Distinguished guests, parents, community members, and graduates, I extend my warmest welcome as we begin this commencement ceremony for the Class of 2024.

I feel a sense of pride and joy in recognizing all the great things these students have accomplished, all the great things we have accomplished together as a school.

I must admit, I also feel a bit awkward: as you may know, I wasn’t very good at high school, even if I now seem to be in charge of one.

I was probably too good at college—I should have had a bit more fun, and challenged myself to engage more beyond the world of ideas.

I was just good enough at grad school to realize that it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: that it took me nearly thirty years to understand, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it, is a testament to how slow of a learner I am.

A bit awkward, too, as I’ve never been very good at following other people’s advice—indeed I’ve likely been better at defying their advice—and yet I’m faced with the presumption that I am called upon to share some.

Rather it’s those contradictions I offer you as you set forth into the world: the entanglements of emotion, the tenuous distinctions of logic and love, the promise and perils of relationships, the unstayable pendulum of confidence and doubt.

In your time at SHBS, you’ve developed a robust foundation for navigating these contradictions, and to make sense of them in new and inspiring ways, with passion and originality that aids and amplifies the best of your own self, and the call of others less fortunate.

You have the ability to observe, to perceive carefully and with empathy and from a multitude of perspectives—to discern the best of what’s doable. You have the aptitude to analyze, with tools from various disciplines and with an acumen for rooting out what matters most. You have the skills to practice, to experiment, and to implement alternatives even better than those you’ve seen.

Judge for yourself: balance our capacious capacity for joy with the unplumbable depths of our sorrow; navigate the ever-shifting boundaries between man and machine; lead with curiosity as much as with certainty; realize the power of play deserves attention equal to the dignity of decorum.

Dance and draw, write and ruminate, engineer and experiment your way through these contradictions, and we will all be better for it.

In doing so, and as always, I hope you will try your best, and be kind—