too deep into an anthropology rabbit hole from which I might not be able to extract myself, but I think the concept of "home" must be one of the oldest notions in the history of humankind. It certainly would tie into the second level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and we can find meditations on the idea all through the literature of the ancient era. Home isn't just a place, it's an idea. The Greeks knew this; after all, the word nostalgia means, in a manner, "acute homesickness." We find examples repeatedly in our lives about either wanting to return home or making a new place our home. Home will mean different things to different people because it is about feeling.
But when you've been in a place so long that it feels like home, it's easy to miss how it changes. We readily notice changes in our personal homes, things like a fresh coat of paint or new neighbors. Yet, the subtle shifts that occur over time in a fixed place like this school can be much harder to discern. It’s why we often talk about time as a flowing stream; the metaphor resonates deeply. As Heraclitus observed, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man." Just as the river changes, so do we, and so does any place we call home.
Home is what you make of it, and for some people, home is not a welcoming place. It is a place of challenges and of memories they would just as soon prefer to forget. For others, home is the place where you feel most like yourself. That is one of the most complicated things about home: it is simultaneously a universal concept and one that is unique to each person. It comes back to an idea that usually shows up in graphical software design: look and feel. But in this case, everyone's idea of home probably looks different, but feels the same at its core. Even if you don't want to be there, even if there's nowhere in the world you would rather be, home is a distinct feeling, which is why Thomas Wolfe's phrasing of "you can't go home again" will ring more true to you than ever as the days stretch out before you and what you knew to be home, or at least, what you felt to be home, fades further and further into the long shadows of dusk.
As we close this chapter, you will venture into a world where you will forge new homes, fill them with new people, and hopefully welcome some old ones too. Some of you will meticulously design every detail of your future, while others will simply let life unfold, letting things fall as they may. Your homes will bear the shining adornments of your successes and, more than likely, the scars of your challenges. But remember this: home is a feeling, a 'vibe' if you will. While you cannot control every aspect of that vibe, controlling what you can is the best way to build the kind of home you truly desire, a home you'll be proud to share. Whatever home becomes for you, I hope it is what you wish it to be, and what you're willing to work to make it.
Thank you and congratulations to the SHS Class of 2025.