Recently I discovered a cache of documents dating from my high school years, and I wanted to share something that I once thought was lost to time. In 2006 I gave this valedictorian address to an auditorium of high school seniors and their families in Logan, UT. I was allotted 90 seconds to speak. As I spoke, the auditorium was silent except for my AP American History teacher, who burst into laughter when he realized I really was going to stand there and read Talking Heads lyrics like the LiveJournal addict that I was. Pour one out for LJ.
Anyway, I’m gender non-binary, and I didn’t know it as a teenager because no one talked about that in Utah in the 90s or 00s. That didn’t stop me from leaving clues all over!
Logan High School valedictorian speech. June 1, 2006.
The Talking Heads song “Seen and Not Seen” describes a man who saw faces in movies, on T.V., in magazines, and in books and thought that some of these faces might be right for him. This man believed that by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his mind, or somewhere in the back of his mind, he might, by force of will, cause his face to approach those of his ideal.
He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other people, that they had also molded their faces according to some ideal. Maybe they imagined that their new face would better suit their personality, or maybe they imagined that their personality would be forced to change to fit the new appearance. This, he believed, is why first impressions are often correct.
While I’m not so sure that first impressions are correct, I do believe that this pop song character has his head in the right place, even if he is a bit misguided. He keeps an ideal in his mind, an ideal of what he wants his face to look like, and although it is the unfortunate truth that we cannot change our facial structures merely through thought (curse you, Brad Pitt!), it is true that if we want any change to happen, we must first have a goal.
So, in the few seconds I have left, I urge all of you, regardless of what your future holds and regardless of where your future will take you, to keep an ideal facial structure fixed in the back of your mind: an ideal for yourself, an ideal for your community, an ideal for your nation, and, ultimately, an ideal for humankind. Through patience, hard work, and diligence, and by avoiding those things in life that would prevent you from achieving your ideals, such as materialism, pride, and apathy, maybe one day you’ll find yourself with a new face. Thank you, congratulations, and good luck!
TTP, PHD 