Colin+B’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

A Different Nation The date is May 12th, 2017. You are accompanied by an aspiring rhythmist, playing a lead role for a change. Your heart rate increases as your footsteps to fame are lessening. As the audience is clearly aware of who are performing, a clear distinction is made between you and your partner; it has been a mere 11 months since he had even started to imagine himself where he is now, and for you, 3 years. You have previously assured your friend that everything will go smoothly, and he allows you to take the reigns in case of an emergency.

1, 2, 3, 4: you can do nothing but stare as his fingers proceed to manipulate sound itself, clearly resonating with the spectators. Bump! That’s the cue for your palm to make contact with the four-stringed instrument, and with the percussive aid we hope will keep us together. Then, the most crucial, spine-tingling moment is soon to take its toll on these performers: vocal harmonies. Your voice sounds weak compared to that of the impassioned guitarist, his chords providing the tone for the emotional piece of musical artwork we wished to share with anyone who was willing to listen. The chorus has begun, and your ill, broken voice seems to make the audience roar with pleasure; is it deserved? Is any of this deserved?

At the time, you, or better, I, would argue that he deserved most of the applause: he came up with the chord progression, most of the lyrics, and was the main songwriting force behind the effort. After all, what could I offer, the keyboardist turned bassist, to make this performance deserving of its praise? I still haven’t found the answer to that question. Why was it that I felt something so existential, so mind numbingly gracious, and why did it leave me? Still, unanswered questions. The point is, I wasn’t proud of myself, and the audience seemed to disagree heavily, putting me on a pedestal of compliments in a language I couldn’t read, leaving the guitarist with little to no pride in his achievement; due to his personality, he shrugged it off, and probably didn’t think too much of it.

But payback’s a bitch, obviously, seeing as he ended up in the yearbook’s talent section when I did not. Not everybody can be Logan or Tanner, and be satisfied with their voices despite them not being professional; sorry guys. But my standards were higher: for both of us. Musicians make mistakes: okay let me rephrase that, we make A LOT of mistakes. My expectations for my success are, being playing all instruments and performing all vocals to a select set of songs such as Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” or The Killers’ “Shot at the Night”, quite unreasonable to say the least. I just have to face facts: even if I could perform every instrument needed for these songs, wouldn’t I be somewhat lonely in my own passion?

Here’s where my point comes in: people talk a lot about following your dreams and desires, but that dogma alone cannot take precedence over the way that affects others or the way others might affect you. The saying is ancient, to “not worry about what others think of you”, and it is used tremendously in high school, and it’s almost universally accepted as true. But if you haven’t really found yourself yet, it becomes difficult for people's’ opinions of you not to influence your perception of yourself, and what you might become in the years ahead. Oh well; shit happens. Everybody has a bad day once in awhile, and we’ve been taught not to take every day for granted. Each day is a gift, and my thought at the time was that Air Guitar was going to be the best gift ever. However, it wasn’t exactly as I had envisioned it, and I had to learn to deal with that.

It’s in my nature to appear as humble as humanly possible, as I’m sure it is with a lot of people; after all, nobody appreciated someone who is completely full of themself. But underneath all of the shallow, normal exterior, my actual personality is about as humble as Tyler’s science and computer skills, Peter’s IQ and the size of Travis’ ears. Deep down, I am, as Enkela brilliantly defended, quite selfish: I like being alone, and when I’m with other people, I usually only care about what I’m doing in the situation; this speech is an example of how much I focus on myself. But I know I’m not the only one. Pressure builds so much of everyone’s character in these four short years, and in the country I grow old in, I hope to see less of a standard for anything, and allow personal benchmarks to determine the true value of our existence.

Truth be told that the world is a complicated place. My friend only served to remind me of this, as it seems like he has never not had a girl under his shoulder. The one relationship I had lasted 3 months. What made us so different when it came to getting girls when our personalities were so similar? I then realized that they weren’t. We are yin and yang, with him being more relaxed, extroverted, mature, professional and street-smart, and I relying on my wit, introversion, uptightness and irresponsibility to land me the perfect romantic partner: take your pick! This became an example of how, instead of looking up towards my friend for being a successful, happy person, content with his decisions no matter the consequences, I looked down on myself, feeling like my personality was somehow “incompatible” with the rest of humanity. Another important event escalated these feelings, as the girl he recently left decided to woo me in as her next option, having gone through 2 relationships in the past 6 months. It’s just plain obvious to me: the world is almost always going to choose someone like my friend over me, right?

Well, there’s no way of really knowing. But the point is that someone like me in this situation should set smaller goals for themselves, which leads me to another problem: the word “smaller”. This certainly makes it seem as if those goals aren’t as ambitious as someone on higher ground, leaving them to become somewhat “inferior” in terms of accomplishment. Many, including myself, will never learn how to truly understand anything in this lifetime. Perhaps it’s my belief in something existential that keeps me going. Or maybe it’s compromise that gets me through the day. No, it’s none of these things. My love for each and every person in this room is what perpetuates my mortal purpose. Some of you I might not know too well, but I’ll say as much as I can. Tanner, your strange sense of humor really kept me from being bored. Logan, your lack of knowledge of how “satire” is spelled doesn’t really say anything about your true intelligence, in my opinion. Paul, it wasn’t necessarily in this class, but in Physio, your constant participation in Anderson’s exercises inspired lots of us to beef up, so thanks. Cheryl, thanks for maintaining such a calm attitude all the time, and sharing your speech in which your wonderful personality came out for us.

Natalie, everytime you mentioned your job and how you manage to balance it with your classes, it really made me realize how easy I have it. Michael, remember last year when my speech took so long that we didn’t have enough time for yours? Well, I’m sorry, but I’m also glad we got to get to know each other better this year. Kat, you were on the complete opposite side of the room from me, and despite your lack of commentary in the socratics, your blogs and speech more than made up for it. Becca, as I’m sure is the case with most of us, you are inspirational, musically and academically, and I can easily see you becoming one of the most intelligent thinkers of our generation. Mayzie, remember when Geib used our blogs about the election in direct contrast to one another? Yeah, well, I’m sorry he kinda made yours seem worse for not “acknowledging the other side of the argument”, because we’ve all become better writers this year, and we will always improve.

Speaking of room for improvement, Greyson’s handwriting, huh? Okay, it isn’t all that bad, because the discussions you’ve started in the socratics have been way more interesting than some prompt about space funding. On the topic of space, Tyler will always remain one of the most scientific-minded people I’ve ever met in my life; like, has there been a single moment of your life when science and technology weren’t on your mind? Ema, similar to Kat, you don’t need to speak up too much in class if that’s not your thing, and in my opinion, giving speeches is definitely one of your things! Chloe, you have defied all of our expectations by continuing to perform well academically and offer some of the best blogs/commentary/jokes we will hear for a long time, and you seem to get along with almost everyone.

Peter, OK Peter, I’m just gonna say that when Mr. Geib loses his hearing, you’re the one to come up with a way to carefully surgically link Travis’ ears to Geib’s brain, so he’ll be able to hear us laughing; also Peter, your wisdom is nearly unfathomable, and we’ll definitely remember that. Heather, after being my seat partner in Spanish for a while, I’ve learned from your volleyball stories that growing up and trying different activities can turn people into more interesting human beings, and I will definitely look up to you in that way. Skylar, from what I know about Jared, you have something quite special inside of you, and I think you’re going to turn out more than fine next year, especially considering we’re all gonna be right behind you. Taryn, your speech on Wednesday evoked many feelings from us all, and if you can do that just by speaking in front of your 11th grade English class, then just imagine what you will be capable of in the near future. Sinjin, your humor that nobody else seems to get doesn’t go completely unheard, and your music won’t either, trust me; I’m excited to hear what adventures you will embark upon next.

Enkela, aside from your name being completely unpronounceable by every sub we’ve had, the thing we will probably remember the most about your is your immense interest in the details of science, and your general passion for learning in a class environment where someone like Maya can’t go two seconds without interrupting Geib. Oh yeah, Maya, you’re a really awesome seat partner, and while some consider your very opinionated conjectures unnecessary during this time, I always try to listen to what you have to say, whether it’s intelligent, funny, or serious. Korrina, you always seem to be listening to what everyone else has to say whether you agree or not, and that is a quality which demands everyone’s utmost respect. Diego, statistically speaking, I think we can agree that you have spoken the least of everyone in the class, and whether or not that means anything is arbitrary; it’s obvious that your FIRE kids look up to you, and that’s something sincere, and yes, I know you are capable of speaking.

Jessica, your speech on Wednesday heavily inspired my own, with my experiences with friends stemming from problems that have plagued me and most others for our entire lifetimes; you have a different view on friendship, however, one of mostly good memories to make up for the bad, which makes so much sense in the grand scheme of things. Gabby, even if it seemed like Journalism or whatever else you had going on took you out of the classroom a lot early on, your blogs have always remained interesting and fun to read, especially for Mr. Geib, aloud, in class, always forcing you to sit in the chair in the middle and read a bunch of random blogs. Ari, I really think it’s cool that we ended up in the same English class this year like History last year, and you’ve changed quite a lot emotionally and intellectually from what I’ve seen and heard, and I hope to keep hearing your opinions about important issues in the future as things change. Karly, you’ve always had an aura of an even temperament surrounding yourself and your ideas; what will be the extent to which you improve over the next year?

Marky Mark, I don’t have much to say about you that I haven’t already, besides your general awesomeness; although Fitz calling you out for always dozing off in class is always funny, way funnier than always being late to class. Emily, I’m sorry but you’ve always intimidated me so much, and I’ve never really known why until this year. A person with such talent, grace and smarts is everything many people want to be, and I’m sure you’re aware of that. Sarah, I met you about 2 years ago and didn’t really know what to think, but the many things you’ve talked about in class this year have immersed all of us into the most thought provoking discussions, and I can’t thank you enough for that. Travis, sorry about all the ears jokes, but I just had to bring you down a couple pegs from your metaphorical high chair you have been sitting in since you gave that speech to the sophomores; such powerful, insightful and hilarious stuff that we will always want more of.

Morgan, the way you phrase everything is super cool; whether it’s the many times you said ‘no’ in your speech, or your consistent hand raising, signaling Geib to attempt to help you, not actually help by just saying “dissect the prompt” over and over again, and leave. You put up with lots of that, as we all did, so thanks for being such a strong-spirited individual. Summer, I got to know a lot about you this year, from the Spain trip excursions to the times we’d just randomly start talking about stuff, usually stuff that Sinjin instigated, but stuff nonetheless; I think you’re a really cool person that I’d like to get to know better. Jadon Carlson, we’ve definitely changed a lot since our initial freshman math rivalry; God, how did Powers put up with us. But I think that your humor perfectly equates to your personality, and that there will be more fun times to come.

I believe my last victim is Eden Hoover, who, along with Jadon Carlson, I always include the last name. But cumulatively, you were and still are the person I’ve sat the longest next to in a classroom, and I think that describes a lot about our relationship. But we all appreciate you more than you realize and I hope you’ll come to do so too. Wow, I think that’s everyone. So I will end on a few more notes: one, attempting to make people feel better about themselves makes me feel better, creating a symbiotic relationship. Two, everything I’ve said has led back to my vision of America, without expectations or boundaries that inhibit any kind of thought, whether it be in a progressive or regressive direction. Three, encouragement to submit to people’s opinions of you to a healthy extent, as it will help you realize what aspects of yourself are obvious or pleasing to others, or the opposite; this will allow you to take different perspectives and let you decide for yourself if the road you are on now is the one you want to be on when you are Geib’s age.

Basically, my speech went everywhere. And I'll probably regret making such a clumsy presentation; especially the part about me finishing it this morning. But that's a goal I might need to set for myself, and it's probably a goal that many of you need to work on too. But my purpose as of now is to make sure that everyone realizes what they offer to this world, and I get it: my words might not always be meaningful. Sometimes when people compliment me, I just shrug it off and keep to my interpretation of myself. But if other people think better of me than I do, and “other people’s thoughts of you don't take precedence in defining you over your own feelings about yourself” might not be completely accurate in this case.

Back to May, I look back and think “you know what, I didn't perform badly like I thought” because of what other people said about my performance. And if there are critics, listen to them, as they may offer something for you to improve upon, allowing you to set personal goals. This allows for an exponential growth in self-defined human beings that will contribute only the best to society. As a more conservative student, I understand that things will have to change, especially considering where we all live; as small fish in a large pond. But that pond is America, and thank God Almighty for that. Thanks for listening to me talk about how great everyone here is, because you made that possible. And just like that, anything becomes possible.