Graduation Speech: Captain Jason Duncan

The Greats of this time have always been that: great. To be remembered, you have to do something. The world simply works that way. I came here to tell a story, and I now realize that they have already been told. See, to be able to tell a story, there must first be a story worth telling. For most people, such a story could not possibly hope to exist. We live, we die, we move on to Heaven beyond this life. There is no place for mediocrity in this world of wolverines and vipers. When you live to be remembered, you must die for that memory to live on. No story begins before death, and most stories do not last past death. Think back to a time you heard the name Captain Jason Duncan. He was a captain of the militia in Vermont during the American
Revolution and died around age 90. Still, no one remembers him, except for a name on a list on some website I happened upon.
His story has faded from the world in only 175 years. In the blink of an eye, we are known to a select few and are once again forgotten from this world. What do we leave behind except our legacy? Of the billions that have lived and died, live and die, will live and will die, how many will actually be remembered? And for how long? The world we live in is cold and cruel, but yet we live on. We live on in that hope and dream that we might be that rare exception to leave a slight indentation on history, like Captain Duncan. His tale may not be remembered, yet you and I now know he existed, which is more than many are granted. Still, we cannot live with the idea that everything we do is pointless. If nothing makes any difference in this world, then our entire existence is futile, an accident even. But that cannot be true, for the world cannot simply exist arbitrarily. To be remembered, there must be a multitude who remembers. Therefore, our stories are the background characters. Those people who watched Shakespeare's plays or memorize names in school exist only at that infinitesimal moment in time. Once this is taken from us, we become our own forgotten
story. The story that no one will hear, no one will remember. And that is the fact of life. We are not, but it is, and we must learn to live. Endure the best way we can.
It is in this fact that we are brought to today in a pattern of monotony. Every second of eternity has been to prepare for this moment, and yet, we are less prepared than we ever could be. How can we allow an infinity of time to be wasted by a nanosecond of indecision? It is these moments when nothing happens that set adventures on their courses. There is no joy in the moment, but there is peace. Taking advantage of these times in between is the difference between achieving mediocracy and achieving nothing. There is no promise of greatness based on actions alone, but there is a promise of nil if we wait without cause. Of course, many take accepting boredom to mean replacing it with activity, but that is as dangerous to the soul as lamenting the times. Replacing the times between with energy fills a necessary moment, forcing time to catch up with something that does not exist. The car must first be invented and built before it can be driven and so must our lives. There is an order that requires time to complete. Just because we cannot feel the Earth moving beneath our feet does not mean it does not move. We do not disappoint eternity by wasting its attention; we disappoint eternity by ignoring its attention, which is much, much worse.