I don’t know who is lined up to speak at graduation or what the speaker is going to say.
I’m guessing the speeches will be inspirational and congratulatory, praising the seniors for how far they’ve come.
“You’ve learned so much,” family, friends and university officials will say. “Now you’re ready to enter the real world.”
Don’t believe them.
The truth is, you don’t know very much.
You’ve learned a few things, but you’ve still got a long way to go.
Besides, much of what you know is wrong.
The things you think you know – the ideas and convictions that you now have – may (indeed, probably will) change before you set foot on this campus again.
This, I’m convinced, is a good thing.
The first time I was exposed to the idea of not knowing – that is, not knowing as a permanent and even desirable state – was in the sixth grade.
My teacher that year was wonderful. He instilled in me a love for history, geography and culture.
He is the reason I memorized capital cities and pored over maps, the one who got me excited about other people, far-off places and long-past times.
He is also the one who showed me that, though you may believe something, you really never know it.
Mr. Bahnmaier (who talked frequently about religion) was a self-proclaimed Methodist.
He was traditional and conservative in many ways.
But in the same breath, he’d admit that he didn’t know that his denomination, or even his religion, was right.
For all he knew, Muhammad could have been the last prophet or a certain eight-fold path the proper way to reach enlightenment.
This concept was revolutionary to my 11-year-old worldview.
Hearing a knowledgeable, middle-aged man admit that even he didn’t know the truth opened up my mind.
I started asking more questions and questioning societal norms.
And for a while, I thought I had it ironed out.
I had the bad guys identified: polluters, robber barons, sexists.
But now I’ve started re-evaluating these assumptions.
I’ve realized that good/bad is simply not the way to look at it.
One of the significant factors in this conversion was a class I took last semester called Economic Analysis of Social Issues.
The class made me rethink everything: politics, health care, communism, Greenpeace.
It made me side with the polluter.
It challenged my basic thoughts on ethics.
It turned things upside down, and I loved it.
What economics did for me is precisely what college in general should do for you: in your classes, in your personal conversations, in the trips you take, books you read and movies you watch. ‘
And while questioning might be harder than accepting, it’s also freeing.
Just a few years ago, I was always sure to make it clear (when asked about my political leanings) that I considered myself an independent.
I was certainly not a republican or democrat and would only say “liberal” if forced to fit myself into a traditional dichotomy.
Gradually, though, I started using more polarized terms, partially because they became more correct, partially because they were convenient.
Giving oneself an identity, though, is dangerous.
At an English conference I attended in March, I heard a speech by the author Alexandra Fuller.
After about 30 seconds, it was clear that she was liberal and that she basked in her liberalness.
I laughed with her and the crowd as she joked about her less-enlightened Wyoming brethren.
But then she said something that made me stop and think and nearly made me cry.
“If you’re too sure you’re right,” she said, “If what you think you know becomes your identity, then your identity can become your prejudice.”
In complacent certainty, I realized, I had become less tolerant.
In my liberal open-mindedness, my mind had begun to close.
Acknowledging that you don’t have all the answers does not mean refusing to take a stance on anything.
“Speak what you think now in hard words,” wrote Emerson, “and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”
It is OK to speak, but it is also essential to listen.
So the last piece of advice from a column writer who has done a lot of talking and proposed a lot of answers in the past couple years: listen and don’t stop questioning.
Be confident and be passionate, but don’t close yourself to the possibility that you’re wrong.
After all, you most likely are.