Learn English David Foster Wallace This is Water. with BIG Subtitles

greetings thanks and congratulations to

Kenyans graduating class of 2005 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

has the water and the two young fish

swim on for a bit and that 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 the deployment of didactic

little parable ish stories the story

thing turns out to be one of the better

less bullshitty conventions of the genre

but if you’re worried that I plan to

present myself here as the wise older

fish explaining what water is to you

younger fish please don’t be I am NOT

the wise 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 talk about

stated 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 then all platitudes

can have a life-or-death importance or

so I wish to suggest to you on this dry

and lovely morning

of course the main requirement of

speeches like this is that I’m supposed

to talk about your liberal arts

education meaning to try to explain why

the degree you’re about to receive has

actual human value instead of just a

material payoff so let’s talk about the

single most pervasive cliche in the

commencement speech genre which is that

a liberal arts education is not so much

about filling you up with knowledge as

it is about quote teaching you how to

think if you’re like me as a student

you’ve never lacked hearing this and you

tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim

that you’ve needed anybody to teach you

how to think since the fact that you

even got admitted to a college that’s

good seems like proof that you already

know how to think but I’m gonna posit to

you that the liberal arts cliche turns

out not to be insulting at all because

the really significant education in

thinking that we’re supposed to get in a

place like this isn’t really about the

capacity to think but rather about the

choice of what to think

if your total freedom of choice

regarding what to think about seems too

obvious to waste time discussing I’d ask

you to think about fish in water and to

bracket for just a few minutes your

skepticism about the value of the

totally obvious

here’s another didactic little story

there are these two guys sitting

together in a bar in the remote Alaskan

wilderness one of the guys is religious

the others an atheist and the two are

arguing about the existence of God with

that special intensity that comes after

about the fourth beer and the atheist

says look it’s not like I don’t have

actual reasons for not believing in God

it’s not like I haven’t ever

experimented with the whole God and

prayer thing just last month I got

caught away from camp in that terrible

blizzard and I was totally lost and I

couldn’t see a thing

and it was 50 below and so I tried it I

fell to my knees in the snow and cried

out o God if there is a god I’m lost in

this blizzard and I’m gonna die if you

don’t help me and now in the bar the

religious guy looks at the atheist all

puzzled well then you must believe now

he says after all here you are alive the

Atheist just rolls his eyes no man all

that was was a couple Eskimos happen to

come onor and by and they showed me the

way back to King it’s easy to run the

story through a kind of standard liberal

arts analysis the exact same experience

can mean two totally different things to

two different people given those

people’s two different belief templates

in two different ways of constructing

meaning from experience because we prize

tolerance and diversity of belief

nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do

we want to claim the one guy’s

interpretation is true and the other

guys is false or bad which is fine

except we also never end up talking

about just where these individual

templates and beliefs come from meaning

where they come from inside the two guys

as if a person’s most basic orientation

toward the world and the meaning of his

experience were somehow just hardwired

like height or shoe size or

automatically absorbed from the culture

like language as if how we construct

meaning we’re not actually a matter of

personal intentional choice

plus there’s the matter of arrogance the

non-religious guy is so totally certain

in his dismissal of the possibility that

the passing Eskimos had anything to do

with this prayer for help true there are

plenty of religious people who seem

arrogantly certain of their own

interpretations - they’re probably even

more repulsive than atheists at least to

most of us but religious dogma this

problem is exactly the same as the

story’s unbeliever blind certainty a

closed mindedness that amounts to an

imprisonment so total that the prisoner

doesn’t even know he’s locked up the

point here is that I think this is one

part of what teaching me how to think is

really supposed to mean to be just a

little less arrogant to have just a

little critical awareness about myself

and my certainties because a huge

percentage of stuff that I tend to be

automatically certain of is it turns out

totally wrong and deluded I have learned

this the hard way as I predict you

graduates will - here is just one

example of the total wrongness of

something I tend to be automatically

sure everything in my own immediate

experience supports my deep belief that

I am the absolute center of the universe

the realist most vivid and important

person in existence we rarely talk about

this sort of natural basic

self-centeredness because it’s so

socially repulsive but it’s pretty much

the same for all of us it is our default

setting hardwired into our boards at

birth think about it there is no

experience you have had that you are not

at the absolute center of the world as

you experience it is there in front of

you or behind you to the 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 you somehow

but your own are so immediate urgent

real please don’t worry that I’m getting

ready to lecture you about compassion or

other directedness or all the so-called

virtues

this is not a matter of virtue it’s a

matter of my choosing to do the work of

somehow altering or getting free of my

natural hard-wired default setting which

is to be deeply and literally

self-centered and to see and interpret

everything through this lens of self

people who can adjust their natural

default setting this way are often

described as being well adjusted which I

suggest to you is not an accidental term

given the triumphant academic setting

here an obvious question is how much of

this work of adjusting our default

setting involves actual knowledge or

intellect this question gets very tricky

probably the most dangerous thing about

an academic education at least in my own

case is that it enables my tendency to

over intellectualized stuff to get lost

in abstract arguments inside my head

instead of simply paying attention to

what’s going on right in front of me

paying attention to what is going on

inside me as I’m sure you guys know by

now 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 cliche

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 cliche about quote the

mind being an excellent servant but a

terrible master this like many cliches

soul a man done exciting 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

dad long before they pull the trigger

and I submit that this is what the real

no 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 into

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

by way of example let’s say it’s an

average adult day and you get up in the

morning go to your challenging

white-collar college graduate job and

you work hard for eight or ten hours and

at the end of the day you’re tired and

somewhat stressed and all you want is to

go home and have a good supper and maybe

unwind for an hour and then hit the sack

early because of course you have to get

up the next day and do it all again but

then you remember there’s no food at

home you haven’t had time to shop this

week because of your challenging job and

so now after work you have to get in

your car and drive to the supermarket

it’s the end of a workday and the

traffic is apt to be very bad so getting

to the store takes way longer than it

should and when you finally get there

the supermarket is very crowded because

of course it’s the time of day when all

the other people with jobs should also

try to squeeze in some grocery shopping

and the store is hideously fluorescently

lit and infused with soul-killing music

or corporate pop and it’s pretty much

the last place you want to be but you

can’t just get in and quickly out you

have to wander all over the huge overlit

stores confusing aisles to find the

stuff you want and you have to maneuver

your junky cart through all these other

tired hurried people with carts

etc etc cutting stuff out because this

is a long ceremony and eventually you

get all your supper supplies except now

it turns out there aren’t enough

checkout lanes open even though it’s the

end of the day rush so the checkout line

is incredibly long which is stupid and

infuriating but you can’t take your

frustration out on the frantic lady

working the register who has overworked

at a job whose daily tedium and

meaninglessness surpasses the

imagination of any of us here at a

prestigious College but anyway you

finally get to the checkout lines front

and you pay for your food and get told

to have a nice day in a voice that is

the absolute voice of death and then you

have to take your creepy flimsy plastic

bags of groceries in your card with the

one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly

to the left all the way out through the

crowded bumpy literary parking lot and

then you have to drive all the way home

through slow heavy SUV intensive

rush-hour traffic etc etc everyone here

has done this of course but it hasn’t

yet been part of you graduates actual

life routine day after week after month

after year but it will be and many more

dreary annoying seemingly meaningless

routines besides but that is not the

point the point is that petty

frustrating crap like this is exactly

where the work of choosing is going to

come in because the traffic jams and

crowded aisles and long checkout lines

give me time to think and if I don’t

make a conscious decision about how to

think and what to pay attention to I’m

going to be pissed and miserable every

time I have to shop because my natural

default setting is the certainty that

situations like this are really all

about me about my hungriness and my

fatigue and my desire to just get home

and it’s going to seem for all the world

like everybody else is just in my way

and who are all these people in my way

and look at how repulsive most of them

are and how stupid and cow alike and

dead-eyed and non-human they seem in the

checkout line or at how annoying and

rude it is that people are talking

loudly on cell phones in the middle of

the line and look at how deeply

personally unfair this is

or of course if I’m in a more socially

conscious liberal arts form of my

default setting I can spend time in the

end of the day traffic being disgusted

about all the huge stupid lane blocking

SUVs and Hummers and v12 pickup trucks

burning their wasteful selfish 40 gallon

tanks of gas and I can dwell on the fact

that the patriotic or religious bumper

stickers always seem to be on the

biggest most disgustingly selfish

vehicles driven by the ugliest this is

an example of how not to think the

biggest most disgustingly selfish

vehicles driven by the ugliest most

inconsiderate and aggressive drivers and

I can think about how our children’s

children will despise us for wasting all

the futures fuel and probably screwing

up the climate and how spoiled and

stupid and selfish and disgusting we all

are and how modern consumer these

consumer society just sucks and so on

and so forth you get the idea if I

choose to think this way in the store

and on the freeway fine lots of us do

except say thinking this way tends to be

so easy and automatic that it doesn’t

have to be a choice it is my natural

default setting it’s the automatic way

that I experience the boring frustrating

crowded parts of adult life when I’m

operating on the automatic unconscious

belief that I am the center of the world

and that my immediate needs and feelings

are what should determine the world’s

priorities the thing is that of course

there are totally different ways to

think about these kinds of situations in

this traffic all these vehicles stuck

and idling in my way it’s not impossible

that some of these people in SUVs have

been in horrible auto accidents in the

past and now find driving so terrifying

that their therapist is 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 way 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 iron and that some of

these people probably have much harder

more tedious or painful lives than I do

again please don’t think I’m giving you

moral advice or that I’m saying you’re

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 will won’t it but most

days if you’re aware enough to give

yourself a choice you can choose to look

differently at this fad dead-eyed over

made-up lady who just screamed and 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 her husband who’s dying of bone

cancer or maybe this very lady is the

low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles

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 who and what is really

important if you want to operate on your

default setting then you like me

probably won’t consider possibilities

that aren’t annoying and miserable but

if you’ve really learned how to think

how to pay attention then you will know

you have 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

lit 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 going to try to see it this I

submit is the freedom of 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 via JC

or Allah be it Yahweh 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 own 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

plant you on one level we all know this

stuff already it’s been codified as

myths

proverbs cliches epigrams parables the

skeleton of every great story the whole

trick is keeping the truth upfront 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 look the insidious thing about these

forms of worship is not that they’re

evil or sinful it is that they are

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 this

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 on the fuel of fear and

anger and frustration and craving and

the worship of self our own present

culture has harnessed these forces in

ways that have yielded extraordinary

wealth and

and personal freedom the freedom all to

be lords of our own 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 talked about much in the great

outside world of wanting and achieving

and displaying 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 little 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 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 cliche

turns out to be true your education

really is the job of a lifetime edit

commences now I wish way more than

[Applause]

you