David Foster Wallace wrote "This Is Water" for a commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College.  Wallace was supposed to talk about the meaning of a liberal arts degree and explain how there is more value in the degree than just the high paying job that comes with it after you graduate.  Throughout the speech Wallace states that the most valuable thing that comes from a liberal arts degree is that it teaches you how to think.  More specifically, I believe that Wallace wanted us to interpret this as learning how to think positively about the negative incidents we are faced with in our everyday lives and use those experiences in a positive way so that we don't fall victim to our own negative, selfish default way of thinking that prevents us from enjoying life.

In paragraph 7 on lines 1 through 14, Wallace first shows us how not thinking positively about the negative incidents can make us miserable by using the example of the boredom and repetitiveness of the life of an adult and how much damage it does to one's mind.  "The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes 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 food-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-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here 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 unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid god-damn people."  He describes in detail how some of the things that the routine adult day consists of, like getting up for a hard job, long grocery shopping lines and endless bumper to bumper traffic can make us think in our default state.  In this default state we are so caught up in trying to solve our own needs that we view everybody else as a roadblock that ultimately prevents us from getting where we want to go.  When we repeat our daily routine and we think this way, then we will be frustrated or simply in a bad mood all of the time.

This is where I believe Wallace wants us to get his message of thinking differently or positively so that we are not disheartened for the rest of our existence.  In paragraph 10 on lines 5 through 13, Wallace illustrates the importance of conditioning ourselves to think positively when these situations present themselves.  "But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made lady who just screamed at her little child 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 Dept. who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish 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 on 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, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. 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, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things."  This quote proves that Wallace encourages us to view life more as an optimist because if we do think like this then our most annoying moments in life become more productive and less tedious.

In paragraph 14 on lines 1 through 10, Wallace explains that water is symbolic of the process of trying to think positively throughout each boring repetitive day of our life.  He uses water because with life, it is always around us in plain sight and we, as humans, just have to keep treading through life while remaining confident, hopeful and positive.  We are compelled to keep pushing on.  "I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon.  None of this is 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 making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness   awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, 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, day in and day out."

In conclusion, If we listen and interpret the message that Wallace is trying to teach us in the right way and coach ourselves how to think positively in the moment, regardless of how hard it may be, we will be able to get through the annoying parts of life without feeling like we are drowning.  This is the purpose of his speech and this is water. 

