Graduation Speech for the Class of 2000 

Today may mark a passage for boys to become men, girls to become women but 

What makes a man a man or a woman a woman?

Is it his age? 

The age of majority varies from generation to generation.  Is it 18?  21?  Why can I kill and vote but can’t drink?  Jesus and other Jews were confirmed as men at 13.  Mozart and Picasso reached apogees at 5 or 6 but both behaved like children for most of their lives.

Is it best grades in class?

 Surely not.  Your speaker is no paragon of manliness.  Intellectual talent and ability to pass the tests of other intellectuals is an end in itself but an incomplete one.  So also for the sports standout or chessmaster.  Accomplishments, even completed with excellence, are insufficient reflections of the whole man.

Is it perfect attendance?

Effort is a virtue, and we praise each other for it, but results are still demanded. 

Is it his friends?

How many friends can you number?  What qualifies them as your friends?  Do you aspire to have all friends and no enemies?  I hope not.  A man or woman who can handle rivals is a man or woman of conviction and strength.  Striving to be liked is a curse which modifies your behavior.  As you bend to please everyone and everything, you cannot fulfill your needs.

His family?

Where and when you were born and raised cannot be a test of your own value.  External gifts or penalties are no more an indicator of your essential self than is the type of car you drive, house you live in or clothes that you wear.  The values which you embrace are more a product of your receptivity than of your family’s intentions.  Witness Cain and Able or a Priest visiting his brother in jail.

Is it how much he praises God?

 God loves all of us equally: blasphemer and devil worshiper, murder, rapist, fallen angel.  God is not standing with an ear to the sky, waiting and counting how many times he hears us call.  Consider this the next time your kneel to pray:  God does not respond to our begging; he responds only to our love.

Is it his courtesy and kindness, generosity and spiritual advancement which makes a man  or a woman?

Looking out for the other guy (the golden rule) makes our lives collectively easier, but when we set rules of behavior which demand that everyone behave the same way, we have killed the individual.  One man’s severity may be another man’s abuse.  Consider the “tough love” teachers from whom you learned the most.  Selfish and rude behavior is not the same as immaturity and childishness.  Being polite to a fault, holier than thou, falsely serious, pridefully spiritual are not manful actions.

What makes a man or a woman depends on who you are.  Are you exploring the traits which make you who you genuinely are?

What makes a man or a woman depends on a context – a human context.  Are you searching for your humanity, your individuality?

What makes a man or a woman depends on things that only you can know.  Are you expressing yourself freely and fully, acting as an agent of the Highest Will?

But how can you know?

Step out of the box. Just say no.  Be an artist.  Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Surrender all judgements.  All of them.  Just say yes.

You can be a man at any age, in any class ranking, in any level of dedication or purpose.  You can be a man with no friend or many friends, from and angry home or a loving one, as a regularly church goer, one who roams the woods in gratitude or one who hides from both; as a kind and gentle soul or as a strong and pungent speaker of truth, you can be a man or a woman.

William Shakespeare told us what it takes to be a man or a woman when he wrote “To Thine Own Self Be True.”

“That is all there is to know and all you need to know.”

Don’t be afraid.  Be who you are.

Don’t be what others expect or demand you to be.

Be only:  who you are.

© 2000, Mark Morris