I believe in you, which is another way of saying that I believe in the future. I believe you will make the world I’ll never know a better place. You will face challenges in the days and years to come that neither you nor I can anticipate but you have ‘that within’ to figure it out as you go. You have the smarts, strength, self-awareness, the yearning for beauty and truth and possess all manner of kindness to make life a blessing for yourselves, for those you love and for all your distant brothers and sisters unknown to you yet live beneath the shelter of our common sky. For myself I will keep teaching young folks as long as I hold on to my creative vitality. Each of you, no matter how different, shares with me that same readiness for whatever comes next. This is what it means to be alive. It is not some special gift reserved for a few. If this innate creative responsiveness were not within us, we would be merely repetitive redundancies. Such automatons we are not.
It seems, without my knowing it, I’ve earned the privilege to have a brick engraved with whatever I like at the top of the walkway under the arches. Mine will not bear my name, but it will say in Latin (of course!): Noli sequi in vestigiis sapientium. Quaere novas vias ad veritatem. Don’t follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek new paths to truth. This is what I’ve always tried to do. I half suspect the truth is a mirage, but I still feel drawn to it, believing that this and other such illusions as justice, virtue and beauty give life its meaning and value and allow us to become more truly ourselves than if we simply thought of these same yearnings as ghosts. For me, the word ‘illusion’ is not in this instance pejorative: it identifies the very essence of our humanity.
I've tried unsuccessfully to practice the art of deception (you all know I lie a lot, not for profit, but for fun), thinking to cover my tracks and so discourage those who would be so foolish as to follow me. Where would I lead such dear, innocent folks? My destination remains elusive and unknown. I think of myself as that 6-year-old boy who pedals his two-wheeler as hard as he can and jumps off at top speed, allowing the bike to run on under no direction but itself. The bike sometimes crashes into a tree or wall or runs on till it runs out of steam and topples over of itself. That will be me some day. My parents never asked about the bruises. They figured, I guess, I was having fun, just as my rusty, two-legged self does today.
Sometimes I like to pretend I am a bear that wakes each day from the hibernation of a long night and a long life and stretches full out to welcome the day that is always spring. Despite my age, stuttering heart, weak knees and stiff back, I am after all still here and in my mind, at least, I am young like you. I believe in you and so believe in myself too, just as you, the truly young, should and must believe in yourselves so that all we most deeply care about holds true for those who come after us.