Graduation Speech: The Quest for Wisdom :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

There is a distinct difference between knowledge and wisdom. I can tell you that as honor society president I have seen many smart people do stupid things. Let's just say that mixing a very large lunch with a bobbing ship and an admissions officer from the University of California equals a vomitous situation. Today, we are sitting here celebrating the fact that we spent four long years in high school matriculating, which means actually learning to use words like matriculation. But I am going to go out on a limb and say that while we have acquired all of this knowledge, we are still incredibly dumb, and I am not referring to WASL scores, I mean that we have not had the opportunity to apply our knowledge. Just as I was completely unaware of my propensity for sea sickness, many of us have not had the opportunity to grow wiser. The class of 2006 has advanced technology at its fingertips. However, we must remember that the Internet, television, and cell phones really are artificial intelligence, all they do is retain information. It is our job to apply it. Within the past year we have had many unfortunate reminders of the difference between knowledge and wisdom, now we are learning that certain bureaus within the federal government were aware of the possibility of a terrorist attacks, but clearly the appropriate proactive measures were not taken. You see knowledge: merely being aware of information is absolutely useless. Wisdom: knowing what to do with information is invaluable- in this case it meant the difference between discourse and recourse, and the loss of thousands of lives. So while we are accustomed to our artificial intelligence, it is time we become wise. More than ever it is important that we are wise about our rights. After Sept. 11 there was an immediate scramble to tighten security. Random searches of our persons, our vehicles and our homes suddenly become acceptable because of fear. The most common response to these encroachments is as one passive Washington state ferry rider put it: "why should i care? I have nothing to hide." We should care because unwarranted searches are a regression of everything we have built this nation to be. We know what our rights are, but what are we doing to protect them? In an effort to protect the U.S. our first step is to unravel many of the things we stand for.