I have a confession to make: writing this commencement address was a hard exercise for this about- to-become Human Ecologist. My mind appeared quite adverse to synthesizing the universe of feelings and thoughts about this formative journey.

A person who I loved, my older brother, was meant to be here this afternoon. For reasons that surpass my understanding, he is not. In him, I found the strength to overcome my fears, but also the person who echoed my excitement and celebrated my achievements. When I realized he was not coming, I wrote him a letter. I cannot think of a more genuine way to tackle this speech than to share it with you:

Querido Hermano - Dear Brother:
I wish you could be here today. The first thing that would strike you is the evolution of my Colombian-accented English (well ... actually, I can only cross my fingers and hope my ideas don't get lost in my accent). You would admire the dignity, humility and charisma of the people who are present, and feel asphyxiated by the breath-taking beauty of this place. I only wish you could have come and let yourself be consumed by all the vibrations, life rhythms, words, sounds and heart beats that emanate from this place; hijacked-perhaps in the same way that I was in these last four years-by this very place.

Constrained by the five ephemeral minutes I was given, I want to share with you at least three of the most inspiring lessons this journey has imprinted in my heart and in my mind. The first lesson is what I call seeing the beauty in randomness. It is about allowing ourselves to embrace the randomness and uncertainty of life with hope rather than with suspicion and cynicism. The second is freeing our minds. It is about striving to liberate our minds from objective categories of analysis while letting new ways of working, speaking and dreaming be imagined and invented. The third is about loving our shared humanity. It is about refusing to treat people as human resources or commodities - as numbers, as nameless, as faceless, as humanless - but as human beings. I am now a bearer of this wisdom that is my connection to what will soon be my past and a fundamental pillar to shape my future.

We have learned to be watchful, we have learned always to be doubtful of this broken world we wake up to every morning. In the midst of our endless wars, we have become distrustful of the power of our shared humanity and suspicious about our latent 'evilness.' The unexpected frightens us. Uncertainty is perceived as a negative condition. We would much rather toss the Tarot cards and mentally beg them to reveal the unknown to us. But can we just live fully without waiting for the unexpected to unravel? Can we just hope for uncertainty to be the surprise of our lives?

In these last four years, I was unexpectedly invited to embrace a life opportunity that changed me. This opportunity allowed me to reassess and recreate my thoughts. It turned my perception upside down, gave me the courage to believe that the seemingly impossible is in fact possible, and allowed me to contemplate new imaginaries. I ended up playing uncertainty's game and accepting its sole condition: be willing to take the risk. I took the risk and I won.

Please, do not get me wrong. My realization is not a burst of naiveté about how life is meant to be an idyll: free of shadows and troubles. It is rather about having understood that in the somewhat inexplicable logics of life there is place for uncertainty and randomness; we should not be scared of what they can bring. Maybe an obsession with certainty would take us away from living the best unexpected instant of our lives.

College of the Atlantic has become one of the most precious unexpected gifts life has given me. Today, the moments of despair and mental and emotional exhaustion about not knowing what I was getting into - what Human Ecology was - all make sense. It is all part of the process of freeing the mind from the artificial, narrow models, canons and categories of analysis that conceal more than they reveal about the world and human existence. COA inflated my curiosity to look through abstractions and appearances, and encouraged me to problematize assumptions. I was guided (not lectured) through how to think (not what to think) and to understand how I know what I know. I was signed into an empowering exercise of carving my own academic path. There was never a magic formula for how to become a competitive anthropologist; I had to figure it out myself. I learned that facing this challenge is what makes people so passionate and committed to a particular issue or area of knowledge. It is this passion that triggers the best of our imagination and creativity.

I was not alone in this quest for meaning and purpose in life. I was accompanied by a community of human beings who present themselves as humans before using any social and cultural identity label; a community that respects individuality but celebrates collectiveness; a community for which every one of its members is essential and adds to the collective identity; a community that calls me by my first name, celebrates my triumphs and comforts me when feeling helpless and defeated. I feel proud of having been part of a community that reinvents itself to be trendsetter and never mere follower.

I have to go now. I was told I will not get a diploma if I go over my time!

I love you.

. . . My brother passed away last February. He was physically tired but he never felt defeated. He fought an unexpected battle with courage and hope. His hope was never lost and never will be. I will embrace it.