Friday, April 04, 2008 Delen: Graduation By Annie Delen
LAST Wednesday, I almost didn't make it to my class because every taxicab that I tried to flag down was already occupied. Suddenly we have a dearth of cabs in this city? I must be hallucinating! Then I noticed small (the ones I saw) people dressed up to the nines outside Abanao Square. Evening gowns at high noon? I was almost tempted to look for the talking cat. (Harry Potter duh.) Mercifully I saw the ribbons commonly worn by graduates. Then it hit me (not literally mind you), it's graduation season.
Turns out the adult dressed little people were high school graduates. Whew, thank God for a dose of reality. And what a reality it is.
There's nothing like a graduation ceremony to remind young, impressionable minds that there's a very wide and sometimes wild world out there.
The question begs to be asked. "What now graduate?" I hate to be such a wet blanket but whenever I see articles on graduation the unemployment rate instantaneously pops up in my mind. Our universities are churning out graduates by the thousands every year. So many in fact that the employment department is in danger of becoming the (un)employment sector.
I have not always thought this way. There was a time when I too wore a toga with a rolled up bond paper that served as a substitute until the real thing got printed held tightly in my clammy hand. It was a day to remember for its pure idealism. As initiates to the real world, our minds were still filled with idealistic nonsense as one cynical neighbor succinctly put. We were out to save the world. In all actually, we would have done more good had we set out to save ourselves.
In retrospect, many of us would have done a lot of things differently. What we thought important then now seems to be so trivial as to sound almost laughable. Idealism inevitably gave way to realism, which is not really a bad thing. Saving the world got reduced to saving a relationship. Eradicating world hunger got down to feeding a family. Discovering a cure for AIDS became more manageable with a new goal of coming up with home treatments for everyday illnesses. World Peace became amity with inhabitants of neighboring apartments.
Somehow, it does look like everything got reduced through the years. But that's just me. And that's not to say that no one is capable of doing great things. Quite the contrary, anyone is capable of anything but it sure doesn't hurt to have one's feet firmly planted on the ground. To borrow a lesson from my very precocious student Hue; "What the mind can conceive the body can achieve."
So, for the graduates, congratulations. Cling to you idealism as long as you can. If after experiencing the rigors of living in earnest and you remain to be 100% idealistic, give yourselves a pat in the back for you belong to the select few. If on the other hand idealism crumbles in the face of all that life has to offer then don't despair, it only means you are human. And as humans, we are capable of reinventing ourselves.
So, in the name of all the graduates of 2008, I raise a toast to you all. Now, if I could just find that bottle of Tequila I've been saving for just this occasion.
