This Is Water.

From time to time, I like to share writings from others, especially something that’s timely or something I couldn’t say in the way another might say it. I appreciate when people write with their unmistakably authentic voice, and this writer does.

David Foster Wallace was wildly brilliant, and also suffered from depression. He is known for his rather mind-blowing journalistic pieces, short stories and novels. He was best known for his second novel, Infinite Jest (1996), a sprawling undertaking with almost 1100 pages and 330 footnotes. His life-long battle with depression ended in 2008 when he took his own life. 

The following is an excerpt from his Kenyon Commencement Address, which he delivered on May 21, 2005 called “This Is Water.”

The speech is long, so I will cut and paste. In case you’d like to read the full transcript of his talk, here’s a link: David Foster Wallace Commencement Address.

 
*****
 

THIS IS WATER

 
As I’m sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
 
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always
shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
 
And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let’s get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in day out” really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about.
 
(He goes on to give detail-driven examples of “day in, day out.” You can read them, of course, using the link to the full speech above.)
 
“The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.
 
Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.
 
Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it’s hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won’t be able to do it, or you just flat out won’t want to.
 
But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
 
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it. This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.
 
Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship– be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
 
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
 
They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
 
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has
much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
 
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
 
I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital -T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don’t just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.
 
The capital -T Truth is about life BEFORE death.
 
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
“This is water.”
“This is water.”
 
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.
 
I wish you way more than luck.
 
*****
 
Bless you all and may you have an aware and awake week.

David Foster Wallace, In Care of Relationships, Kenyon Commencement Address, Terri Crosby, This is Water

Comments (3)

  • charleene virginia Nicely

    Thank you Terri for sharing this inspiring writer. I have gotten this message from several sources these past few days – I think I will pay attention! Thanks for sending me these meaningful essays. And I always find you own writings thoughtful and inspiring.

  • Hi, U__y,
    Well, here you go. ….. here’s my mixed bag. Of course I believe in his overall message. Don’t just take the world through rose colored glasses. Always question yours and others answers. Keep searching. Keep learning. Never just accept things at face value Life is rarely easy. Don’t give up. Keep trying. Stay in command of yourself. Etc,..

    I don’t believe he needs to use so many words, examples, or length for his speech. Yes, to live like he believes can be inspirational- but not in such a somber/dry tone. I think that what he says, would be better covered in a course or several sessions where much discussion/banter can be done- not swallowed in one gulp.

    I don’t understand how he can be so sure of his beliefs and yet commit suicide several years later. Where was his support system, who could he trust, who were the people who could give him honest feedback, advice, and be a sounding board?

    I once had a therapist who told me, if I could only get centered, I would be able to be on my own
    In the world. Was I confident after that? No way! I felt a failure/defeated. No matter how hard I tried, I have never felt that I reached that point of being “centered “ or could ever reach that state. The same with David’s words. I personally do not do well with dire words, I usually get words/feelings that “speak” to me from just about anything I hear, read, or do with someone
    I work with or admire. Even with such diversification as “Gone with Wind” vs. many chldren’s Books such as “Ida Early comes over the Mtn”., “Charlotte’s Web”, or “What Hearts?”, a couple of cool/quirky professors in college-0ne psychology professor who learned how to control one of his professors and taught him to only teach from one corner of the classroom vs. a professor of working with Children – and passed out cookies to us on the first session, books, plays that were serious or funny- i.e.Waiting for Godot” vs. “Harvey” , playing a cooperative game like “Octopus” vs. “ Twister”, “Vietnam War” – all the Brue Haha vs. a Quaker friend of mine who went back and forth to that war torn country with prothesises for people who are still losing limbs in the 2000”s. I could go on and on. Tho I have become much more of a cynic the older I get, I did go into the Peace Corps, stood up in Peace ralleys at Dealy Plaza with apples being thrown at me, travelled all over our country and the world, working with under privileged children in a camp run by the Salvation Army vs. teaching in sometimes very challenging conditions. I have always found people to talk with and discuss issues with such as diehard/ very opposite in many issue vs. my liberal background, working with people who are following a spiritual path very different from mine. I learn a lot from this kind of life vs. being so busy with stern judgement and study. I have always been a skeptic vs. accepting the words of others without discernment- but often attend a variety of events with an open mind. I do not ever claim to have all the answers or always sure what others are doing or believe.

    As usual, I tend to go on and on – working on what I feel/think as I go along. But then he sure did go on and on!

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