Commencement Address 2025
Welcome parents and students, faculty and staff, neighbors, congregants and parishioners, and all others who are joining us today to celebrate the achievements of these students.
Before proceeding, I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary service Mr. Carpine has rendered Ridgeview. At certain points, people have said that I inherited Mr. Carpine from my predecessors, but the more relevant truth is that Mr. Carpine took me in while I was still a coltish, brash, caustic, and too cynical, young teacher. He tempered me, befriended me, acted as my ally, defended my vision, and cleared the way for me to pursue it. He took me fishing, took me to Cañon City to meet his family, tried to take me hunting, brought home-baked Christmas treats to our admin meetings, hauled me out of the woods when I nearly blinded myself felling trees, helped to bootstrap the outdoor program by lending all of his personal vehicles to the cause, hiked up and down mountains with me when it still seemed nonsensical and crazy, and dealt patiently with me when I fell asleep while I was an early-morning navigator and when I routinely hooked him instead of the fish while fly fishing in Wyoming. He taught by example, and I have watched him take chances on students who did not seem to merit it, exercised discretion, and counseled moderation. As Cicero wrote of friendship: “For friendship adds a brighter radiance to prosperity and lessens the burden of adversity by dividing and sharing it.”[1] I know that he knows that I regard him as a friend, but somehow, we’ve never quite been explicit about the ways in which he has been a mentor. Thank you, Mr. Carpine, for your service to Ridgeview, for your friendship, and for your mentoring.
Given the number of seniors who have spoken on friendship in their senior theses over the years, it is not a hard transition to consider what it means for them to be commencing—that is, to be beginning.
I would like to read for you a very short poem though I know the world, with its attention span, has less time for such things. Nevertheless, I have you and I hope you will indulge me. It is a poem by William Butler Yeats, and is entitled The Choice.
The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.[2]
Is life work, or is work life? All this talk of work-life balance treats the two as distinct because so many do not go to their work in the sense that they have been called to something. Are we merely providing for the necessities of life and those we have agreed to care for? If so, is there anything ignoble in this aside from the sense that it seems like an act of inanity? G.K. Chesterton wrote that, “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”[3] In a separate book, he wrote that, “We are too busy to be happy; we are too busy to be wise.”[4] In both cases, Chesterton makes an argument that we have created hectic, but trivial lives that lose sight of human needs. We are fixated on the next thing when we ought to be focused on the final thing. To Yeats’ implied question about “the day’s vanity,” and, “the night’s remorse,” what will all our efforts have yielded when we lay down our heads? Will it have been worth more than an opportunity to boast to people we have failed to genuinely know or love at church, the office, or the country club?
This may sound esoteric, so let me cut to the chase: Why does everyone want to be alive so badly? Podcasters talk about it ad infinitum. They push workout regimens, pills, sleep routines, grounding exercises, diets, tests, genetic screenings, and all manner of things to extend lives that in every other consideration seem to lack purpose. I know it sounds grim to ask why there is such an insistence on existence. Some may think that the people behind me have “just” been going to school, but this is not true. They’ve been alive, doing the things living people do: choosing to persevere, choosing to continue wanting, reflexively, unthinkingly perhaps…but, perhaps also with more consideration than they are given credit for. Perhaps they have been accruing the experience to reflect on this question, and I will say in their defense, they have spoken about deeper things, more “accursed things” as the Russians would say, than most adults with three or four times their longevity. In biohacker verbiage, this is to say that Ridgeview students, on the whole, exceed, in their reading and moral insight, their biological age.
Why are we alive? Why do we choose to continue going on? Is that not part of Yeats’ question? What really demonstrates knowledge of a compelling answer is not what college you go to, what sports you played, what mountains you climbed, what job you get, or how much money you make, but the principles that guided your actions, the choices you made and your reasons for making them, and the life you’ve lived day by day. Not in the end. Not what you could document on your transcripts or résumé. Not what you paid a university to certify you in. Not what the state says you are. What matters is who you have been day by day.
Over the course of twenty-five years Ridgeview has become adept at asking young people what is essential to the good life. In the early years, it is true, they read us their literature papers, but within more recent memory, they have told us what they feel, think, and believe. In this synthesis lies their humanity. The genius of the question is that despite its remaining unchanged, the answers very rarely repeat—not if you listen carefully. There is something new to discover each time because each person, paid attention to assiduously and deliberately, with the kind of regard most of us can only dream someone would bestow on us, is unique. Here is the genius in the answers the question elicits: they are almost always optimistic and humane. No one has ever stood up and said that it was granite countertops, or a car with the right badge, or a European getaway, or the largest house in the neighborhood. At least no one has said this who was well remembered for it, and it is because as humans we gravitate back to what matters, and what matters is that we all know of a certain je ne sais quoi without which, life is incomplete. Without this, we do not rest easily. A happier marriage, better friends, a more serene mindset, pursuing a meaningful purpose, having been more fulfilled, and broken the chains and raised our own better than we were. None of these things are new things. They are as old as our written language, and likely as old as our species. We cease, however, to talk about matters truthfully as we age, which is a funny thing. I think it is, in part, what J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince are about, as well as a lot of other iconic, if not quite canonical, stories.
Epictetus, in his Discourses, put it well in writing that, “Those who have learned the principles and nothing else are eager to throw them up immediately…The builder does not come forward and say, “Listen to me deliver a discourse about the art of building,” but he takes a contract for a house, builds it, and thereby proves that he possesses the art. Do something of the same sort yourself too; eat as a man, drink as a man, adorn yourself, marry, get children, be active as a citizen; endure revilings, bear with an unreasonable brother, father, son, neighbor, fellow traveler. Show us that you can do these things, for us to see that in all truth you have learned something of the philosophers.” The purpose of knowing these things, from Epictetus’ perspective, is that young men and women ought to “return home, forbearing, ready to help one another, tranquil, with a mind at peace, possessed of some such provision for the journey of life, that, starting out with it, they will be able to bear well whatever happens, and to derive honor from it.”[5] To do this, they must more than merely know fine words, the manipulations of numbers, the happenings of history, scientific mechanisms, and the intricacies of various philosophies. Their words must become deeds.
Despite the fact that I have regarded this class as one of the most challenging in my tenure, it is not, as some of them have claimed, that I dislike them or that I will keep a poor memory of them. It is true that collectively they had an odd dynamic, but individually, these micklewise seniors, have impressed every bit as much as their predecessors. They made insightful comments in class, they gave compelling performances on the stage in plays and musicals, they wrote and delivered impressive theses, and they were affable travel companions on the outdoor trips. As I noted in many of their yearbooks, I am grateful that they chose to persevere and graduate from Ridgeview, and in doing so, that their talents, personalities, eccentricities, and idiosyncrasies contributed to Ridgeview being a more interesting, intelligent, and enjoyable place than it would have been without them. I have felt blessed to be a small part of their lives, and I hope that some part of my labors have improved theirs.
In watching and listening to their senior theses, I have been grateful to work alongside faculty who have clearly labored on their behalf. I am grateful too for their families and all of the influences in their lives that have helped to shape them.
Cordelia spoke early on in moral philosophy about the importance of hope, and later in her senior thesis, she spoke compellingly and eloquently about its essentiality. It strikes a note because as adults we almost wince knowing the hurts they will endure and the tragedies and disappointments they will encounter. We hope, like Epictetus, that some part of what we have given them will allow them to “bear whatever happens and derive honor from it.”
In order to do this, a mindset that is adaptable and optimistic in the ways that Emma discussed in her thesis is essential. To be resilient, to maintain a positive perspective, to be responsible, patient, and to accept hardship with equanimity and even gratitude—these are surer guarantees of a good life than heaps of things and transitory pleasures.
To be in fellowship with one another, as Trysten emphasized in his thesis, and to make meaningful contributions in the world; that we should live in community, and not in isolation, that we should find encouragement and challenges from our friends will require a willingness to go beyond mere existence. Forging lasting connections, overcoming some of our inhibitions, in the way Saisha discussed, being in the present moment and appreciating it, and valuing the trial and triumph of the sort of unconditional love described by Alayna. Even knowing that vulnerability invites the possibility of hurt, and that forgiveness can at times seem impossible. This fellowship requires patience and a generosity of spirit as Clara rightly noted, and this we ought to extend to everyone. We cannot underestimate the impact we have on others as Christian pointed out in his discussion of legacy.
Though there are many paths to the top of the hill as Elijah noted, and as Will compared to guacamole (in that there are many ways it can be made of a common ingredient), there are aspects of us that overlap. We can all appreciate the idea of the cabin in Wyoming that Christian opened with, we all want the self-improvement and personal growth described by Will, and we all want some measure of Aurelius’ moderation as discussed by Elijah. We are different in our approaches, but we recognize one another because of the similarity of our ends. Who does not need to retreat at times to their own version of Silas’ inner citadel of strength and resilience? This is where we are the same, and yet we recognize something unique about Silas in his quotations from Saint-Exupéry in that the “joy of wonder” seems a partial explanation of who Silas is.
If you are confused as to the subconsciousness of flow state, I would recommend that you watch Luc climb. If you wonder how he does it, consider what he wrote about discipline and perseverance. We see only facets of one another if we give only superficial attention to one another, but if we listen, people tell us who they are and who they would like to be. Charlotte’s thesis was persuasive, but it was not careful logic alone that sent it over the top: it was that her passionate defense of books like Dorian Gray and Siddhartha convinced us that they mattered to her. Or, Natalie’s comments on Tolkien and Charles Dickens prefaced by the comment that “we are all a series of identities.” How can an adult listen passively as Aristotle, Aurelius, Melville, Shakespeare, Burnett, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tocqueville, and Shelley among many others are quoted with full hearts by teenagers be in despair as to the state of the world? With an open mind and an eager heart, it is hard not to be buoyed by them.
We gave them an education. In return, they gave us inspiration. To have watched Katie dance around a campfire with her friends on the senior trip in the fall, and then to listen to her deliver a thesis on joy, hospitality, and forgiveness—to see this vein run through her whole being and for passages like Shelley’s description of Frankenstein’s monster watching over the village family, to know that this is where the monster recognizes love, sorrow, and compassion, and that this resonated with Katie is to know her in a meaningful, if still not complete, way. To have observed in many interactions Claire’s confidence and poise and moxy, and then to hear her talk about the torments of perfectionism, and the challenges inherent in being reflective without being hypercritical of oneself, and to hear her say that “epiphanies are answered prayers,” is again to come to know her.
As adults, we know we have stumbled, we are less than our ideal selves, and so to hear a teenager cite Dune and Hindu philosophy while emphasizing that liberty alone is insufficient without discipline in the way that Bennett did offers a reassurance that these graduates are not being ushered into the world in anticipation of pampering. In Mason’s thesis, he noted the importance of leisure, but he did not neglect the importance of duty. Though we anticipate difficulties and know worry too well, if we can keep in mind the place of religion and joy as discussed by Hadyn, and the importance of faith, growth, and connection as discussed by Eleanor, life’s setbacks can not only be endured, but become the spur for the flourishing Saisha was so adamant about.
Given the unrelenting wind and cold, we poked a little fun at Alena on the senior ruck since her thesis touched on adventure as the way to happiness, growth, and self-understanding, but despite the rough conditions on the ruck, she is right. To quote Chesterton once more, “An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.”[6] Hopefully, the weather and the terrain made for an inconvenience, but the fellowship made for an adventure. Just three boys completed the trek from camp one to camp two: Elijah, Bennett, and Hadyn—as unlikely a trio as any of the chaperones could have imagined, but because it was hard, and dark, and sort of miserable, it was a triumph.
Life is like this. It is surprising in ways we never quite anticipate. That I would be befriended and mentored by Mr. Carpine, I could not have predicted and did not deserve. That we are all faced with Yeats’ choices about what to make of life and work, how to be most fully alive and chase our dreams, fulfill our purpose, and as Epictetus noted, to make our great words and ideas and philosophies into greater works; that we should pause long enough, and with as much attention and deliberateness as we can muster, to really know and celebrate one another. This is a good and fitting beginning. It is, as such, a commencement and a continuation of a well-lived life.
My congratulations to the Class of 2025!
D. Anderson
[1] Cicero, W.A. Falconer, Tr. De Amicitia (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, 1923), 6.22.
[2] William Butler Yeats, The Winding Stair and Other Poems (London: Macmillan and Co., 1933).
[3] G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles (London: Methuen & Co., 1909).
[4] Ibid, What’s Wrong with the World (London: Cassell and Company, 1910).
[5] Epictetus, W.A. Oldfather, Tr. Discourses (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, 1928), 3.21.1-10.
[6] G.K. Chesterton, “On Running After One’s Hat,” in All Things Considered (London: Methuen & Co., 1908).
