Saturday, May 07, 2005
Valedictorian speech
Classmates, professors, members of the administration, friends, family and loved ones:
It is my honour to be your Valedictorian this year. We have all come so far in these last two, and in some cases up to five, years. And look at us all now, here at least under the assumption that we will each soon be getting our DEC and moving on to bigger and disputably better things. Some of us will be going out into the workforce, also known as the "real world", and others among this graduating class, myself included, are going to go on to university to pursue their undergraduate and perhaps even graduate degrees. Our future is spread out ahead of us, and the possibilities are endless.
In most Valedictorian speeches, the speaker will find some sort of interesting and inspirational quote which has some sort of underlying theme, which he will then center his speech around. I couldn't really think of any really good quotes of this sort right off, so I instead chose a random passage from the closest book at hand which happened to be "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", by one of my favourite authors, Douglas Adams. This passage is on page fifty, and goes something like this, "In fact, he had always done the bare minimum of research to support these myths. He was lazy, and essentially what he did was allow people's enthusiastic credulity to do the work for him."
Now, this quote may not at first seem to make any sense, which is to be expected when I pull a random quote from a not quite inspirational book written by a British author, but I'm sure that some of you sense a hint of familiarity in these words. The truth is, we are all a little bit like Dirk Gently: lazy, trying to do the least possible amount of work to get by. Certainly, it's human nature to try and find the easiest way out of hard work so that we can get on with our lives and have a good time. Think of all that procrastination for those long assignments and the staying up until all hours the night before the due date so that Thursday night is free to go dancing at the Maysen. I've been there, with a month to do a project, and leaving it all until the last few days, and I'm sure you have too, just because we're too lazy to get started.
But laziness isn't all bad. Were it not for humans being lazy by nature, we wouldn't have all the wonderful time- and labour-saving devices we have today. We'd still be in the stone age, having to hunt and gather our food, and running away from large predators. Think of it; agriculture and livestock farming were invented so that we wouldn't have to go out into the woods to find our dinner, cars were invented so that we wouldn't have to walk to get where we wanted to go, and the chin light switch was invented so that we wouldn't have to wash our cookie dough covered hands every time we wanted to turn on the lights. And, of course, if we hadn't invented all these time- and labour-saving devices, we wouldn't have had time to develop our culture, to make art, music and literature. Let us not forget philosophy, the laziest of all jobs, where all you have to do is get paid to think about stuff and the write about it. Without philosophy, we wouldn't have some of the great ideas that we have floating around today.
However, I don't think that your parents or teachers would be very happy with me if I was telling you to go out into the world and be lazy. Laziness is only really a good thing if it fuels productivity. Not actually handing in assignments or sleeping in instead of going to that 8:30 class isn't really a good thing. We are all here because we were able to overcome our natural instincts, and work hard to pass our classes. We all were able to make that extra effort to do our homework and to study for our tests, and now we can reap the results of our labour.
Before I conclude, I'd like to thank a few people. First and foremost, I'd like to thank our professors for putting up with our stupidity and for sharing your vast knowledge with us. You are the reason why this is such a great place for learning, and why we actually got something out of these short years. You have left a lasting impression on us, and your students will remember you for years.
I would also like to thank my friends. You made getting through all the hard work manageable, and were always ready for fun when I needed it most. Last but not least, I'd like to thank our families for supporting us no matter what. I'd like to thank you for putting up with our complaining and with our mood swings, for helping us with the problems of young adulthood. You have provided us with a solid basis which will help us all our lives. I hope we make you proud.
Finally, I want to congratulate the graduating class of 2005. I wish you all the best of luck in whatever it is you choose to do with your life. Remember to work hard and everything will be possible.
