My son Lex graduated from high school tonight. In August, he’ll be off to the University of San Francisco, an institution dedicated to deep learning and to helping improve the world. All these achievements make me proud. (Although I remain necessarily tough on him.)

He was one of more than 600 to graduate tonight from  his high school, which is part of the fine school district Burbank boasts. My own graduating class, from an inferior private religious high school in the back woods back East, was sized about 20 or so. This was the first time I’ve gone to a large high-school graduation, and to me it seemed only slightly smaller in crowd size than the Pink Floyd concert I attended circa 1986 when my wife was nearly trampled to death by too many fans in one place at one time. I’ve been to the USC graduation twice — once to represent the program I teach in, once to honor a grad from another program who was my student and who became my employee and my friend and someone I respect and admire. Those two times were enough these past 21 years, and no, I did not attend my graduate degree ceremony.

Tonight I saw my son encircled by friends who are already highly accomplished as volunteers and emerging leaders and valedictorians. The whole group of them, Lex included, are far ahead of where I was at their age. They are serious about the world they live in, and they seem serious about the fun to be had while alive. They looked like they belonged in a Life magazine pictorial of JFK and his crowd back in the day.

But there were other kids there, too, and my wife and I know them as well: Burbank is a small town, and we’ve been here 21 years. While no one knows where anyone might go, most of us would assume that those kids are on a different path. At one point a woman I’ve known since all these boys were newly arrived in kindergarten was ardently seeking her son. “I just saw him,” I said, which was true because minutes before he had stopped in front of me to say hello and shake my hand — something he hadn’t done for his parents. She kept looking. She couldn’t find him anywhere in the crowd, and I knew he had just breezed by, completely bypassing her and her husband. She look bereft at the slight, left to scan the crowd plaintively for any sign of the son she’d raised for 18 years who couldn’t bother to stop by for pictures. I wanted to find that boy again and give him what for.

The cover story of this month’s Atlantic Monthly details a 70-year chronological study of what makes us happy, following a class of Harvard men from the 30’s until now. Here’s what we find out:  Some of the early successes wind up unmoored and unhappy; some of the hapless wind up successful; on occasion the very smart wind up utterly clueless; many of the charming and glib and easygoing are hiding deep despair that leads to reckless abandon or suicide. In other words, there are no patterns. More than 400 men are studied for 70 years, and no patterns emerge. I was glad to see this. “It’s almost like they’re individuals!” was my thought. Yes. We make our own choices, mitigated by luck.

For some of those freshly minted high-school grads out on the football field, the advantages have been early and often. For others, it’s been a struggle. (At one point I spotted a boy I’ve known almost all his life and was surprised and gratified that he’d actually graduated.)  Whether or not it ever gets easier, the path will never be sure. The two places in which all of our paths merge are at the intersection of chance, and at the terminus where we all exit sooner or later.

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