Bachelor’s Degree Candidates’ Remarks |
Remarks by Ana Cristina Faria Wisdom, humility, and ultimately inspiration are three unmistakably intertwined lessons, which I will take with me once I leave the University of Chicago. For me, these have been the most important part of my education, because they require more than just countless hours of studying to assimilate. They transcend the world of academia, and therefore cannot be measured by numbers, statistics, or prizes. I stand before you today, facing an enormous responsibility, namely to convey hundreds of unique college experiences in one short speech. The impossibility of this task has led me to find the common threads that join us all. To have come to this crossroads in our lives is a testimony to our dedication and perseverance. The University has tested us in many ways, and while sometimes we have excelled, other times we have not. In the end, it occasionally happens that true accomplishment is not found in success but in overcoming disappointment. Whether we are inside or outside of the classroom, we are constantly aware of the brilliant minds that surround us. At times, the realization that there are individuals who are smarter, more creative, more eloquent than we are can be heartbreaking, but our academic and emotional formation here at the U of C has taught us to turn our heartbreak into inspiration. While it is true that the education we have received has made us stronger, this is not to say that it has made us callous. On the contrary, we have acquired a higher degree of sensitivity and understanding which has allowed us to turn other people’s triumphs into our own. We have been inspired by each other to break our own limitations and perform to the best of our capabilities. The art of transforming other individuals’ achievements into a powerful force that adds depth and knowledge to our lives is the lesson of humility. In short, this important lesson in life not only allows us to surpass our obstacles and chase our dreams, but I truly believe it allows us to have a better understanding of who we are as individuals. Today, we give closure to our journey at the University of Chicago, but at the same ime, we embark on another path, secure in the thought that we are wiser. Wiser, not only because we know, but wiser because we have done our best; and regardless of whether that means being the first or the last, it is the only and most important goal we can set for ourselves. I have faith in myself, and I have faith in us that we will never forget the important lessons that have come from the eloquence of interacting with one another. Class of 1999, I have been humbled by you, and you are and will always be my inspiration.
Ana Cristina Faria received a bachelor of arts degree during the convocation. Her major area of study was Economics. |
Remarks by Thymaya Payne We are stuck in boxes of our own making. Falling grasping on to the slippery sides of time, we construct these forms as safe havens, formations in a realm of chaos. Yet they don’t really exist. The boxes are imagined. Once, after a dawn surf session, eating a mango on a beach in Costa Rica, spotted with California ex-pat. surfers skipping across aqua blue, white, frothy edged surface of a Pacific Ocean, talking to Joey, a hitchhiker with multiple sclerosis on his way to Chile from Alaska, I realized that the limitations, the grammar, the organization of our universe’s landscape are under our jurisdiction. I felt that we have agency. Joey, lost, wandering the hills and seas, handicapped at birth, choosing to manifest destiny, inspires me. He chooses his path, his daily fortune. He pushes his structural limitations, transcending the expectations and boundaries he was encultured to be a slave to. Joey, surfing with crippled hands, made me realize that the limitations are of our own design. Finishing my breakfast of delicious tropical fruit, I sat quietly with this new epiphany. U of C far away appeared in my mind’s eye. The Regenstein with all of its beautiful books, thoughts outlining nothingness elegantly, the words, the scribbles on the board, the blah blah conversations, those dang T-shirts that read “U of C where fun comes to die,” the motivating promises of solutions, the rumble of the computer game Quake echoing throughout the Pierce hallways, the dancing on the quads, the Tiki moment, the winter sadness, became not so much a symbol of a box that I was imprisoned by, but a box of my making. U of C is a box whose architecture I manipulate. This experience here is one of the plethora of choices in my life. U of C was not my predetermined destiny. It is by far not the only mode I intend to live. If I don’t go to graduate school, I won’t die. If I don’t jump on the crowded path and race for the illusive dollar, I won’t perish. If I don’t memorize all the esoteric facts possible, I won’t spontaneously combust. The choice to make these things one’s goal is one’s own. I don’t look down upon anyone who chooses this mode. I simply ask that you feel your experience wholly. To live without feeling, without pushing the edges of one’s grammar, one’s form is not to live at all. Often we live essentially in a numb haze. Escape the tunnel vision and look around! Living/looking/listening, doesn’t mean following Joey’s path and wandering the world in search of killer bud. It doesn’t mean living a life without responsibility. It means feeling your life as you go through it. After we have observed this fluxing universe and all of its paradoxes and subtle juxtapositions, we can articulate our subjective experience to others, utilizing our U of C skills, communicating the common bonds that tie us together, enriching our lives. Life moves along like a wave and we can either surf it smoothly in control of the forms we use to stay afloat, our skills, our syntax, our boxes, or we can drown numbly, struggling, letting time’s riptides and paradoxes pull our bodies to shore. Either way the ride comes to an end. I just hope that we can manipulate our boundaries so as to feel every last damn second of our all-too-short voyage into the ever-encroaching yellow horizon. U of C, look up from your book, your navel, and your bank account and feel the next millennium. Escape limited views and make the continuous experience magnificent. Thanks Class of 1999 for an interesting and psychologically challenging four years. It’s been very . . . real. Goodbye and good luck.
Thymaya Payne received a bachelor of arts degree during the convocation. Her major area of study was English Language & Literature. |
Freedom 101 By Michael Rossman Suppose, for a moment, that we did not live in a democracy. How would we find out about freedom? Many people around the world not only lack fundamental rights associated with the notion of freedom, but many are unfamiliar with the concept itself. Is there a universal definition to freedom? To begin my quest for the essence of freedom, I first turned to the Internet. Freedom is certainly in abundance on the information superhighway. Freedom Breweries offered freedom beer. While I found the offer quite appealing, I decided to move on. The next page promised to provide visual aides that demonstrated true freedom, but only after I affirmed that I was eighteen years old. It proceeded to demonstrate the Playboy definition of freedom. My task was harder than I thought. This being the University of Chicago, I turned to the classics. A great man once said: “Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. . . . What counts is not membership in a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.” A politician running for office or talking to college graduates could have said these words. However, these words were pronounced more than two thousand years ago by Pericles, an Athenian leader during the Peloponnesian War. He was not talking to graduates, nor was he talking to the majority of Athenians. Most in the crowd that listened to his speech were not free. They did not have the right to participate in government. Women were excluded. Many were slaves. Surely, in its true state, freedom cannot mean liberty to one and slavery to another. Freedom should be accessible to all. Freedom does not discriminate. Next, I turned to our Founding Fathers. Yet they struggled with the concept as well. For instance, they did not address slavery directly in the Constitution. The result was the infamous “three-fifths” clause where some Americans were counted as less than whole. Frustrated, I closed the books. I realized that I could not define what freedom is based on what others have said or written. Each of us must discover our own definition of freedom. In my view, freedom is the ability to live free from war, in harmony with my next-door neighbor, where one’s color, ethnicity, and religion are assets rather than liabilities. I urge you to think, if only for a moment, what freedom means to you, because I can only tell you what it means to me. A lesson that I learned from my search is that one person’s liberty may be another’s imprisonment. One person’s freedom may mean another’s enslavement. And one person’s happiness can be another’s worst nightmare. I believe the first step to liberty is to try to see what stands behind the word. Despotic rulers and oppressive elites around the world tremble when an average person takes the time to think about freedom. My message to you is: do not let freedom become a cliché. Freedom is an evolving idea. It cannot be left to historians to define or to dictators and renegade states to exploit. Freedom must be constantly questioned, evaluated, and reinvigorated by our minds, our hearts, and our deeds.
Michael Rossman received a bachelor of arts degree during the convocation. His major area of study was Economics.
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