To the Graduates

This one goes out to the graduates.

Maybe not now, but when they get a minute. I know they’re busy now, managing and juggling a lot of lasts, making a whole bunch of memories, bringing tears to the eyes of a lot of family, friends, and teachers who are all very proud of them.

This can wait.

This is for later — after all the photos are taken, the pomp and circumstance fades, and the grad parties serve their last slices of cake. It may be the kind of thing a graduate might find a few weeks from now clipped from the paper and tucked into a greeting card, hopefully alongside a crisp bill or two.

This is for the graduates when they stop being graduates and find themselves embarking, in earnest, on whatever adventure comes next.

It is the story of the time I held a human brain.

There’s a small space tucked into a big building at the University at Buffalo called the Brain Museum. It’s part of the medical school, and there are dozens of real human brains on display. You can visit by appointment, learn more about how the brain works, and see the actual physical impact of things like Alzheimer’s disease and stroke on actual real specimens.

While I was covering the museum for the news as part of a series on local oddities, I was asked if I wanted to see a real brain up close and, additionally, if I wanted to hold it.

I said yes.

I wore purple surgical gloves, and a man in charge gently handed me the brain. It was heavier than I expected, and so were the emotions I felt.

UB Brain Museum, April 2018

I wasn’t scared, and it didn’t feel gross to me. Instead, I felt a sort of reverence for whoever the brain once belonged to and whatever memories or experiences they had: their big ideas, silly jokes, great loves, and greater losses. I could only imagine what they may have been, but I know they once lived in the vessel I was trusted to hold. It was remarkable. It was human. It was real.

I want you to know I care about your brain. Now, don’t get excited. I don’t want to hold it in my hands, but I do want to live in a world shaped by it.

I am here for whatever you and your brain can imagine, even if the ideas are weird or imperfect, even if they fail altogether. What the brains of your generation can collectively conjure or create, build, and make beautiful matters to me in a way I thought you should know.

It matters because we humans are being told to adapt, adopt, and obey in a way I believe devalues our brains and, more importantly, our humanity. We’re told artificial intelligence is here, it’s the way, it’s the future, and that we have only two choices: get on board or be left behind. I do not subscribe to this overly simplistic and grim assessment of any of our futures. Moreover, I don’t trust many of the voices narrating that story on account of them laughing all the way to the bank.

I do trust you. I trust you and your real, weird, imperfect human brains. I trust you to use them to embrace technology in a way that doesn’t discount humanity or devastate the planet. I trust you to be the compassionate leaders we need in our world, and I trust you to know that your greatest achievements can be both beyond your imagination and the direct result of it.

You and your brain are unique and wonderful. You are magic. Please remember that, wherever life may take you.

Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash

This essay originally appeared in my column in the June 25, 2026 edition of the Perry Herald in Perry, NY.