this_is_water.md

Transcription of the 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address -May 21, 2005

Written and Delivered by David Foster Wallace

(If anybody feels like perspiring [cough], I'd advise you to go ahead,because I'm sure going to. In fact I'm gonna [mumbles while pulling uphis gown and taking out a handkerchief from his pocket].) Greetings["parents"?] and congratulations to Kenyon's graduating class of 2005.There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meetan older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says"Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for abit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes"What the hell is water?"

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, thedeployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story ["thing"] turnsout to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but ifyou're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fishexplaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not thewise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious,important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talkabout. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banalplatitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence,banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish tosuggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.

Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposedto talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain whythe degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of justa material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in thecommencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is notso much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teachingyou how to think. If you're like me as a student, you've never liked hearingthis, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you neededanybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even gotadmitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already knowhow to think. But I'm going to posit to you that the liberal arts clichéturns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant educationin thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really aboutthe capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems tooobvious to waste time discussing, I'd ask you to think about fish andwater, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about thevalue of the totally obvious.

Here's another didactic little story. There are these two guys sittingtogether in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys isreligious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about theexistence of God with that special intensity that comes after about thefourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actualreasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimentedwith the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught awayfrom the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and Icouldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to myknees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost inthis blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in thebar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you mustbelieve now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rollshis eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to comewandering by and showed me the way back to camp."

It's easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis:the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to twodifferent people, given those people's two different belief templates andtwo different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because weprize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysisdo we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the otherguy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talkingabout just where these individual templates and beliefs come from.Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person'smost basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of hisexperience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; orautomatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how weconstruct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentionalchoice. Plus, there's the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guyis so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passingEskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there areplenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their owninterpretations, too. They're probably even more repulsive than atheists, atleast to most of us. But religious dogmatists' problem is exactly the sameas the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amountsto an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he'slocked up.

The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how tothink is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To havejust a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because ahuge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, itturns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as Ipredict you graduates will, too.Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to beautomatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experiencesupports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; therealist, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely thinkabout this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so sociallyrepulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our defaultsetting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is noexperience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. Theworld as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, tothe left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on.Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to yousomehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassionor other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter ofvirtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow alteringor getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to bedeeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everythingthrough this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural defaultsetting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which Isuggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is howmuch of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actualknowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the mostdangerous thing about an academic education -- least in my own case -- isthat it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost inabstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention towhat is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going oninside me.

As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alertand attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologueinside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years aftermy own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberalarts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for amuch deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really meanslearning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. Itmeans being conscious and aware enough to choose what you payattention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will betotally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being anexcellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actuallyexpresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental thatadults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselvesin: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most ofthese suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberalarts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going throughyour comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, aslave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely,completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound likehyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is thatyou 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 lifethat nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such partinvolves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and olderfolks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in themorning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, andyou work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you'retired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have agood supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack earlybecause, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. Butthen you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time toshop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after workyou have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end ofthe work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the storetakes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, thesupermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day whenall the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some groceryshopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killingmuzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to bebut you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over thehuge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and youhave to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurriedpeople with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is along ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, exceptnow it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even thoughit's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, whichis stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on thefrantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose dailytedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here ata prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay foryour food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is theabsolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plasticbags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pullsmaddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy,littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home throughslow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn't yet been part of yougraduates' actual life routine, day after week after month after year.But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaninglessroutines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty,frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonnacome in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkoutlines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision abouthow to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed andmiserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting isthe certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MYhungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's goingto seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And whoare all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of themare, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman theyseem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that peopleare talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look athow deeply and personally unfair this is.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of mydefault setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic beingdisgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummersand V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanksof gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumperstickersalways seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfishvehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this isan example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfishvehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers.And I can think about how our children's children will despise us forwasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, andhow spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and howmodern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.You get the idea.

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of usdo. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that itdoesn't have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It's theautomatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts ofadult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that Iam the center of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings arewhat should determine the world's priorities.

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think aboutthese kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped andidling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV'shave been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving soterrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavySUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that justcut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt orsick 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 whoam in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyoneelse in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as Iam, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tediousand painful lives than I do.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'msaying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you tojust automatically do it. Because it's hard. It takes will and effort, and ifyou are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat outwon't want to.

But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you canchoose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady whojust screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually likethis. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of ahusband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the lowwageclerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helpedyour spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through somesmall act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it'salso not impossible. It just depends what you what to consider. If you'reautomatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating onyour default setting, then you, like me, probably won't considerpossibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn howto pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It willactually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow,consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on firewith the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mysticaloneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that'scapital-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 bewell-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and whatdoesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to daytrenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There isno such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choicewe get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosingsome sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, beit YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, orsome inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anythingelse you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, ifthey are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never haveenough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your bodyand beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when timeand age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finallygrieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codifiedas myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every greatstory. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you willneed 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 thingabout these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's thatthey'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 measurevalue without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating onyour default settings, because the so-called real world of men and moneyand power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustrationand craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessedthese forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfortand personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sizedkingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom hasmuch to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds offreedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talkabout much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and[unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind offreedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being abletruly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over inmyriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how tothink. 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 grandlyinspirational 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 ofrhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of itwhatever you wish. But please don't just dismiss it as just some fingerwaggingDr. Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality orreligion 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 todo with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness;awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight allaround us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over andover:

"This is water.""This is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adultworld day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns outto be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And itcommences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.