Here is the graduation commencement speech I gave yesterday...

First, class of 2024, congratulations. You made it. 

Secondly, I’m flattered that you allowed me to speak today, this last occasion when you are a captive audience to anyone in the Anchorage School District. And it was a brave choice to choose an English teacher to give this speech, especially one so notorious for his tangents. You willingly signed yourself up for a speech likely to contain big words and obscure poetic references. That’s brave. 

You know what else is brave? Those of you wearing high heels today. Have you seen the gauntlet that is this graduation stage? That is brave.

But here’s the thing: You are a brave class. Because you had to be. 

In seventh grade, many of you watched as your middle school started to shake and crumble around you. And you were brave. Because you had to be. 

A few weeks later, as terrified 12-year-olds without your own school building, many of you entered the halls of Chugiak High School to continue your education, gripping your chairs at every aftershock and sharing a building with bearded 18-year-old seniors driving big, loud pickup trucks. And you were brave. Because you had to be. 

A year and a half later, you were told you couldn’t come back to school. You spent a portion of the most formative years of your life hunkered down, watching as disease and civic strife spread around you. And you were brave. Because you had to be.

Then came your first day of high school. At 7:30am on August 20th, 2020, you opened your Chromebooks. You logged into your Zoom link, found yourself in the waiting room, muted your mics, turned on your video, and took a nervous breath as your 1st-hour teacher admitted you to your first day at Eagle River High School. 

A brief tangent: You guys were so cute! After all, how do you look and act like a brand-new, sophisticated high school student when high school is online? 

Some of you logged in to your first day of high school looking like an aspiring Twitch streamer. You had fancy headphones, multiple monitors, mood lighting, and impressive webcams. Some of you showed up trying to look like sophisticated high schoolers with your perfect “fit” –your hair and makeup were perfect, your clothes were carefully chosen, your room was clean – only to find that your “perfect fit” only occupied a tiny square on a screen where no one could really appreciate it. Some of you logged in from an executive-looking desk in a home office looking like important 14-year-old real estate brokers. And some of you entered your first day of high school by peering bleary-eyed from beneath a cavern of blankets like some sort of scraggly, pubescent troll. You were all, kinda adorable. 

…

Brief tangent on a tangent: Ya’ll own a surprising number of cats. And a surprising number of those cats like to walk across your keyboard and into the view of your webcam in the middle of class. It was actually super cool to meet your pets. 

And while I’m trying to be amusing, I’m not trying to be flippant. You all walked hard miles those years. Some of you lost loved ones. Some of you struggled with the isolation of Covid, the dark depths of mental health struggles, difficult family dynamics, and a world that seemed off its axis. But you were brave. Because you had to be. 

You continued to walk hard miles during your sophomore year as you desperately tried to catch up on your learning by intently listening to the muffled, masked voices of your teachers… You had to figure out how to be around people again. And again you were brave. Because you had to be.

Class of 2024, you’ve walked a lot of hard miles. And please forgive the “dad pun,” but despite all the hard miles you’ve walked, when I look out at you right now, I still see a lot of good souls…

…

At this point, you might be like “Ok Johnson, I get it. We were brave because we had to be. What’s the point? What are you really trying to say?”

Brief tangent: If you’re asking those questions, then on behalf of the Eagle River High School English Department, I’ll call that a win (or a “dub,” as you young people say.) If, at the end of your high school career, you’ve learned nothing else from your English classes, I hope it’s how to ask the deeper questions. Because life is deep, and life is complicated. Please never lose the curiosity and passion to ask yourself, and the people and the world around you, the deep and hard questions in life. Likewise, I hope you never lose the desire to listen deeply and to read deeply to find the answers.

 

But back to my main point about bravery, which is twofold:

First, I hope at this point in your life, and after all those English classes, you realize that life is full of competing narratives. And almost none of those narratives hold a monopoly on truth. ..For example, imagine you are ten, and you’re in trouble with your parents because you and your little brother got bored, decided it would be a good idea to toss a cantaloupe around, and broke a light fixture in the kitchen. (Sorry mom) It’s amazing how quickly two very different narratives emerge from two people who have each experienced the exact same event, especially when the threat of being grounded hangs in the air. 

 

My point is this: Consider your own narrative. It’s easy to fall into the easy narrative that you are simply the powerless protagonist at the mercy of forces far, far bigger than you. 

That narrative might make for a good story, but I’m not sure it makes for a good life. 

I also think you’ll find that adult life is littered with the wreckage of people who have simply surrendered to that narrative, to the story that they are the helpless victims of circumstances beyond their control. 

I would challenge you to consider a different narrative, a deeper narrative. I would challenge you to adopt the narrative that you are, in fact, brave, that you have walked a lot of hard miles while managing to maintain a good soul, and that you are capable of walking a few more.

My second and final point about this “bravery stuff” is this: 

You were brave because you had to be. 

But now, in just a few minutes, you get to be brave not because you have to be, but because you get to choose to be. 

You get to choose to be brave in the face of injustice. You get to choose to be brave in the face of an uncertain future and an uncertain world. You get to choose to be brave in the way that you live and in the way that you love. 

And class of 2024, here’s the really cool thing. You have so much practice at being brave... Because you had to be. I think that the class of 2024 has had more practice being brave than any other graduating class in recent memory. And I also think that everyone in this audience can agree that the world could use more people who live bravely and who love bravely. 

And so, class of 2024, choose to be brave. Whether you become a plumber or a pilot,  a soldier or a ski bum, a dental hygienist or a doordash driver, think bravely. Speak bravely. Live bravely. And please, please, please…love bravely. 

Congratulations class of 2024, and as each of you bravely step off of this stage (especially those of you in heels), I hope you step into a remarkable future.