Grad-u-aint

It’s a strange time of year. Packs of young people, ravenesque black gowns flapping, anachronistic headware in place, walking through town, filing into their collegiate halls. Parents and friends trailing on behind. The ceremony and speeches unchanged from last year, or the year before and probably several years before that, relying on the fact that reappearance at a such a ceremony is an unlikely occurrence. A short walk across stage, a handshake, the conferring of a simple slip of paper. Thus endeth student life.

The immediate realty is an unstructured life for most. No more lectures, studies, deadlines. Replaced by new urgencies; what to do next, how to do it, who with, where does the next cash injection come from? Polishing up the curriculum vitae, trying to write a convincing personal statement. So starts the the next phase. If they are lucky they will avoid the easy trap; the life of rat race bound wage slave. Is that really what it was all about? Perhaps for some that was the goal. But will others sidestep the confines of convention and carve their own path? And in so doing, hopefully drive onwards the boundaries of humanity. A new optimism? New views on old problems. Disruptive, but constructive. One can but hope so.