To the graduating Class of 2023, I offer this advice.
Take what you need from it:
Wear sunscreen. It’s good advice I once heard in a Baz Luhrmann song.
“Youth is wasted on the young” 1 is a phrase you will one day understand, but only too late. Take comfort in knowing that youth is given in fair trade for the wisdom you earn over time.
The world is one big small town. Treat its residents accordingly. Serve your community selflessly and it will repay you in kind. Youth, friends, lovers, coworkers and neighbors all come and go.
Forgive your parents; they were young once, too. Where they failed, do not.
If you have children, your world will become their past. Savor all the moments. Raise them intelligently; you owe it to your grandparents.
Teach daughters to be warriors.
Teach sons to be gentle.
Family binds you to your ancestry and is the only thing that survives you. You are the microphone of your ancestors; your children echo you through time.
Ask for advice. The best is offered freely. Take what you need and make a list. Change it whenever you change yourself. When you are old, offer advice to anyone. Some may forget it, others may ignore it, but a handful may take your best lines and repeat them long after you are again water and dust.
Vote wisely at the ballot box, at the cash register and with your feet. Money is ink on cotton paper which people trade to you for your time. It does not buy happiness; you must find that on your own.
Question, protest, criticize, fight for justice, write and read letters, poetry, songs, speeches, sermons or legislation.
Armchair complaints do not leave your living room.
Don’t take yourself so seriously. You are your own worst critic and only you have to live with your decisions. Life is far more flexible than you imagine.
Admire the pageantry of humanity but do not believe it. We all wear silly hats, like mortarboards.
Do not fear evil, but fear the indifference of good men and women. Never be indifferent.
People join causes if they have no because, so be cause.
The arc of the universe tends toward justice, but you must bend it.
With great power comes great responsibility and that power often consists of being in the right place and the right time.
If you get cut, watch yourself bleed. Understand that time is doing the same thing to you. We are water and dust breathed into life with an expiration date.
Death is inevitable. Accept this. Live like the Grim Reaper may knock on your door tomorrow. One tomorrow, he will.
Make art daily, so when you reach old age, you have a lifetime of beauty to remember.
Write poetry, even if it never leaves your notebook. If it does, proclaim it loudly from the stage.
Name constellations in your honor. Invent their mythologies.
If language is incorrect, what is said is not what is meant and what must be done remains undone, so spellcheck.
Do not tell others how to think or speak. Persuade with rhetoric and logic. Do not be persuaded by emotion and passion, but by reason.
Dance. Your body is a gift that took billions of years to create. Use it unabashedly and shamelessly.
If you are reading this, you are beautiful. You are perfect. Nothing is wrong with you.
Odin walks among us, so be welcoming to strangers. True friends will offer a lift when you’re stranded on a sofa for the night. Do the same. Don’t overstay your welcome. Build yourself an army so you have ground to go to.
Being hated for honesty is more honorable than being loved for deception. Lies are hard to remember but the truth is easy to corroborate. If you borrow, cite your sources.
Embrace solitude, don’t fear it. It will save you on the lonely nights. Once a year, lie in a gutter to learn how to sleep there if need be.
Send love letters, handwritten and in envelopes. Keep a box of all the love letters you receive.
Attend weddings and funerals whenever possible. Ceremonies bind us to our history and remind us of our humanity.
It takes guts to say “goodbye,” “I’m sorry” and “I love you.”2 Be brave. Love like a brass section; love like brass knuckles.3
Words can kill, so use them wisely. Speak honestly and slowly. Enunciate with conviction. Your words will bind you when all else is lost.
Anonymity is for cowards, so always sign your name.
Proudly.
In ink.
The past is unchangeable, the future is unknowable. You live in the moment between.
Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever. Become worth remembering.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
1: From the French proverb, “Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait”
2: From former Sedona slam poet Claire Pearson
3: From former Flagstaff slam poet Ryan Brown
