Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles - Actualites Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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A lot of people cannot believe in anything today except what is in it for themselves. Success is getting ahead even if one has to cheat, lie and steal to do so. What really counts is making it. They say everyone knows politicians are dishonest, businessmen greedy and auto mechanics rip off artists. If you can take care of yourself, the devil can take the hindmost. I submit this type of thinking is highly destructive and dead wrong. I have been convinced for a long time that the process of living life is what gives meaning to life itself. It is the investment of emotional energy in another person or in an ideal that gives value to that person or ideal. When you commit yourself, you are risking a lot. You can be hurt if the other person rejects you, or if your ideal for human behavior is unreachable because people are not perfect. Without the commitment, however, you cannot truly live. I would rather reach for the stars and fail than keep my eves on my feet. At least when you are reaching, you can hope and when you are hoping, you have a chance to be fulfilled. I remember the night I won my senate seat six and one half years ago. Two years of extreme effort paid off. I had worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week and I had stated my goals and ideals during the campaign and they were accepted by the poeple. I couldn ' t wait to translate my beliefs into action in the senate. I also remember the night I lost my senate seat six months ago. I was crushed. I felt rejected, but as the days passed and the smarting wound became a dull ache, I began to realize that I was richly rewarded. I was living because I was feeling. The true test of me as a person was to take the blows to my pride and fight back and overcome. I thought, I want to live and to laugh. I want to listen to life ' s music and see the foolishness in myself and the world around me. I want through my own will to grasp my destiny. A man called William Hazelitt after spending a lot of time reflecting on the human condition wrote, Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps because man is the only animal that knows the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. If we become emotional zombies we have lost our ability to tell the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. Life is then without meaning. Friends are replaceable and sex is stripped of romance and tenderness. I went the other night to see the movie STAR WARS. As I was preparing my remarks for today, I reflected on the immense popularity of the film and why I liked it so much myself. Aside from the fact that is a wonderful fantasy that totally captures the imagination, if is the story of how good triumphs over evil. The mindless, unemotional brutality of the empire, a brutality that can wipe out a planet and all its inhabitants without a speck of remorse, is defeated by human beings and human-like animals and machines that care about freedom, friendship and love. When the film first started, I found myself attaching very little emotional value to the robots and computers that were serving and in some instances controlling the humans. But in the end the machines had lifelike qualities. I identified with them because of their courage, loyalty, honor and compassion. The film makers executed a brilliant switch from that story line to which we are accustomed. Instead of making people appear like cool, detached machines, they made machines act like involved, committed human beings. There is a craving amongst people to realize what emotional possibilities they have — to let it all hang out. Each of you is going to have to make a decision for yourself. As you arrange the thousands of pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of your life, will you share yourself with others or will you withdraw? Will you feel or will you hide your emotions? Will you seek self-knowledge or will you keep shifting your self-image and keep playing different roles as a defense against self-knowledge? I hope that no matter what else you do for the rest of your lives, you will glory in your humanity and welcome the risks that are a necessary part of being human. Connect emotionally with others and yourselves because the currents of energy you release will play back through the system of your being, illuminating your self-worth and worthiness. Senator John Tunney

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Mr. et Mrs. Raymond Kabbaz and the 1977 graduating class,