Passing All Understanding

I'm sitting in a dark dusty-blue chair, inclined somewhat, at peace with myself. I am amused by this excellent compilation of humorous office-happenings. It is almost a professional pastime, this being amused by humorous office-happenings bit.

I am thinking of this batch of students. I cannot believe how dear some of them are to me, unexpectedly. I hardly know some of those that I now realise I will miss. That kind of odd sensation is a bit like having a Fogelberg moment: you know that it's silly, it's overly sentimental, but you succumb anyway, to your chagrin. And really, so many of them have been bitten by unforgettable failure and yet will survive chastened but mature. Some of them not so much. But to my lasting regret, I don't know as many of them the way they deserve to be appreciated.

Some will never live up to potent and illustrious forebears. That's OK. I don't either. It's not an answer that will satisfy some of them, and I guess that's too bad. But it didn't satisfy me at that age either, and it was bitter for some time that I didn't. But I now know who I am, some years later, and it doesn't matter now.

Some will be overcome by the heat of the beat, the pace of the race, the shade of the grade, the dark of the mark. It passes, even if you fail. And if it fails to grip you and steal your soul, you pass. Three hundred Spartans are nothing compared to three hundred IB students intent on filling the sky with stars.

I once got to deliver the farewell speech to a graduating batch. I was chastised later for saying that our graduating class should embody the virtues of medieval knighthood without succumbing to the abusive mindset or the condescending mindset of the nobility. But I still stand by what I said then and continue to say. Even if I must stand alone as the darkling sky descends upon me, I will say that what I say three times is true: the best, the best, the best is yet to be.