Writing has been light around here recently for a wonderful reason: our twins graduated from their respective colleges over the past month, and we have been in nearly nonstop revelry (and packing, and schlepping…). We are so fortunate to have two great kids; I’m super proud of them.

Speakers at our kids’ commencements, thankfully and remarkably, said little about artificial intelligence, but they did talk a lot about the complex circumstances and especially the psychology of this rising generation, and offered advice on how the graduating seniors should move forward in life given significant headwinds. I suppose it’s tempting to describe and analyze the troubles facing each graduating class, and provide sage guidance in response to the historical moment, but I’m not sure that my kids, their friends, and their generation overall are so very different from any other, or that any distinct advice is needed.

The Great Class of 2026 is, I’m afraid, just like every graduating class: happy and sad, confused and hopeful about the future, striving and procrastinating. Young adults, in other words. Sure, they seem to be impacted by new technology and our dreadful national politics and nerve-racking global challenges, but hasn’t it always been so? My college class graduated into a recession, the rise of the internet, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the chaotic end of the Soviet Union, and a messy war in the Middle East — all of these dominoes falling after a childhood in which we were fairly sure we would perish at any moment in a nuclear war. That was a lot to absorb! Back then, commencement speakers picked up on our anxiety, which had apparently morphed into excessive irony and a general lack of motivation, epitomized by the title and content of a Richard Linklater film: Slacker.

It may have taken some time, but we muddled through. So did the generation another turn of the clock back from ours (Vietnam, stagflation, etc.) and the generations before that (pick your World War and/or the Great Depression, etc.). History is, unfortunately, a procession of horrible developments, but also a showcase of astonishing resilience and creativity. Is it so Pollyannaish to simply say that Gen Z will also find a way forward, and frankly might be better off without pithy advice from the olds? Must we unconsciously mimic the opening of Woody Allen’s fictional commencement address, raising the graduating class’s blood pressure by declaring, “More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly”?

Instead, I saw hope in every joyful row of begowned seniors, students who, despite all of the radical changes and stressful tensions around them, had nevertheless maintained their curiosity and maybe even cultivated a passion during college. Students who found their special niche in music, writing, art, or science, who felt compelled to listen to it all, read it all, see it all, or experiment late into the night, regardless of the requirements of the classroom. I have a feeling that this kind of deep and abiding engagement, born not from careerism but from genuine profound interest, will serve these graduates well in the years ahead. As it always has.

Books I Have Not Written

The class-action lawsuit of authors against Anthropic and its subsequent settlement have helpfully informed me of the many, many other writers named Daniel Cohen, because the settlement administrators, in their quest to match authors and texts, have sent emails and letters asking if I am the Dan Cohen who wrote this or that book. There are too many volumes by The Daniel Cohens to list in full here, but as a public service to a handful of special fellow Dans, I hereby declare:

I am not the Daniel Cohen who wrote The Monsters of Star Trek, but I would wager 100 quatloos on Triskelion that I would greatly enjoy meeting that Dan Cohen.

I am #$%@# mad I am not the Daniel Cohen who penned Famous Curses, because my family is on a mission to bring back the useful exclamation “Gordon Bennett!”

I did not write Southern Fried Rat and Other Gruesome Tales, but, based on the delightful cover of this not-me Daniel Cohen book, I probably read it at camp the year it was published.

My final confession: The settlement administrators believe there is a Daniel Cohen who authored a book titled Final Confession, but, alas, I am not the one.

My conscience is now clear.