How We Think

I have really begun to explore David Foster Wallace and his writings the past six months or so. Brilliant mind, amazing man, someone I think a lot of people can relate to, even if secretly they do not want to admit to it.

I have been rereading his commencement speech he gave on 2005. There is so much there to evoke the mind and explore. I have been trying to do it in sections and wanted to hear from others on this portion.

"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an 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 a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over a the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories.

The story thing turns out to be one fo the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre...but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish.

The immediate point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

State as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude-but the fact is that , in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life-or-death importance."

Now it is hard to look at just one portion of this speech at a time, without knowing what the rest says, the tone of voice used as speaking it. The heart of the matter I feel is exposed here though.

We get to involved in our day to day living, that we forget what life is, just as the fish forget what water is.

I will not say any more then that at this time, I want to listen, no correction, I truly want to hear what others have to say about this before I go into my lengthy rant of what it means to me.