Pomp and Circumstance...Live and Uncut

Graduation season is upon us. Mortarboard manufacturers rejoice and ribbon-wrapped receipts are issued. Countless fresh-faced students are jettisoned into the world, poised to parlay their intellectual property into fame and fortune. Deans, principals, and hired-gun circuit speakers deliver stirring messages to stoke fire in the bellies of America’s youth.

Dear graduates, those messages are but the liner notes preceding the endless text of lies that will become your life story. Allow me to season the fiction with a pinch of fact.

As you embark on your voyage through the limitless time-space continuum of opportunity, find something you love to do and pursue it with abandon. Tilt at windmills, question authority, follow your dreams. Then, when your parents kick you out of their basement, try to find something you don’t suck at too much and do that in return for food and rent money.

Craft your resume with the eye of an obituary writer. Good stuff in, bad stuff out. Study the works of history’s greatest fiction writers.

Participate in pseudo-democracy. Vote in your local, state and national elections and pretend that your vote counts. Empower yourself with powerlessness.

Buy stock in McDonald’s and Merck Pharmaceutical. Heart disease is an ever-growing component of our domestic economy, and will soon be the only product we export into the international marketplace.

Remember that money can’t buy happiness. Happiness is derived from the friendships you cultivate as you wend your way through life’s trials. Money can buy those friendships.

Believe in the generosity of your fellow man. When he delivers a crushing betrayal of your trust, know that revenge is petty and foolish. But it feels good.

Every cloud has a silver lining. In fifteen years, your valedictorian’s doctoral thesis will expose the link between silver and cancer.

Life is so much grander when shared with someone you love. Find your soulmate and get married. Then find another one and do it again as time and money allows.

Be a good parent on visitation weekends.

Stop and smell the roses. It helps pass the time while waiting in line at wakes.

You will often question the meaning of your life. There will be times when you feel awash in an ocean of iniquity, with waves of despair pounding at your very soul, and you will exasperatedly argue the inherent wisdom of continuing the good fight against such insurmountable odds. Hold that thought.

In closing, accept my assurance that each and every one of you was placed on this earth for a reason. Don’t ask; nobody knows what it is.

Good luck anyway.