RAJAN MAGHERA
Mcnally High School
Recently, substantial questions have arisen among us. What might happen tomorrow? Where will I go next? What good will I do in this world?
This unprecedented time has provided us with new challenges and great ambiguities and, therefore, the opportunity to question many things in our lives. But what do these questions provide us? We could sit here all day pondering them and attempting to discover truths, but we wake the next day, only to continue asking the same questions. When these questions arise, we are inclined to seek certainty, definitives, answers.
One of my favourite movies of all time is Dead Poets Society. In it, the character Todd Anderson recites the following to his classmates, which may mirror how some of you might feel about these uncertainties: “Truth is like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. You push it, stretch it, it’ll never be enough. You kick at it, beat it, it’ll never cover any of us.”
In reality, the solution is quite simple. The solution to every question you might have. How do you get a blanket that can cover all of us? You don’t. Don’t expect to find an exact solution to every problem. Don’t expect perfect and easy answers to address complex issues, don’t stretch the blanket past its breaking point, but always, always try to.
We’ve all learned to become problem solvers. In our quest to find some sense of truth, we have indeed learned how to stretch the blanket. Problemsolving is the most useful skill any of us can have. Hardships occur in every way, shape and form, and you all have shown over the last three months and the last three years how tremendous and amazing humans can be at discovering ideas and solutions to problems that may plague us, but not everything in life requires an answer. The processes in between provide an opportunity to learn more about the world and, more importantly, about us.
Raman Maghera is the 2020 valedictorian of Mcnally High School. To read this speech in its entirety, please go to edmontonjournal.com/grad2020