Dear Class of 2015:
There are probably too few rituals we
observe with the sort of reverence they once demanded. Modern life in affluent
societies can make rituals feel quaint or tribal. Yet things continue to
develop in cycles. We wake up and go to class or work. We sign up for classes,
take midterms, take finals, go home. We are born, graduate, marry, die.
At these crucial pivot points I too
often find myself nodding half-heartedly at the milestone as it passes by. Why?
Duty calls. On the day I was supposed to graduate from Stanford I instead began
work running a summer program. I didn’t go to my ceremony until the following
year. I’m glad I did go, if belatedly. It is important to observe these pivot
points, and not from a distance — not as if they are happening to someone else,
to an abstracted version of yourself.
You likely grew up with rituals,
possibly deriving from religious tradition or family customs. Over the
semesters you have spent here you have encountered Trinity’s rituals. On the
horizon are some of your most meaningful: the last great reception, graduation,
your entry into a postgraduate life.
If you slow down and give these
rituals the depth of care that transcends daily toil you can foster something far
deeper and more significant than mere accomplishment. You can in fact mindfully
pass through the transformations of life such that they sublimate your personal
development into narratives of progress that undergird and sustain
civilization. Your life can grow more robust and electric within persistent
social repetitions. Your relationships can become more resilient or
transformative the same way that a performance gains texture and depth through
rehearsal.
As you experience the final
Thanksgiving and holiday season of your Trinity years, spend time dwelling in
the texture or details of ritual. It is easy — too easy — to dismiss the annual
holidays as somewhat corrupted, Hallmarked, feel-good distractions from the
business of busy-ness. If you mind the sense of connection that arises,
however, a connection with those here and those gone, you might notice a warmth
in your chest or sense of revelation in the back of your head. Utilitarian
forces might reward you for dismissing these as mere sentiment.
These sensations are more than
sentiment. They are the reminder that you live within and relation to others:
the living and the dead.
What will your rituals be? How will
you mark the passage of your years? How will you gather community to notice
when loved ones marry, graduate, matriculate, bear children, celebrate, mourn
or die? What will you carry? What will you create? What will you and yours take
up and riff upon, adapting old rituals to new situations?
Establishing the rituals of your life
not only marks the passing of time but also and more importantly circumscribes
the space within which your connections will grow, extend, deepen and
transform.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Kyle Gillette
Class Marshal
