graduation speech                    given at Reflections spring 2001                by Jason Coe
	First of all, I'd like to congratulate you the class of 2001 on making it through high school. For some it has been a very long 4 years, and for some too short. But we're here, and an era of our life is over. But of course, we've all heard it before, "life is just beginning, we're all so young, life is entirely ahead of us, an open road."             An open road, meaning a big highway straight ahead of us. But, I hope that all of you are smart enough to know that that's a bunch of crap. The road ahead, is winding and dangerous. Filled with potholes and cracked pavement, but then again I'm sure there will be plenty of straight highways too. The point is, we don't know how it's going to be, and I'm going to assure you now that life is never going to be exactly the way you want it to be. We all have dreams and hopes and desires, but, I guess in contrast with most graduation speeches, I'm going to tell you that those ideals may not come to pass, but then the most important message I can give you, and if you listen to anything I say to you today, remember this: Life is still good even if you can't have everything you want.                I once asked a great man, "Mr. Sawaya? What's the meaning of life?" And in the wizened manner that only Mr. Sawaya seems to have he replied "There is no meaning to life. I can tell you what it means to me, but there is no universal meaning for all of humanity." All of humanity huh? 6 billion people on a rock at the edge of all known space, and they have no universal purpose. Ant mounds have it easier than we do: they have directives in life "save the queen, raid the kitchen!" But why are we here? There isn't a universal cause for us all to believe in. Especially in this day and age, we have no great war, no great depression. And so now we're forced to figure out things on our own.                  I once asked my good friend Sam Au, "what's the meaning of life dai lo?" And Sam in his infinite wisdom said this, "The meaning of life is in holding a pretty girl's hand, going to the beach with your homies, eating good food, drinking good boh bah, watching a good movie, driving an acura integra." Sam's a pretty profound guy, and his prophetic words still resound with me today. Every time I hold a pretty girl's hand, am invigorated by a cool breeze, go to a great rock concert, I'm pretty sure that Sam's on to something. But what?                  For a long time I've questioned my meaning in life. Why am I here? 1/ 6 billion, and what do I have to contribute to our rock? The thought of death constantly weighs upon my mind, because what's the worth of my accomplishments if I'm going to die. The next step in my juvenile logic was to accomplish something that went beyond death. Write a great book, change the world, so that people will remember me when I'm gone. But those are ideals and dreams, that may not come to pass. But then again, how can my life's meaning be something that may not be true? And what if I realize that I'll never write that book or don't change the world. Is life not worth living anymore?                   Many times people lose their joy for life when certain ideals do not come true. I admit, after breaking up with my first girlfriend and not marrying her like I had planned in my ultimate scheme of "the way things are supposed to be." I wasn't exactly gung ho about the rest of life. After that I swore off girls forever and planned to create a campus club named "girls are evil." A bit extreme I guess, but lost ideals are devastating especially to a sap like me. And to most people, it's kind of hard to believe that life is worth living when things don't turn out the way you planned. In fact, it's hard to find meaning in life at all if all that we ever do ultimately doesn't matter because we eventually die. In fact it's quite absurd.                     In fact, most of life is absurd. After my intense education at Troy High School, I've realized that nothing is true. Every scientific theory changes after 10 years, all truths that they knew 100 years ago are no longer true. What is true? I don't know. In fact, after watching the matrix, can you be entirely sure that you are graduating today and that I'm here in front of you? Can you be entirely sure? It's absurd that there is no ultimate truth to our lives, and that sort of makes one wonder, why am I here? Is it to be a doctor? To go on and change the world? But what if that doesn't come true, does that make life meaningless? Why should I continue living this life?                      The Greek mythological figure, Sisyphus, epitomizes the absurdity of life. Because he enjoyed life so much and went around doing too much crazy stuff, the gods doomed Sisyphus to push a boulder up a mountain just to watch it fall for the rest of eternity. As in, push a huge gigantic rock all the way up a mountain, watch it drop and go down and push it all the way back up again. That's pretty absurd isn't it. Kind of like life. So why do we do it?                         I don't know why we do it. But I do know why I do it. And I'm not going to tell you what that is to me, just like Mr. Sawaya didn't tell me what the meaning of life is to him. Because everyone must figure that out on their own. You're not supposed to know why you're walking down that road yet. In fact, I'm not entirely sure either. But the point is, you keep walking. I urge you to remember this, that the end destination isn't why we walk down the road of life. We walk to walk. To live. To find that meaning. Why isn't Sisyphus insane now? Why is he still pushing that rock up, why doesn't he just lie there at the bottom of that gigantic mountain. Maybe because he loves that rock and he loves pushing it up and watching it fall.                        And so, to the graduating senior class of 2001, I ask, "What is the meaning of life to you?" Have courage. Keep searching.