Students of Dartmouth: how old are you?
Nineteen? Twenty? Twenty-two?
When was the last time you took the long view? When was the last time you imagined yourself in old age, remembering yourself at twenty?
Do it now. It's harrowing, I realize, but don't let up. Take off your winter jacket. Let Old You take in every livid inch of You Now, every moment won or wasted.
Now that he's had a look at you, Old You has a few things to say. In no particular order, they are: appreciate your body, meet more people, and keep a journal.
More than anything, though, Old You wants you to make stories. Not to write them, but to live them -- "You won't believe what happened last weekend" stories that transcend routine and make our lives more than the sum of pages studied and hours worked.
Our favorite old people are those with stories, those whose lives, to hear them tell it, were all grand disasters, bawdy adventures and journeys to nowhere and back. This weekend and ever after, let us live such that we will be those old people.
That crusty, well-traveled alum is not visiting this weekend because he is proud of the grades he earned. He does not miss the library. He is here because he made this place his own, because Dartmouth is the living setting for his greatest tales, the life-sustaining personal mythologies that no one can make for us. The glint in his eye is not sparked by the pretty architecture, nor by the reputation of our economics department, but by reminders all around him of a youth well lived.
Old You is trying to get your attention, waving his arms wildly and shouting: You are twenty! You are in college! You are in America! You are the envy of the rest of world history's spoiled children.
With this privilege, obviously, comes responsibility. You know this. You study. You work hard for your family and for yourself, keeping in mind how much you've been given and how much you must give back. Many hours of labor are behind you, with many more to come. But again! You are twenty, in college, in America!
We the privileged must not be blind to injustice and our ability to fight it, but neither should we lose sight of our youth, of the gifts of circumstance we would be fools not to open. The workweek is over. It is Winter Carnival. Take it by the throat -- you will not be twenty again.
I will not be among you this weekend. I remain suspended, prohibited from stepping foot on campus -- not the best platform for calling for a story-worthy weekend, I realize. Still, my time off here in Biloxi has only reinforced all that I've written here. In the volunteer camp, I am surrounded by people with stories -- girls who hitchhike, an astrophysics major-turned-construction worker and a former firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service.
Last Sunday night we were watching the Colts win the Super Bowl when 10 of us spontaneously decided to squeeze into two small cars and drive all night to Lady Lake, Fla., where the second-worst tornado in state history had just hit.
We arrived sleepless at six in the morning and began removing debris with handsaws, chainsaws and axes, working house by house down a devastated street called Winner's Court. Trees everywhere were festooned with white aluminum trailer roofing warped around trunks like twist ties.
We arrived two days before the Red Cross or FEMA; when we left, our cars had been surrounded by police tape, encircled by their camps. We worked alongside an armada of religious groups: Amish, Mormons, Scientologists and the King of Glory Biker Ministry. News helicopters flew overhead.
A newswoman in heavy makeup and heels approached us, asking who we were with and how we had known where to go. Impatient to continue working, Doug, a former manager of a California porn shop, replied that we had simply read online news stories and come on our own. The reporter did not let up, repeatedly asking how we had used the Internet. Finally Doug said, "With a keyboard." We had no time for the news; we were too busy making our own stories.
Students of Dartmouth, it is Winter Carnival. We stand today on the breaking white crest of our twenties, the snowy coast of the rest of our lives.
We can no more see past the horizon of graduation than we can calm our churning fear of adulthood, but we can steer our hearts and actions by the knowledge that regret makes calamity of so long life. So do not hesitate: take that road trip, ask that girl out and make this weekend your best story yet.
