[Seize the gift]

The University of Wisconsin in Madison saw an annual ritual play out over the weekend of May 8, 2021.  There were droves of students outfitted in caps and gowns making a beeline at the statue of Abraham Lincoln situated in the Campus.  The objective was to climb up a short ladder and get up on the statue and take a picture on the lap of Lincoln – now that they have been declared the newest batch of graduates to be minted from UW.   While up at the top, it is also difficult to miss the shine on one of Lincoln’s shoes.  The shine comes from many years of students seeking good luck before an important exam by rubbing his shoes. 

This of course is the latest of many graduations over the years, with the very first one being the graduation from Kindergarten to First Grade. If memory serves me right, Alex’s kindergarten graduation (or was it Tony’s?) was an outdoor event and the walk up to the stage to claim the graduation certificate included adventures in zoology – such as picking up and examining bugs on the ground and completely oblivious to the fact you are about to step on to a slow moving treadmill which will pick up speed as the years go by.   

So this year saw yet another graduation with the pandemic still hanging over people’s heads. While Alex’s graduation didn’t allow for parental/guest accompaniment to the actual ceremonies, it however, allowed for guests to gather around the stadium and watch the event on large screens which in itself was a huge step up over 2020.  Graduations like these bring many emotions to the kids and parents alike, with the student also marking this occasion for crossing the threshold into adulthood.

Four years of unencumbered fun is behind them, and as the new grads step into the real world, the usual anticipation of adventure, self reliance & excitement is especially fraught with additional anxieties this year. The once in a century pandemic, political polarization and social inequities in the backdrop of massive technological upheaval, presents a unique set of opportunities and challenges.  These kids will have to figure out ways to translate ideals nurtured as young adults and apply them to a world which seems to ignore the learning of their youth and operates on a set of rules that does the exact opposite, and  decidedly throws common sense and compassion to the wind. 

Listening to any of the graduation commencement speeches, it seems like there is a momentary flash of unusual burden placed on graduates to somehow step out of the institution and summon all their positive energy to fix the ills of the world. It indeed looks like they will need all the luck from Lincoln’s shoes as they stare at the long list of problems to solve. It is going to be a monumental task to arrest humanities’ free fall into ever deepening crevices of callous indifference.  We can only hope they are able to achieve some amount of success and as one of the commencement speakers at UW said, “seize the gift” of your futures and the rest will fall in place.  

And so there it is – for the student, graduation is a feeling of towering achievement and for the parent, the thought of not paying tuition fees – priceless!

Carpe Donum – seize the gift indeed!