“This Is Water” by David Foster Wallace Essay

Introduction

David Wallace was one of the most important postmodern authors in America. He had already gained attention with his first book, “The Broom of the System.” Still, his second novel, “Infinite Jest,” catapulted him to national prominence and made him one of the most respected authors of the modern American era. ‘This is water,’ his book, was essentially an expanded version of Wallace’s commencement speech to a group of graduating students. Unlike other books, which were panned for being overly long for their own sake, this commencement speech was generally praised, and even named one of the top 10 best commencement speeches in history by ‘Time’ magazine.

In his speech ‘This is water,’ Wallace’s goal was to stress the importance of perceptiveness, and awareness of others. He felt that through combining awareness, and education, people would become well-adjusted to their surroundings. To achieve his argumentative goal for his audience, he used a personal, and comic tone. This essay will focus on giving a summary of David Wallace’s ‘The Water’.

Freedom in Decision Making

After greeting and praising the students for their hard work, Wallace opened his address with a remarkable parable based on a fish story. The significance of the fish story, he continued, was simply that the most significant realities were frequently the most difficult to see, and discuss. In other words, people were living in water but could not see, and were completely oblivious of its presence. On the other hand, Wallace felt that most people were mistaken and that it was the mission of liberal arts education to tell them they were wrong

Liberal arts education was designed to make people aware of the water in their surroundings rather than filling their heads with unimportant information. Wallace’s main point in his speech was that often the most obvious things were the most difficult to comprehend. He stated, in particular, that negative thinking was not a choice but a natural setting, and that individuals needed to start thinking cognitively, and beyond the box.

Wallace delivered his commencement address to Kenyon College’s 2005 graduating class intending to prepare the students for the future life they were about to embark on after college. He used a grocery store example in his speech so that the students could relate since they had been in the situation. Wallace was also able to connect with his audience by using this grocery example. He further highlighted that, while individuals believed they were trapped in a ‘rat race, they had the option of choosing between two options: looking at the situation negatively and getting a bad result, or looking at it positively and feeling better about the situation.

Wallace exemplified this point by stating that the inability to make a conscious decision about what to pay attention to would irritate them every time they went shopping. He also noted that many people were narrow-minded, and loved evaluating others. However, each possessed the capacity to change a situation by making it cheerful and hopeful.

Meaning and Importance of Education

In his address ‘This is Water,’ David Foster Wallace reminded Kenyon students that education was more than a piece of paper, and did not merely comprise learning. Wallace defined education as being conscious and aware enough to generate meaning from experience. Proper education also taught people to be less arrogant and to have even a little bit of uncertainty about themselves and their convictions. Because a large percentage of people’s actions turned out to be incorrect, education was meant to put this error into words that would be alive, and conscious giving meaning to the ultimately unfulfilling, and dull lives that practically everyone was bound to mention. He also observed that speakers rarely talked about these lives in commencement speeches.

Wallace explained the entailment of a typical adult’s day, emphasizing that an average adult’s day was in no way comparable to the ones promised in entrepreneur manuals and self-help books. On the other hand, an ordinary adult day consisted of people getting up in the morning, going to their college-graduate white-collar jobs, resting afterward, and waiting for the next day (Neveu, 161). Due to their hectic schedules, they would even lack time to make themselves lunch.

However, despite the after-work fatigue, and lack of time, they always had a choice: they could either believe it was all about them and thus blame everyone. On the other hand, they could recognize that they were just a drop of water in the ocean and that everyone was dealing with a similar or the same issue.

The lesson on Default Setting

Wallace claimed in his speech that people’s character was defined by the modest decisions they made every day in their everyday struggles. It was clear from his knowledgeable words that he explained everything from a distinct and, interesting perspective. David Foster Wallace also proposed a hypothesis in which all humans behaved on the simple premise that they were the center of the universe and that every decision they made was motivated by their desires. He claimed that people’s “default setting” was responsible for robbing them of their ability to see situations as they were (Severs, 303). In addition, he emphasized the importance of the audience combating their natural selfishness, and the constant belief that their own identity, triumphs, and failures were the most important things to them.

Wallace observed that the majority of people operated on the automatic setting. As a result, many individuals lived like robots programmed to feel through instruction and not willing, or like fish unconscious of the surrounding seas using Wallace’s metaphor. In his speech, he argued that the most crucial type of freedom entailed knowledge, discipline, concentration, and the ability to care about other people and sacrifice for them sincerely. He saw these constituents of freedom as true liberties that required education and knowledge from other points of view. However, the persistent gnawing sense of having had and lost some endless thing was the alternative to this type of freedom.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ‘This is Water’ emphasized the importance of exhibiting compassion and empathy for others. Wallace stated that it was essential for people to see life, and everything around them from many perspectives, irrespective of the scenario. He insisted that the audience make their lives more meaningful, beneficial, and experienced by demonstrating compassion and being mindful of others. Waiting in a severe traffic jam after a long day at work would be aggravating for most people. However, Wallace believed it was vital for such situations in life so that people could understand that life did not always revolve around them.

Also, there were significant, and more considerable reasons for the occurrence of these events. As a result, it was critical for the audience to maintain the perspective that others could be in worse conditions than themselves, and that they were not always superior to others.

Works Cited

Neveu, Marc J. “How’s the Water?” Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 74, no. 2, 2020, pp. 161-161.

Severs, J. “Cutting consciousness down to size: David Foster Wallace, Exformation, and the scale of encyclopedic fiction.” Scale in Literature and Culture, 2017, pp. 281-303. Web.