Looking to the Future

Considering most of us here at Stain Club recently graduated in the past few weeks (Plumpy had the balls to make the jump to the real world a whole year earlier), I came across this fictional graduation speech that Tom Engelhardt posted on his website a mere day after that I actually graduated. It is an impressive speech to say the least because of its bluntness about affairs concerning not only the United States, but the world at large.

Unlike my speaker, who was a long-winded lawyer (is there any other kind?) and prattled on and slightly boasted about her accomplishments (shocking!), Engelhardt doesn’t pussy-foot around the serious issues such as global warming, over-population, and the war in Iraq. But what impresses me most about this speech are these two sentences towards the end of the speech:

We failed you. I believe that and I don't even know exactly how.

I admire this kind of responsibility. I have always been one to admit to my wrong doings and mistakes, and this kind of admission needs to be applauded. Engelhardt recognizes the fact that the problems that are currently plaguing America and most of the world have come from the previous generation.

My father consistently bitches about the government’s tax system and how I need to eventually change it. Admittedly, this is mostly kitchen small talk, but it is a topic that has come up a lot these past few years. I have turned to my father and said several times, “Why can’t you do something while there’s still time?” His answer is usually this: “Because I’m too old now.” My father is turning 60 on Thursday, and I can see his point, but this story alludes to the previous point that Engelhardt was getting at: the problems of the previous generation are being passed to my generation, and there are many, and he refers to these as

a terrible burden that my generation of parents should never, never have loaded on your shoulders.

Such a statement is enough to make your jaw drop, especially if this were an actual graduation speech, which usually touches upon the subjects such as looking to the future as a land of dreams and hope that can be molded the way you want or giving pearls of wisdom that graduates should live by as they enter the real world. Engelhardt gives these pearls (the second idea he explains is pretty thin to me, as is the third, but he is able to clarify them in the paragraphs that follow them which is more important), and he turns this potential hell-hole of world into a land of potential. He refers to a time near 1000 AD where peasants anticipating the end of the world built coffins for themselves and laid in them while awaiting their doom. The world that we graduates have inherited can be seen as a coffin to lie in. Global warming, an incompetent presidency and government, a senseless war in Iraq (and possible one with Iran) are the planks that make up this coffin.

To lie down in this coffin would be an act of submission and would indicate a lack of faith in the future of the world. I do not want to lie down in this coffin as much as anyone else would want to. I want to make sure that this world is a safe place to live in when I think it is time to start a family. I realize that I can’t shape or change the world immediately, but it is heartening to hear Engelhardt spell out the fact that, in the words of William Joel, we didn’t start the fire. And now, I hope some how, some way down the road that we can put it out. Maybe this blog is a start.