SOTA Graduation Speech

I just dug this up from my computer. Here it is for posterity.

This is a very special school. If there is one thing that I really appreciate about School of the Arts, it has been being challenged every day about what it means to be human, living in this world, seeing things through the eyes of an artist.

None of our heroes, political or artistic, professional or comedic, started out as titans. Just like us, they are mortal, human, emotional creatures. And we are more than flesh and bone. We are more than busy ants surviving in a colony, because we do more than survive. We create: we live in a world filled with life, and art, and vitality. Every day, we face obstacles, and yet it is those very obstacles that shape us. They challenge us to be bigger than we are, they challenge us to utilize every tool we've got. They make life interesting, and in overcoming them, we become titans.

I think that we are caterpillars chasing a dream. How can a caterpillar chase a dream? They are slow, and fat, and vulnerable. But they are also more than that. Inevitably, after a long and arduous journey, they will blossom into butterflies. SOTA 2006, we are those blossoming butterflies. We are passionately chasing a dream, and today is the fulfillment of one more chapter of that real-life dream.

In Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman", the protagonist is a salesman who chases the American dream of acquiring wealth and fame. Like Willy Loman, our dreams are subject to the harsh conditions of reality. Sometimes these obstacles can get the better of us: in Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman's quest consumes him, and the ultimate tragic solution was for him to collect on his life insurance, and he passes away in a car crash. Willy Loman chased the wrong dream. Just like in the play, our quests can consume us—if we are not careful about what we wish to attain and how we go about attaining it.

The great thing about being an artist, and receiving a liberal arts education, is that we are better equipped with the tools necessary to handle the temporary tragedies that befall us, pick ourselves up, and yet still reach for our goals. We are prepared through our study of works of art just like Death of a Salesman, to analyze our human flaws. To create art, we have to.

In essence, our works, our songs, our dances, our plays, our art, are our rehearsals for the real performance of our lives. As actors, we may be portraying fictional characters, but the obstacles and stories behind them can be very real, allowing for our tears and our joys and our emotions to be just as real. This experience isn’t something that can be commonly taught or embraced at any other place, except SOTA.

Here at this school, we have learned to go beyond ourselves; we have overcome obstacles in our paths, we have faced our challenges, and here we are. We carry in our hearts and souls the potential to become titans.

Thank you.