Commencement Address
May 20,2012
Wauconda High School
John Armstrong
Parents, friends, faculty, and members of the
graduating class of 2012:
On behalf of the District 118 School Board, I
welcome you to the 96th annual commencement of Wauconda High School.
I would like to tell you a story I heard some years
ago at the Illinois Storytelling Festival, which used to be held every summer just
15 miles up Route 12 in Spring Grove.
I can’t remember who told this story. I have heard dozens of
storytellers over the many years I went to the festival and try as I might I
can’t remember where this came from and I apologize to the teller for not
giving him or her proper credit. I have since seen the story online in several
different places, but also without any credit given. It is called “The Parable
of the Taoist Farmer.”
Once upon a time there was an elderly Chinese farmer
who farmed a small plot of land with his son and the help of a very old horse who
did the plowing. One day, the horse ran away, and all the neighbors came around
to commiserate that evening. "So sorry to hear your horse ran away. This
is most unfortunate." The farmer said, "Maybe yes, maybe no."
The next week the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and
everybody came back in the evening and said, "What a great turn of events.
You now have eight horses! Oh, isn't that lucky. " And he said "Maybe
yes, maybe no." The next day his son tried to ride one of these horses but
he was thrown, and broke his leg, and they all said, "Oh dear, that's too
bad," and he said, "Maybe yes, maybe no." The following week an
invading army came marching through the tiny village and shanghaied young men
into the army. They rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the
people came around and said, "Isn't that great!" And he said,
"Maybe yes, maybe no."
My son, who graduated from Wauconda High School in
2001, had a good friend in high school who finished college and was set on
entering grad school with the idea of being a film-maker. His parents had moved
from Wauconda to southern California while he was in college because of his
dad’s job transfer. He decided that if he wanted to be a film-maker, the best
place to go was the University of Southern California. USC – the film school in
Los Angeles that gave us such graduates as George Lucas, the director - creator
of Star Wars; Robert Zemeckis, who directed Back to the Future and Forrest
Gump; and Ron Howard, who enrolled there after starring as Opie Taylor in the
Andy Griffith Show and went on to direct
Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind after graduation. It is the oldest film school in the
world, established in 1929 and generally regarded as one of the most
prestigious film schools anywhere. He sent an application, including a video he
had shot in college for his film class. He didn’t get in. He was devastated.
“Isn’t that terrible?” we said. He sent an e-mail to the admissions office
asking for advice and they responded very kindly that his video was well-received
but that his resume was a little short on experience. They suggested that it
might be to his advantage if he volunteered at a small film studio to see what
film-making was about up close and personal. So he did. He spent two years
there doing all sorts of jobs, eventually getting paid as an intern, and
realizing from the start that he really didn’t know much about the business of
making movies. Two years later, he applied again to the USC School of Cinematic
Arts and was accepted. He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Film and
Television Production last winter. He returned to the Chicago area this spring
for the wedding of one of his Island Lake friends and described to everyone how
important his non-acceptance into USC was. “Because of the experience you
gained at the film studio?” someone asked. “Well, somewhat,” he replied, “but
mostly because I met Amy there and we’re going to be married next winter and
you are all invited to come out to California in January for the wedding. “
“You didn’t get accepted to your dream school. Isn’t
that terrible?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no.”
In spite of the fact that I am a Cubs fan, I enjoy
the start of the baseball season every spring. It prompts me to bring out all
the classic baseball movies to rewatch: The Natural, Major League, and my
favorite, Field of Dreams. There is a point in that movie where Kevin Costner
and James Earle Jones are tracking down a small-town Minnesota man who got
called up to the big leagues from the minors for the last week of the season.
He never gets to bat in the big leagues, and when the season ends, he quits
baseball, goes back to school and
eventually becomes the town’s only doctor.
When Kevin Costner finds him, he asks him:
“Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came this
close. It would KILL some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. They'd consider it a tragedy. “
And Moonlight Graham answers: “Son, if I'd only gotten to be a doctor
for five minutes... now that would have been a tragedy. “
“You didn’t make it as a baseball player? Isn’t that
terrible?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no.”
It is a hypothesis of quantum physics (and a staple
of science fiction writers) that every time you make a decision, the world
splits into two worlds, one going on with the decision you made and the other going
on as if you made a different decision. These parallel worlds continue with all
the consequences of each decision. Which one is the right one? Who knows? You
are going to have many decisions to make in your life, many experiences which
at the time you and other people may label as good or bad. But how do you know?
My job as the commencement
speaker is to give you advice on how to decide whether your experiences are
good or bad. I’m telling you up front, “I don’t know, you don’t know, and your
friends and family don’t know.” Each experience leads you down a different path
and it may be years before we know whether the decision was a good one or a bad
one.
When something happens in your life that sets you
back you or causes you pain, remember the Chinese farmer.
Wasn’t that terrible? Maybe yes, maybe no.
Thank you and congratulations on taking the next
step in your life journey.
Feel free to comment below. Any thoughts you have will help to improve next year's speeches.
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