To The Graduates

IT IS TRUE that life is about nature & nurture. As we like to say, biology is the cupcake while culture is the icing. Finding meaning in our lives is a lifelong affair. Believe in the meme that everything is learned & unlearned.
It is true that we are a people who believe in the value of a college education. But, life is also about options. And education is not the monopoly of academia. One of the messages of the K+12 government educational program is the option to find employment after spending more than a decade in school. Even if it is true that skills after high school is favorable to the capitalist labor market, the senior years in high school are not only about honing skills in trade, industry, entrepreneurship but also about science, the arts & humanities, too, which are all needed in life.

My niece, Zoe Solamo. Picture credit: Vanessa Solamo Merida

Data from the internet need to be analyzed as it may not be the truth. There is no one way of looking at the truth. The truth of the majority is oftentimes overrated; and as a tool in democracy or for crystallizing consensus, it can be challenged always. New normals are sprouting everyday in the name of political correctness. All time passions include multiculturalism, self determination, non discrimination based on sexual orientation/ gender identity, inclusion, equality, security, development, & human rights.
As you will find out, it matters if we look at life positively. I was reading again the 2008 speech of the Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, before the Harvard graduates and she talks about the benefits of failure and imagination. How she took refuge in reading and writing when life was at its ebb. She also talks about lifelong friendships built with fellow graduates who became godparents of her children. I resonate with this as I have also nurtured friendships with classmates and workmates. They are friendships which have paced not only across the years and across oceans but also in the choice of causes & community activism.

My sorority in college was founded by feminists & thus promoted principles of equality & development. Given the kind of fraternities we see around now, there is a need to revisit not only the violence that have visited these so called sisterhood/brotherhood enclaves but also the kind of exclusions all these have promoted. These enclaves whose admissions are based on archaic concepts of seniority & violence are anathema to solidarity & sharing. We can only rest assured if academia & our community will help ensure the enforcement of laws & policy instruments to regulate these fraternities which have been allowed in the name of the right to association.
Life is planned in cycles: 12 + 1 years of basic education, college & education all the way, work, love & marriage or having children, & retirement. It is ideal that your work is influenced by your passions. But, with poverty all around, it will be an insult to those who do not have options like yours to say that our life work should be something that we want and love. Many toil in less than ideal material conditions. And so, contributing your bit to make this world a better place is a cliché worth believing as an ideology.

This is also the part where we say that riches & fame are not the sole yardsticks of success. You will have to determine what is important to you. It must be said, too, that politics within your spheres of influence are powerful tools for forging all that is good for your community at large.

There are narratives to your life. It has a past, a present and a future. Imagine them well. The narratives can be reviewed, rewritten and "rebranded" for as long as you find them to be true and they are you.

My father, Inigo Solamo & I