Good afternoon distinguished guests, teachers, parents, and fellow graduates of class of 2021. I am John Liufu, and it’s my honor to be here today.

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from myself on September 3rd 2018.

For you guys who don’t recall, that was the due date of our three-year plan written before our story unfolded.

A pretty interesting thing is that three years ago I made the plan in the form of a survey and requested the present self to go through the plan as a checklist, to see whether my high school education ends up alright.

Decent TOEFL and SAT scores, check; a vocabulary sized at least twenty five thousands, I have that; high GPA and extracurricular awards, I guess so.

Speaking frankly, I checked most of the items, and the survey led me to this final conclusion: “Congratulations, you had a fantastic education.”

This short line threw me into deep thinking.

I don’t doubt the fact that these three years we spent with each other have been splendid, but my understanding of education has changed because of you.

What makes an education great and meaningful?

The answer that I most often get goes that a successful and meaningful education means the acquisition of knowledge and truth.

This was also what I believed when I made the three-year plan.

Three years ago, the word education summoned in my mind the image of Apollo standing upright at the peak of Mount Olympus, shining the eternal light of unwavering truth aloft a vast sea of darkness.

It will clear up unknowns and direct me to a promising future.

But let’s give this theory a second thought. It builds on the assumption that there exists such thing as the one true knowledge and the absolute definition of success, and that’s not necessarily correct.

Actually, I prefer seeing human knowledge as dependent on individual experience, relative instead of absolute, variable instead of immutable.

True knowledge - sounds like an passive object beyond doubt.

Something inert, forever waiting for somebody to pick it up just like picking up our favorite grilled Naengmyeon from the SCNU back gate.

We don’t worship and revere the grilled Naengmyeon like what we do for knowledge, exactly because knowledge is no passive object: it’s the elusive, the mysterious and the inconclusive.

Our HFI experience explains this idea perfectly.

With that three-year plan or graduation checklist I actually wanted to summarize what we’ve learned with numbers and awards, but our education goes far beyond those absolute indicators.

It was every moment of nirvana, every birth of insights and every evolution of worldview that weaved every single day’s unnoticeable growth into our convoluted journey of greatness.

Not reducible to any score, award, or title.

Everyday in these three years with all of you, you impressed me with diverse ways of being awesome, great and educated.

Mr. Frost taught us that being a kind human being is a great career already: there are a lot of opportunities and very little competition in this area; I always admire his habit of greeting everybody from the lobby all the way to the teacher’s office.

Jeff taught us to have consistent passion in our fields of study and be proud of it; I will never forget about his toilet paper experiments, the ingenious handouts and the “profound students break systems” motto.

Ms. Xu taught us that getting eighty percent done then getting eighty percent correct is not the end of the world; the more mistakes we make, the more chances to learn and make progress.

The take-away point is, there are simply too many moments and versions of success and happiness here.

Some of us didn’t get offers from your dream colleges, but maybe you got to invoke all interpersonal boundaries on the Voice competition and HFI Talent Show and excite the auditorium into an emotionally interconnected crowd with incredible music and dancing.

Some of us didn’t become experienced debaters and writers, but maybe you were lucky enough to enjoy seeking order and regularities in our chaotic world via differential equations, computer algorithms and chemical reactions.

Some of us haven’t joined in the social activists’ noble cause of fighting for the minorities, but you took pleasure in attending Marco, Mama and other cute cats without whom our campus would never be as lively.

As I said earlier, there is no one absolute truth in general for all humanity to pursue, so the criteria of success and the value of life are probably also relative and unique for every individual.

HFI didn’t light up THE correct path for us to undertake in the future, nor did it reveal THE divine truth for us to uphold for the rest of my life.

On the exact opposite, we learned to be open-minded and prepared for changes instead of limiting myself to a single answer.

To keep curious about the unknown rather than settling with what is already known.

And most importantly, to realize that there is only one constant in this indeterminate, random and variable world: our own persistent passions and pursuits.

All particles are doing unceasing random Brownian movements.

Our genes are undergoing random mutations at every second.

We tried to understand why and how the water coming out of those bath tubes in our dorms goes suddenly from freezing to boiling; NOBODY ever succeeded.

No absoluteness can survive in such unpredictability and inconstancy, so what we can have faith in is really our personally unique definition of “successful” and “meaningful”.

Think what we think, love what we love, do what we do, and steadfastly follow our hearts.

May it be materialistic, romantic, quixotic or even agonistic.

May that mean being an expert of airplanes, a marathon runner, a vlogger or just an actively thinking mind.

Just like what we’ve been doing at HFI.

This is the greatest lesson an education can teach.

Thank you my fellows and teachers, thanks for providing information, ideas, skepticism and discussions that intermingle organically to become critical thinking and self-knowledge.

Thank you our dear parents, thanks for supporting us to freely explore this mesmerizing cosmos here at HFI, and after a few months, in the prosperity of New York, in the lukewarm sunshine of California, in the sweeping wind of Illinois and in the milky fog of London ......

When the time comes, my fellow graduates, seize the precious opportunities to indulge in the vastness, the boundlessness and the ambivalence of our world.

To read philosophy and history, to reach the moments of Eureka among the debates of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Derrida;

To challenge math and science, to contemplate the nature of universe under the reasoning of Descartes, Newton and Schrodinger;

To create arts, to feel the resonance among all souls along the brushstrokes of Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso.

To relentlessly question and reorganize conceived knowledge about the world and ourselves; to quest for possibilities beyond impossibilities.

To find our passions and have confidence in them; to independently determine for ourselves the value of life.

To hold responsible and accountable; to be each other’s reliable comrades in your crusade towards inconstancy and unknown.

I don’t suggest the word “bright” for summarizing our future, as the word’s simple meaning overlooks the inspiring enigma that success, failure, reflection and rebirth will altogether enrich our souls in the future.

I wish you immense possibilities.

Thank you, and Congratulations Class of 2021.

中文翻译（供参考）

各位尊贵的来宾，老师，家长和2021届毕业生们，大家下午好。

我是刘付孟展，很荣幸能在这里作为2021届的学生代表演讲。

昨天下午，我收到了一封我于2018年9月3日发给此时即将毕业的自己的邮件。

如果各位不记得了的话，那是我们高一时的升学作业《三年规划》的提交截止日期。

颇有意思的是，当时的我把我的《三年规划》做成了一个问卷的形式，并要求现在的我将它用作检查表以判定三年的高中教育是否合格。

好看的托福和SAT分数，达标；最少两万五千个词的词汇量，我达到了；高GPA和课外活动奖项，我想也是有的。

坦诚地说，我达成了那份规划中的大部分目标，问卷最后显示的结语是：“恭喜你，你拥有一段很棒的教育”。

这短短的一句话引发了我的深思。

我们共同度过了灿烂美好的三年，我并不质疑这一点；但恰恰是因为与在座的各位朝夕相处，我对教育的理解已然变化。

怎样的教育是好的教育？

我最常听到的答案是，一段成功的、有意义的教育意味着获取知识和真理。

这也是我写《三年规划》时的理解。

当我三年前刚刚进入HFI的时候，教育这个词当时在我的脑海里勾勒出一幅太阳神阿波罗庄严伟岸地屹立在奥林匹斯之巅的画面，他将真理的圣光洒向苍茫黑暗的大海。

它会打破所有未知并将我引向一个美好的明天。

但我们来仔细思考一下这个说法。它建立在唯一、绝对真理和对“成功”的绝对定义的存在之上，而此一假设并不一定正确。

实际上，我倾向于认为人类知识是依托于个人经历而存在的，故其为相对而非绝对，变化而非亘古。

真理 - 听起来像是一个毋庸置疑的、无可变化的东西。

像一个惰性物体，永远被动地等着某个人去随手将它捡起来，跟我们去华师后门随手打包一份最爱的烤冷面没什么两样。

我们不会像信仰和敬畏知识一样来对待烤冷面，恰恰就是因为知识不是被动的、死气沉沉的物体：它难以捉摸，神秘且无法定论。

我们的HFI经历正是如此。

在那份三年规划中，我尝试用数字和奖项来概括我们所学到的一切，但我们的教育远远超出了这些绝对指标的范畴。

是每一次茅塞顿开、每一个见解的诞生和每一次世界观的完善共同将无数个日日夜夜里难以察觉的成长编织成我们曲折而又波澜壮阔的旅程。

它是不能被任何分数，奖项或头衔简单概括的。

在这三年中的每一天里，我都深深叹服于各位对“值得敬佩”、“成功”、“有意义”和“受到良好教育”的多元化诠释。

Mr. Frost教导我们，做一个善良友好的人类本就是一桩伟业：这个领域里鲜有竞争却机会无穷。我一直都很敬佩他从一楼大堂一路跟人打招呼直到三楼办公室的习惯。

樵夫（姐夫）言传身教地告诉我们，对自己的专业学习有持之以恒的热爱是一件值得骄傲的事情。我永远也不会忘记他好玩的厕纸实验，天才般的讲义和“卓越的学生打破常规”这一信条。

徐玛丽女士让我们知道做八成、对八成、最后八八六十四也不是世界末日。犯越多错误，也意味着我们有更多机会学习和进步。

简单来说，成功和快乐有太多太多实现方法了。

我们中的一些人或许没有收获来自梦想的橄榄枝，但你们在Voice比赛和HFI Talent Show上用令人震撼的音乐和舞蹈来消解人际隔阂，去将讲学厅里的观众们变为一个情感共通的整体。

我们当中的一些同学没能成为经验丰富的写手和辩手，但你们体验了用微分方程、计算机算法和化学反应式在这错综纷繁的天地间寻得规律的快感。

我们中的一些同学还未加入社会活动家们为弱势群体打抱不平这一高贵的事业，但你们通过照顾Marco，Mama和其他给校园增添生机的猫猫们获得了好心情。

如我先前所说，广义来说并不存在一套全人类都应该追求的绝对真理，所以成功和人生价值的衡量标准自然对每个人来说也不尽相同。

HFI没有明确地为我们照亮一条绝对正确的道路让我义无反顾，也没有向我们揭示一个至高无上的真理让我坚守终生。

恰恰相反，我们学会了开放思想、欢迎变化而非将自己禁锢在单一答案里。

我们学会了要时刻对未知保持好奇而非满足于已知。

最重要的一点是，我们认识到了这个无序随机且充满偶然变化的世界中的唯一一个常态，那就是我们持之以恒的热忱和追求。

所有的粒子无时无刻不在做随机的布朗运动。

我们的基因每一秒都在做无可预知的变异。

我们不解为什么宿舍澡堂里的水温总会不可预测地在滚烫和冰冷之间反复横跳，从来没人搞清楚过。

没有“绝对”能在这样的不可预测和不定性里存活，所以我们信仰的则是我们自己对“成功”和“人生意义”的个人化定义。

想我所想，爱我所爱，行我所行，听从我心，无问西东。

它可以是物质主义的、浪漫主义的、堂吉诃德式的甚至是不可知论的。

它可以意味着成为飞机专家、马拉松跑者、vlog制作者或仅仅是一个积极思考的灵魂。

就像我们在HFI所做的一样。

这是教育能教给我们最宝贵的一课。

老师和同学们，谢谢大家共同将信息、观点、疑问和探讨有机结合成为批判性思维和自觉自知。

亲爱的爸爸妈妈们，谢谢你们支持我们在HFI恣意地探索这片迷人的天地，并鼓励我们在纽约的繁华中继续探索，在加利福尼亚醉人的暖阳中继续探索，在伊利诺伊席地的寒风中继续探索，在伦敦柔情的浓雾中继续探索......

同学们，当时机来临，抓住宝贵的机会去醉心于这个苍茫、无边无际又模棱两可的世界吧，

去熟读哲史，在尼采、叔本华和德里达的辩论中寻找灵机一动；

去挑战数理，透过笛卡尔、牛顿和薛定谔的推理来思索宇宙本质；

去创造艺术，沿着莫奈、梵高和毕加索的笔触来与天下生灵共振。

永无止境地去考量和重组对世界和对自己的认识，于不可能中寻觅可能。

找到我们的热爱并义无反顾，独立地为自己定义人生价值。

莫忘记责任与担当，在向着不定与未知的征途中做互相依靠的伴侣。

我不建议用“光明”一词来概述我们的未来，它的词义单薄到忽略了这一引人遐想的事实：成功、失败、反思和重生会在将来共同丰满我们的内在。

我愿各位拥有无限可能。

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