Thank you, graduates, for giving me this opportunity to address you here in the hallowed halls of my imagination. I’m honored.Given that commencement is synonymous with beginning, start, and initiation, I would ordinarily be expected to tell you about some glorious future that awaits you. But these times are hardly ordinary. In fact, it makes more sense to talk about things that are ending, terminating, and ceasing.Let’s start with the fact that we’re currently witnessing—and causing—the most significant geologic shift in 65 million years. The era that began with the extinction of the dinosaurs is now closing with the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history. Our only known living companions in the universe are rapidly disappearing forever. This is simply too overwhelming to process.Yet if we don’t start processing it, in our institutions and hearts, we might see the extinction of our own species, miraculously capable of reflecting on its own existence and mortality, and caring for other living and dying creatures. This is to say nothing about language, music, art, Facebook, and other uniquely human forms of expression.As you probably know, 2012 is also the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar, which has a cycle of about 5,125 years. Whether or not this winter solstice will be the actual end of the world depends you, not Jesus in a spaceship.Interestingly, the period of the Mayan calendar corresponds roughly to the period of recorded history, which has indeed been his story: an account of patriarchs, warriors, rulers, and founding fathers. Basically, it’s all been about Empire—the quest for domination and control. Thankfully, this immature phase of our existence is also ending as its phallocentric assumptions crumble beneath its heavy armor.The end of history itself was proclaimed in 1989 by Frances Fukuyama, who saw globalization as ...