Cheney: People can defy others’ expectations

Throughout the course of my high school experience, a central topic for English literature and language classes has been qualities of human beings.

Are they naturally evil or good, how would they behave in an environment free of constraint, and to what extent do morals govern there choices and actions?

Much of literature required with these classes attempts to prove or disapprove one of the countless existing hypotheses regarding human nature.

Authors contradict one another as they tailor their plots to support their own views on this timeless and universal debate. Some bleakly debate the horror of the human heart, while others express their confidence in the enduring promise of kindness, compassion, and love.

Tales of loss and abuse are followed by fictional adventures where even the young and inexperienced choose to follow their heart over popular beliefs held by the society they live in. Students, and readers in general, naturally gravitate toward the novels, and the opinions expressed in these novels that are similar to their own belief.

This task of interpreting an entire race is not a question of science, and there is no simple answer for the content of the human soul.

One response to this question that I have realized, and that I firmly believe in, is the potential of people to continually defy prediction. Humans have an uncanny knack for accomplishing the unimaginable, committing the unspeakable, and overcoming the impossible.

We will lead and we will listen. We will befriend, betray, discover and destroy. We will reach unfathomable heights.

We will sink to the depths of those cursed figures of history that serve as evidence for the theory of mankind’s irrepressible evil.

There is no formula for discovering what a person is capable of, and this certainly applies to graduating seniors everywhere.

There will be “leaders,” “failures,” “influential figures,” and “invisibles” in this graduating class. Many have already been labeled, judged, and placed in separate mental categories by their peers according to their predetermined income, job status, and intellect.

Hopefully many will shatter these preconceived notions of their future and grow into the person that they alone envision as successful.

More important than any single subject or life lesson that I have learned in public schooling is the knowledge I have received from connecting with and observing my fellow students.

People are not formulas. They are not characters created by words on paper.

People cannot be understood through analysis, organized character, or simplified by scientists in laboratories.

I am completely confident that the people contained in the class of 2007 will continue to ignore the paths and plans conceived by those other than themselves.