TU Tuesday - Commencement Speech

http://today.duke.edu/2008/05/kingsolver.html

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2792775-the-hunger-games



Although I don't like being told as you grow up you gain more wisdom, according to Barbara Kingsolver,... "Wisdom is like frequent-flyer miles and scar tissue; if it does accumulate, that happens by accident while you're trying to do something else." growing old and gaining wisdom come hand in hand. What did I  connect with in Barbara Kingsolver's commencement speech to the 2008 Duke graduating class was her opinion in hope. "The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides." I believe that you can't survive without hope. Hope is what keeps my engine running. For the dreams that I want to accomplish in my lifetime and the hope that I can complete and succeed at the small everyday projects. Katniss Everdeen from the book The Hunger Games written by Suzanne Collins has only hope in her life. “You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.” As she walks into the ring that is going to lift her into the arena, she knows that her only chance is to hope for some lucky chance that she will live to see her family again.  
Today I hope that one day will be successful. I want to get a degree and a PhD. In what? I don't know. I do know that I will go into the field of science. I hope one day invent things that will help make this world more efficent and "Green." According to Barbara Kingslover, this day will have to come soon. "To stabilize the floods and firestorms, we'll have to reduce our carbon emissions by 80 percent, within a decade." Some say that global warming is just a myth. I really hope that it is a myth, but I have to think that some part of the human population has an effect on mother nature and her stability. Although I don't like being told that as you grow old you gain more wisdom, according to Barbara Kingsolver... 
Barbara Kingsolver gave a extremely inspiring metaphor in her speech. It related to a book about a person tearing up their ship to use it as fuel to keep going. "finds himself stranded in the mid-Atlantic on a steamship that's run out of coal. It's day 79. So Phileas Fogg convinces the Captain to pull up the decks and throw them into the boiler. "On the next day the masts, rafts and spars were burned. The crew worked lustily, keeping up the fires. There was a perfect rage for demolition."  Then she connects it to our life and our hopes. "How can we get from here to there, without burning up our ship? That will be central question of your adult life..." I loved this so much that I had to explain it and continue on with her metaphor in my own way.
As my ship sails, I hope that it will keep sailing. Up ahead I see that there is a fork in the sea. I can go one way or the other, but I just wait, unconcerned in my little ship because I know the two big ships behind me will give me big push when I make that decision in a year. A splinter of hope does momentarily rise in me though, becasue I know once I get pushed I probably wont go back. Scared becasue those two big ships have been providing my fuel for all these years. I will have to start finding the strength to push forward on my own. 
Yes my parents will always support me, but when I go to college they wont be the ones making the big decisions for me anymore. My fuel that will help me along the way is hope. Just like before hope is what keeps my engine running. The bucket list that I keep, my dream college, my discoveries, inventions. All different pieces of coal that will keep my engine running just by thinking of them. 
So I thank Barbara Kingsolver. In her commencement speech she not only inspired those few graduates to think about their future, but also a kid from Guilderland, New York, who has dreams as big as the Earth.