PeterGabbani is an English juniorSend comments to: daletter@mail.sdsu.edu

A bunch of people are graduating this month, and I thought perhapsI’d write a valedictory speech … not that I’d ever been avaledictorian. My grades are too low, I’m a terrible student, andnone of my professors have ever taken a real shine to me. But, oh,I’d bribe someone to give this speech:

Congratulations, you’ve been educated, at least to the degreearbitrarily decided by a committee somewhere. Now what? I’ll tellyou.

Rethink everything. Up until now, you’ve been behaving as yourparents have taught you — their morals, their biases. You’ve beenadhering to the behavior of the standard student — docile, followingorders, raising your hand in class and, depending on how obedient youwere, you got a pat on the back and then shoved down the assemblyline. But no more.

Now you have no obligations except to yourself. There are noresponsibilities except those you deem important.

You’ve been conditioned for twenty-odd years with morality,etiquette and custom being drilled into you. And now you must shedall of that. It is tired. It defeats the whole quality of you as anindividual.

Your first chore is to divorce yourself from your presentconscience, for it has already separated itself from you. Haven’t younoticed that? You have an impulse, and then conscience, as if in acompletely different voice, enters your mind and knocks it down. Thenwhat is your conscience other than an enemy, created and installed bysociety to conform you to the ordinariness of others? How should youthink, feel, behave?

Secondly, subordinate yourself to no one and to nothing. It isyour mind that should be humble before nothing, deserving all yourselfishness, all your ego. What would you, could you, place beforeyour mind? Not humanity and its irreconcilable, infiniteimperfections. Humanity can never be exactly perfect. The adjustingand tweaking of civilization will go on forever, and will use you upand spit you out, just like it has too many times.

To work toward any cause as great as humanity is to place yourselfbeneath it, and in doing so, you must give up yourself and live onlyfor the cause. Anything less than giving your full attention would bea failure on two fronts. The individual vanishes and finds itsidentity in the cause and not himself.

Altruism — its popularity is no mystery, but only misunderstood.In helping people, one gets a feeling of a worthy existence. Isn’tthe need to live that worthy life, by whatever means, motivated byselfishness? The need for that feeling springs from greed.

Don’t think that all these feelings, or anything for that matter,are either good or bad. We know that whether something is good or badis mere subjectivity, and that the quantity of agreement on asubjective matter does not equal definitive truth.

The same authority one has to pass judgment on an action is thesame authority anyone else has to feel the opposite way. You decideand no one else. What are all these state and federal laws other thanman made? Yes, there are consequences to breaking these laws, moraland legal, but punishments are only physical, not mental. Your mindonly need concern itself with itself.

In the end, you may discover you do agree with your presentpositions and opinions. That’s up to you. Or you may find all thissocietal posturing laughable. Again, that’s up to you. Don’t you wantto think for yourself? How many people have ever done that? I doubtvery many. But you can, can’t you?

P.S. Predictions of a New Millenium (read into it.)

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This column is the opinion of the columnist and not The DailyAztec.