encoded notions

Valedictory address delivered to the New Oxford Senior Class of 2001

Forty-two penguins wearing cow-colored hats are just what this event needs, but I suppose that this small one will have to suffice. (get out penguin and put on podium)

Before I begin, I would like to thank the many, many people who invested their time and energy into me over the years of my life. Without their assistance and nurturing spirit, I doubt that I’d be behind this microphone delivering this speech today.

Books. They are made from mere paper, yet they house our histories and hold the dreams of infinitudes of dreamers. A book is written, not to please the writer, but to open the reader’s world to the gaze of another. It holds the fragile link to another place—a parallel reality that exists so long as someone remembers it.

Your lives are the epic tales inscribed in the fabric of the world around you.

You have turned the final page of the introduction to the stories of your lives, but the tales are far from finished. The characters and individuals that you’ve written into being, will continue to live, and in doing so, will fill the remainder of your pages in the collective book of life with the intricacies and complexities of a ripened reality.

Your characters are the people that will forge our collective future. Historians claim that Rome conquered Europe, that the Allies ended World War II, and that NASA landed men on the moon. Collections of people—countries, societies, and cliques—contribute little to history. Caesar conquered Europe, Churchill, Truman, and Stalin drew World War II to a close, and it was Kennedy who incited Armstrong and Aldrin to long for the lunar soil. Strong individuals lead the fights, win the wars, make the money, cure the diseases, and write the stories while the weaker ones blindly follow them. Fill your pages with wonderful deeds and accomplishments, so that others may follow you. Even the most seemingly insignificant act, if it improves the life of another human being, is worth performing for it can only affect our future for the better.

Do not plagiarize from the story of another. Be your own author. Write your own story. Lead your own life. Try to make it as enjoyable to you as to others who may one day look back upon what you’ve written or hear your tale told from across the vast expanse of space-time.

There is no way to tell what the future holds in store for you. You cannot peruse the pages of the days to come, but you can read the pages of the days that are here. Some chapters are intriguing, dramatic, or even mildly amusing; some are dark, sad, and depressing to read. Some chapters are long winded, while others are extremely short. When a writer fails to finish his story, there is always a new one waiting to fill the void. As the character, Atrus, says to the player at the conclusion of the computer game Riven, “…in Books, and Ages, and life the ending can never truly be written.”

The book of life continues to expand, with ink flowing ever onward, filling page after page with the stories of all who ever lived. It contains no appendices, so there is no place for special mentions, corrections, additions, or clarifications.

You have only one chance to set pen to paper, and make your contribution to the book that we all share.

The future is but ink in the pen; it is the duty of you, the writer, to decide how the strokes will fall upon the pages of your story, and what structure the final tale will take.