Personally, I’ve been looking forward to graduation for as long as I can remember. I have never felt that high school was my “thing”, and that I would feel much more comfortable on my own at some university. However, now that my last semester of my high school career has begun and I know which school I will be attending next year, it has become bittersweet that I have or will be experiencing my “lasts”; last pep rally, last homecoming, last prom, etc. It has become real how fast the time has gone, and the reality has set in that I will truly be on my own next year, thousands of miles away from home.
As David Foster Wallace speaks to this graduating class, it seems as if he trying to scare them, or maybe he is just preparing them for the real world. It seems scary as we all are headed for new and unknown experiences, but Wallace makes an important point. He says that “the true freedom of education is that YOU get to decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.” He also mentions how we all revert to our natural default setting, the “unconscious belief that I am the center of the world.” He challenges the graduating class to look outwards rather than inwards, and think of the possibilities of every situation around us. It is easy to get absorbed in the every day hustle-and-bustle of society, but it is ultimately our choice to be aware and turn off this “default setting.” Looking back at the past four years, I can imagine how I unconsciously went through each day, longing for the weekend, longing for summer, and longing for graduation. This last semester will not be one where I am longing for these things, but rather enjoying the time I have left with the people I am surrounded with in my life right now, because soon enough, they won’t be there. I choose to turn off this “default setting” of mine not only for the next four months, but as I continue through my college experience. And with that, as Wallace mentions, I will experience the true freedom of education.
