Sixteen Volts

At the end of high school, Finnish students take a matriculation examination that consists of several school subjects. The Finnish exam consists of two separate essays, which are first graded on a scale 0-100. The higher grade of these two essays stands as the final result, which is then converted to a Latin grade according to the national distribution of grades that year.

Each essay exam provides a list of possible topics, and usually provides additional source material for some topics. When I took this exam in Spring 1992, one of the possible topics was the famous speech of Chief Seattle. Since this was the first essay, I decided to write a critical response to this speech. If recall the results correctly, that first essay would have already been worth the highest grade laudatur (although just barely), but this is a moot point, since my second essay a week later (and whose topic I have already totally forgotten) was clearly better. I have also forgotten the contents of the first essay, although I distinctly remember ending it with a hearty "Ugh!"

I was reminded of this when I realized that I can use Web Archive to read Tommi's old blog posts. One of them was like this:

Dear Mr. Seattle,

Thank you for your letter, even though I have been slow to answer it. For a few years I even considered it a forgery.

Your offer is obviously generous, but unfortunately I am unable to accept it. In addition to the judicial complexities of becoming your brother after thousands of moons since your death, I have grown to be suspicious of wishes of brotherhood of all men.

I have heard such offers before. Since you are a representative of a nomadic culture, you probably don't need to be told what the saying Vestigia terrent of ancient palefaces means. Besides, I already have a brother with whom I am already in touch far too infrequently.

I don't have anything against friendly treatment, but with all respect, I would be grateful if my name was not listed in any community whose members call each other their friends. Even with the risk that loneliness already makes my seasonally depressed and relatively weak brains even more depressed, I intend to build my social network on my own.

In a group where everybody has to be pals with everybody else, pretty soon there won't be anybody except people that nobody would want to be pals with, given free choice. Certainly even these people are important and unique, but they encumber and tax other people around them. If your Great Spirit is of an omniscient nature, he'll probably know that the lazy old me barely has energy to go through my boring everyday life, let alone help to maintain the psyche of nutcases with forced sociality.

So this time I don't feel very warm towards your offer, but if you happen to have an inexpensive saddle blanket or other piece of Indian handicraft for sale, I could buy it for my wife for Christmas.

In this wintery afternoon,

Tommi

Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen on Thursday, February 23, 2006 at 1:21 PM