The speech “This Is Water” provided in the paper is an address to the students of Kenyon College made in 2005. In it, David Foster Wallace reviews some particularities of people’s minds and their unconscious attitude to the events and circumstances around them. The author uses the young fish asking for what water is as an example, through which he emphasizes how hard it may be to interpret simple things happening in daily lives. Considering the significance of such an understanding, young students are invited to pay specific attention to it. Therefore, it is critically important to identify the instances of default negative thinking, overcome them, control one’s attitude towards occurring events, and view them in all their complexity and with possible connotations.
A valuable idea expressed by the author is the need to acknowledge one’s tendency to assess the outside world from the standpoint of being the center of the universe. That is something like a “default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth” (Wallace). Such an attitude seems logical with all the objects and people surrounding an individual and influencing their lives. The author points out that being tired at work and busy with one’s thoughts and problems, a person slips into the feeling that all others are just obstacles preventing them from reaching immediate goals. Therefore, an individual can get annoyed at people in a supermarket, frustrated with traffic jams, numerous large vehicles occupying the road, as shown by the examples provided in the speech. All this demonstrates an inherent trend to view the surrounding world through the lens of oneself.
However, the unconscious attitude mentioned above can be countered by really thinking of the possible meanings and aspects of various events. As an example, the author notes that the driver of a vehicle cutting someone off in a traffic jam may be rushing his sick child to a hospital. Besides, the lady shouting at a supermarket could be taking care of her terminally ill husband. Nobody can ever know the real causes of other people’s behavior. Therefore, the author suggests that individuals should not think of the events through the prism of themselves and their superficial judgments. The apprehension of the endless differences and complexities of others’ lives would completely change a person’s attitude towards them.
Finally, the behavior of people is mainly defined by their beliefs. In this regard, the author urges us to find the correct object of worship. He notes that there is no true atheism since everybody believes in something. Such objects could easily be money, power, or achieving a perfect body. The author admits that these worships are natural and unconscious, with people slipping into them throughout their daily lives. However, they become a destructive factor as nobody can ever reach the final goal. There will always be those who are more powerful, beautiful, and prosperous. The utterly different worship is the one allowing people to be the masters of their “own tiny skull-sized kingdoms” (Wallace). That means being attentive to others, being able to care about them and sacrificing for them. Such worship brings the infinite freedom and grasp of eternal life values.
Through all these discussions and examples, the author urges the audience to contemplate the basic things surrounding everybody. He asks students not to slip into their unconscious mindsets. Constructing the meanings of the circumstances surrounding them would allow them to view the world from a different perspective and change their attitudes to others’ behavior. The goal of finding the correct values in one’s life, understanding what is essential, and learning how to achieve it is among the aims of education, which is a job of a lifetime for everybody.
Work Cited
Wallace, David F. “This is Water.” Kenyon College, 2020. Web.