Saluting Our Graduates on Friday the 13th!

Dear Family, Friends, & Colleagues:

This weekend, thousands of students will be graduating from the University of Illinois. There will be celebrations and congratulations all around for academic accomplishments and honors well deserved. There will also be a lot of questions and wonderings about the future. What will students do after their graduation? Will they enter the job market in the “real world,” or will they continue their education, either here in Champaign-Urbana or elsewhere? Even more importantly, what kind of world will these intrepid young scholars build for us – and for their inheritors? What kinds of leaders will they become, and what kind of advice would I give them for their journey?

As I was reflecting on these questions, I recalled a poem based on Greek mythology about the wanderings of Odysseus (a/k/a Ulysses), a Greek warrior-hero who returned from the Trojan War by a very circuitous route on the high seas that lasted a decade. He encountered cannibals, enchantments, monsters, and a hostile Poseidon (the Olympian ruler of the oceans) along the way, but he survived (and thrived) through exercising his leadership skills and keeping calm under pressure. When Odysseus finally arrived at Ithaca, his island kingdom, he was indeed a very weary but also a wiser man, based on all that he had learned from his far-flung adventures.

“Ithaca” (1911)

By Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

When you set sail for Ithaca,

Wish for the road to be long,

Full of adventures, full of knowledge.

The cannibals and the Cyclops,

An angry Poseidon — do not fear.

You will never find such on your path,

If your thoughts remain lofty, and your spirit

And body are touched by a fine emotion.

The cannibals and the Cyclops,

A savage Poseidon you will not encounter,

If you do not carry them within your spirit,

If your spirit does not place them before you.

Wish for the road to be long.

Many the summer mornings to be when,

With what pleasure, what joy,

You will enter ports seen for the first time.

Stop at Phoenician markets,

And purchase the fine goods,

Mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

And exquisite perfumes of all sorts,

The most delicate fragrances you can find.

To many Egyptian cities you must go,

To learn and learn from the cultivated.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.

To arrive there is your final destination.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.

It is better for it to last many years,

And when old to rest in the island,

Rich with all you have gained on the way,

Not expecting Ithaca to offer you wealth.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful journey.

Without her, you would not have set out on the road.

Nothing more does she have to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.

Wise as you have become, with so much experience,

You must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

BONUS POEM!

Here are some verses about Odysseus’ further adventures, in his later years, for those of us who have already graduated but still yearn for adventure on the high seas of lifelong learning.

“Ulysses” (1842)

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle —
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Happy Commencement Weekend! :)

Rob