Significant moment of silence before beginning.

Imagine
with me, for a moment, stepping into a hospital nursery.
pause Around you: tiny cots, each one containing its very
own miracle of life; each miracle a vulnerable little body
full of potential. Look closely at those little curled fists,
the tightly shut eyes, the little chests rising and falling.
Pause; change tone –
Friends, Matrics, fellow humans, the question that has
been debated for centuries by philosophers, psychologists,
and today pupils across South Africa – is the question of
humanity. What makes humans great?
Shakespeare advised us not to be afraid of greatness.
According to him, “some are born great, some achieve
greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them”.
From these wise words arise some questions. Smile
enigmatically What does it mean to be great? Should
everyone be great? Is there a magic ingredient that makes
one born great, or achieve greatness, or even have
greatness bestowed upon them.

Pause – change tone.

And now, I invite you to enter classroom number 9.
Pause Around you: school desks and chairs, each one
containing its very own miracle of life; each miracle a
still-vulnerable soul full of potential. Look closely at
those capable hands, the curious eyes, the chests
breathing life emphasis.
“The common fate of all things rare,” change tone to quote
a creepy old poet, is that each one of us has this in
common: long pause a line – a simple dash that separates
the date of our birth from the date of our death. Your dash
may be short or long, straight as an arrow or creatively
wobbly… but each dash will be carved from our highs and
lows, successes and failures, positives and negatives,
mimicking the beats of our hearts.
But life cannot be simply summarised as a
mathematical symbol: pause positive or negative. And
life cannot be simply lived to achieve a positive or a
negative – or just a neutral zero. So, what then? How,
then?
Google Bard and ChatGPT both speak specifically about
compassion, collaboration, and cooperation– but can’t
quite explain how to achieve this, besides proclaiming that
humans are change tone “complex”.
Aristotle and the other determinist philosophers argued
that lives are foregone conclusions – your dash is your
dash and there’s nothing you can do but live it. In
contradiction, Freud believed that babies are born with
blank slates and life gives you the ability to colour in your
own dash.
However, what all of these sources have in common is their
conviction that all humanity depends on the stories that we
live by. Pause One of the stories with which I grew up, is that
of a wise and determined ancestor who planted a bamboo
seed. For five long years she watered it… and nurtured it…
and waited… And for five long years, that is all that
happened. But then – the seed sprouted and grew to an
amazing height of 90 metres – in five short weeks.
Our potential for greatness, can be seen as this seed. We
may not grow immediately… but with wisdom, patience,
determination and nurture – we too can become great and
make our dashes count.
Long pause Greatness is not a singular path, it is a maze of
possibilities. We may be remembered by a single act of
kindness or by changing the world. Greatness is not
confined to halls of fame or history books. It may be a slow-
growing bamboo seed; or a short-lived, dazzling flash of
brilliance; or even a long, happy life…

Pause and change tone Greatness – is the Dash that you

create between your birthday and your end date. Pause It
lies within the walls of this class, and in the ordinary people-
who do extraordinary things.