Summary Of This Is Water By David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace, an American novelist, addresses the Kenyon Class of 2005 at their commencement in his speech, This is Water. Mainly, Wallace’s speech proposes the purpose of a liberal arts education is not about knowledge, but rather about being able to consciously decide how to distinguish others, how to think, and how to act everyday. Interestingly enough, Wallace states that it’s extraordinary difficult to stay continually conscious in the adult world everyday due to our default settings. He asserts that our hard-wired default settings are to be deeply and literally self-centered. I agree with Wallace’s point concerning our hard-wired default settings because of the difficulties of being empathetic to others, the desolation of being

For instance, Wallace believes he is the absolute center of the universe, but rarely thinks about this because it is not socially acceptable. Wallace’s point is correct considering that everything we experience in the world is from our point of views. From my perspective, the world is about me because of how I view and understand it. Due to the fact that we are self- centered, we are less empathetic to others because other’s feelings are secondary to our own. Wallace makes a point when he states that when we are in line at a supermarket or store and we are upset because of the long line, we don’t think about the fact that the person in front of us might have a more urgent case than our own. We don’t think about this because in our eyes, only we matter for the time being. After all, we are not allowed to state that we only care about ourselves because that’s socially repulsive. We are taught to consider others and his or her feelings, but in our minds we think about what we want and not what is best for the other person. Due to the fact that our hard- wired settings of being self- centered, we hardly think of others so it is difficult to be empathetic to others and their

He makes a point that an education should teach us how to keep from going through life as a slave to our heads and alone day in and day out. Specifically, Wallace states the lifeless routine that we go through day in and day out contributes to the adult solitude. His analogy of one’s day such as, waking up, going to work, going to the supermarket, and then back home is defined as meaningless. The traffic jams and checkout lines give us time to think, but instead of thinking about the people in front of us, we think about our problems, such as our tiredness or hungriness. However, it’s not completely our fault that we are only concerned with ourselves; our default system makes us like this. I agree with Wallace on this because when I’m writing an essay in the library, I’m more concerned with finishing my essay and going to bed than the girl that can not get her papers to print or the boy who is waiting in line to go to the bathroom. Considering that we are living our lives from our perception of life, we live in solitude caring about ourselves. We would rather get our to- do list done with, go home to an empty home and live in solitude due to our hard- wired default