years ago. We had been forced to leave technology behind: no Internet and no phone service. Unexpectedly, students discovered this tech-free living profoundly freed them. They marveled, “There is so much more time in the day!” Voyages inward also allow us such insight. You remember the poet Li-Young Lee’s visit here in February, a visit that affected many of you. Practicing Eastern spirituality, he spoke of the creation of art as “yogic,” a form of meditation that allows us to access our more true selves. Broadly defined, meditation asks us to pay attention, to be mindful of immediate sensation through focused, concentrated looking. All of you in this room have experienced the creative process, the eerie thrill of doing something you love—writing a poem, performing a dance, playing a game—and losing yourself completely in the experience; suddenly hours have passed in an instant. When we reemerge from these creative meditations, we feel clearer, truer—more aware of who we are amidst the world we live in, more fully and uniquely present, for the very reason that we have, for even a brief stretch, taken back time. I urge you to watch the moving TEDtalk (at TED.org) by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor. In the midst of a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain, she watched her own brain functions shut down, one by one: motion, speech, memory, and ultimately self-awareness. The left side of the brain is the side that thinks linearly and methodically, that categorizes information, that assigns us names and jobs and histories to distinguish us each from anyone else on this planet. With the stroke leaving her left brain dysfunctional, Taylor experienced life with only the right side of her brain, the side that exists profoundly within the present moment, the right here, right now, through pictures and sensations, the side that feels connected to the collective of our human species. And though severely disabled, Taylor articulates experiencing nirvana— her sensations akin to a “genie released from a bottle,” her spirit “a giant whale gliding through the sea of euphoria.” Though it took radical surgery to remove a golf ball–size blood clot from the left side of her brain and eight years to recover, she views the stroke as an enormous gift of illumination. Suddenly, she realized that she could choose to leave behind the left
hemisphere and live, even momentarily, in this more fluid, beautiful, connective space of the present.
We had been forced to leave technology behind: no Internet and no phone service. Unexpectedly, students discovered this tech-free living profoundly freed them. They marveled, “There is so much more time in the day!” Seniors, it is nearly your time to leave Milton. You are on the eve of much more independence, free from your parents’ and Milton’s rules, and about to experience more free time than you have had here. But I believe that you will discover full autonomy only if you are willing to thoughtfully choose how to spend time. To choose might be a revolutionary act: one that throws out, or at the very least questions, the time structure prescribed to you from childhood. To choose thoughtfully requires that you ask radical questions of yourselves, like, “But how do I pass a meaningful day?” and questions of institutions, like, “How might we at Milton Academy best express our educational priorities in how we structure a day?” and questions of reigning cultural norms, like, “What impact, on health, on family, on social justice, has the fact that 29 percent of Americans receive no paid time off?” To choose might be a political statement: one that urges others to examine critically the cultural behaviors that we too quickly assume bind us.
Seniors, next year make a point of meeting people, adults and peers, who consider and teach time differently; learn from them. Travel as much and as widely as you can, so you might discover new possibilities for your own life. Next year, resist, at least at first, the urge to fill the free time you have. And, because you can, choose to take back time, for sustained stretches or for even brief moments, by inhabiting the present world around you with intense focus and attention. The longer we spend with something, the more compassion we feel for it, I believe. You know this from spending time with people; the longer you spend talking to someone, without interruption, really talking, really hoping to understand that other person, the more you uncover meaningful connection. When I run with Malia, nothing stands between us: her stories are mine to protect, her heart is mine, her air mine. When we choose to slow, to be truly mindful, we discover the real richness and joy of being here in our bodies, on this planet. I am certain of this. Choose, even once in a while, to leave the structure of these busy days of ours and notice, say, in this very room on this very evening, the quality of the room’s light, the movement of the air through the glass of these big windows, the energy transmitted from the person next to you, the breath that passes religiously in and out of your body. There is so much to feel. Suddenly you and I do have time—suddenly, in fact, we have all the time in the world. And if you look hard enough, you’ll notice that, in this very room, you are amidst staggering beauty. Lisa Baker, English Department
Editor’s note: Class I students have launched a new tradition. In recent years, they have invited members of the faculty to address the class on a spring evening in Straus Library: to give a 14-minute talk. Faculty, honored to be chosen, think carefully about the words they wish to share with students who want to carry memories with them as they go. Along with Lisa Baker, four faculty gave “14-minute talks.” They included Lamar Reddicks (athletics), Joshua Emmott (history), Miles Bailey (admission), Susan Marianelli (performing arts) and Elizabeth Lillis (science).
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