Graduation 2022:
When Memories Came Back to Life
July 2022
For a moment, it almost felt like we had turned back time.
The French sunset lit the evening sky with a brilliant warmth as we strolled down Rue Grande, into the heart of the town we had once called home. As we passed by Ma.Su, Maharaja, Bella Sera, the terrasses overflowed with faces we had grown accustomed to seeing over the course of our time at INSEAD. You couldn't make it more than 5 meters without stopping for a handshake or a hug, a "mate, so great to see you again!"
After our apéro, I split from one group and walked through the winding alleys to meet some others for dinner at Antica. It turned out that they had already finished eating and left. But as I stepped back out into the plaza, I was waved down by another group sitting right next door at Pizza Mimi's.
"Join us!"
Before I'd even sat down, Hiroshi was offering me some of his pasta ("too full, can't finish"), Francisco was pouring me a glass of wine, and Dan was giving me a hug. On my way to the bathroom after our meal, I waved hello to another set of friends who were enjoying their meal inside. As we finished dinner and headed for the grand rendez-vous at Glasgow, our group merged with another, reforming into a set of smaller subgroups. We exchanged more hugs, kisses, smiles.
It felt as familiar as putting on an old pair of shoes. Like we were back in school, still fully enveloped in that wonderful web of connection, its strands binding us to every member of this vibrant community. There was an electric energy about Fonty that night, one charged with familiarity and the warmth of human connection.
In chemistry, breaking a bond consumes energy, while forming one releases energy into the environment around it. So, too, it is with humans. As all of us returned to Fonty last week, we re-formed our bonds with each other, with Fontainebleau, with our INSEAD community. And as we did so, the energy from these bonds reforged imbued this sleepy forest town with such life that for a moment it felt like we had bent the bounds of space and time.
For a moment, it felt like we lived in Fonty again, like we were all going to fall asleep and wake up in the morning and do it all over again. Like we'd done so many times during our séjour in France. As familiar as putting on an old pair of shoes.
Alas, time only moves in one direction. And even as we grasped that old feeling, felt become real in our hands, it had already begun to trickle away through our fingertips. Hold as tightly as you may, a handful of sand will inevitably shrink away into but a faded memory .
No doubt, many of the connections we made at INSEAD will last for the remainder of our lives, and there will be gatherings and reunions the world over as we traverse our myriad paths. There are places in the world today where that old INSEAD energy is alive and well -- we've all seen the pictures from London or Singapore.
But in all honesty, while the gatherings and reunions to come will surely be incredible in their own right, they will be but feeble imitations of the wondrous magic we felt during our time at INSEAD, the energy we experienced again for a brief moment last week. There is nowhere else in the world where you can head to the store to buy milk, run into five friends along the way, and find yourself six hours later at a stranger's dinner table, immersed in a conversation about Sudanese politics.
No, what we briefly recreated the night of graduation encapsulated the truly once-in-a-lifetime experience that is INSEAD. A gathering of incredible people from every corner of this Earth, excited to partake in each other's presence, curious to learn from each other's experience, and delighted to form bonds which release enough energy to power a lifetime of connection.
As I left France the next morning, the emotions I experienced were as bitter as they were sweet. There was an overwhelming gratitude-- I count myself so privileged to have experienced it all, to have partaken in it with some of the best people I will ever meet. But also a wistful nostalgia, a yearning to once again be wrapped in that magical web of connection--which I had taken for granted when I was enfolded by it, and had nearly forgotten about once I'd left it. Alas, I will only ever experience that feeling again through the window of reminiscence in the museum of my memories. Such is life.
For a brief moment on the night of graduation, the past and the present blurred. And our memories came back to life, becoming reality once more.