To my graduating students, one last time

I write this with joy and a heavy heart

Photo by yours truly, on the way back home during my days in New York City

For good or for ill, the joys and pains along with all the affordances of school are coming to an end.

Barring military/professional obligations, never again will you be policed for your attire (unless you are a voyeur, please do not flash); nor will several adults come to interrogate you for poor performance. Whether you are worthy or not, the hammer of adulting will come for you sooner and harder than you will expect. You will be more responsible than ever for your own destiny and the days to come.

In these crazy days to come, I wish you bad luck.

Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved…