my commencement address

In keeping with my tradition of not being a commencement speaker anywhere (so far, an unblemished streak...but let's be fair, who'd want to have to deal with reputation? Besides, do you want to be the teacher or professor who has to follow me to the mike? It would be like getting the draw to open your stand up act after Robin Williams...not the best place to be...)

But I feel like writing a commencement address, so bear with me, while I address myself to all students everywhere, on all continents, in all schools, colleges and universities. Because, let's face it, I'm global...the web, the digital renaissance, made me that way, you should see the United Nations that slips into my website to read my poems and blogs and download my recordings, every day.

One moment...ah, there, that's better...my iTunes had just slipped over to Taylor Dayne from T'pau...and the incredibly hot Ms. Dayne is just not good meditative music for writing to. I digress. I've cut over to Dire Straits and Van Morrison.

Here goes.

"Persons of every continent, country, political and sociological and theological bent, flavour, hue and mettle, I could thank you for a great spectrum of things. In the first case, I must humbly thank you for your attention at this moment, we live in a world rife with distractions and to have your focus for even an instant is a great compliment and a great obligation. Will the student in the third row playing with his GameBoy at least pretend to listen?

In the main case, I must thank you for your efforts. By stepping forward, stepping out and stepping to the next stage of your life you are doing what is most necessary for this world and this mortal species, you are getting on with it. You are seeking to improve, polish, advance and perfect yourself. Brava and bravo. If every man, woman and child on Planet Earth made it part of their daily life to seek improvement, we would be a better sphere.

That is not to say we are a hell-pit, but all things can bear improvement, and so it is with the world we inhabit as stewards of a wiser sentience, who must have had some purpose in allowing our very existence. Sometimes unimaginable, but there is a plan, I suspect. I hope. I pray.

Take what you have gained here. Build on it. Nurture it. You achieved some element of a formal education here, but that is only a sliver of the life experience you have taken into yourself while here. Move forward with a fierce and passionate will to climb, to seek, to dream, to feel again and again and again the joy of accomplishment.

To paraphrase "Chariots of Fire": God made you, but He made you intelligent. When you use your minds, you will feel His pleasure.

And mine. I take pleasure in your accomplishments. I feel no regret at any death, any lost lover, and feuding friend as deeply as I feel the loss of a person's failure to strive to achieve their potential. It is a fire within me, a prayer to the universe that everyone receives the opportunity to explore their talents and capabilities, and having found them, develops them, as ore to metal, metal to the mold, sword to the wheel to be honed to a thing of both beauty and utility.

Intelligence without purpose is an abomination. Purpose without intelligence is blasphemy.

Go forward, rise higher, nurture the fire within you and do not be afraid, for we are all kin to the phoenix, able to rebuild ourselves with knowledge and passion and hope.

You will fall and curse and struggle and with couer rage walk through places you never imagined existed. You will wrestle with your own demons and those of others. You will live and die as an example, leaving a legacy for your younger brothers and sisters, your children, their children, and even strangers who hear your story. Let that be a lesson of accomplishment.

Be brave. Be bold. Be passionate. If all else fails...you won't."

There it is, my open Commencement Address to students from Central Missouri State University to West Virginia University, from Pierce College to University of Southern Mississippi, from Morgantown High to North Salinas High to Santa Monica High, from Harden Middle School to Sterling Middle School, all places that have played some part in my life, or do so now.

Good night and God bless. I've said my piece. Where's the limo to my hotel?