 
On May 21, 2005, David Foster Wallace gave his commencement speech, “This is water” to the graduating class at Kenyon College. Unlike the typical uplifting and inspirational speech, Foster has a more serious and somewhat depressing address. He gives the graduates his description of what the bleak and boring day to day life of an average adult is like. The story outlines a depressing and repetitive lifestyle of what he believes is the average day of a working adult. Wallace mentions how the character from his story runs of his “default setting”, which causes him to take an annoyed outlook on his situation. The overall message David Foster is trying to convey in his speech is that unless one consciously chooses to perceive life differently, then our natural default setting will cause us to view life miserably.

One of the main ideas Wallace tries to get across in his speech is that operating on our default setting can be dangerous. He starts by stating that our default setting as humans is to believe that we are the absolute center of the universe. “Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence” (Wallace xii). This idea is apparently hard-wired into our brains from birth and is how we automatically experience our world. Our natural instinct leads to us becoming annoyed whenever things do not go our way. We almost never take the time to think how other people experience things. Instead, we instantly interpret everything through our own self-lens and fail to break through our default-setting, leaving us annoyed and angry. 

In his speech, Wallace uses a grocery store scenario as a way to show us how our default setting works in an everyday situation. The story starts with an average day for a working adult out of college. David uses words like “challenging” and “stressed” to set up a very sad and depressing mood for the story. The story continues at the grocery store where we experience an even more gloomy and somewhat painful environment. “And the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be” (Wallace xiii). Wallace shows how our default setting makes us perceive the store as soul killing and overall the last place anyone would want to be. The grocery store story continues with a long frustrating checkout line and finally ending by being told “have a nice day” by what Wallace describes as the absolute voice of death. The point to this story is that this frustration and gloomy way we experience a boring task is just another natural default setting. When operating under our natural setting, we are forced to always be pissed off whenever faced with inconveniences.

Wallace uses the idea of unconsciousness to portray what our default setting really is. “It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life” (Wallace xv). He uses the word unconsciousness to show how our default setting is simply our unaware selves not thinking and acting purely on instinct. Wallace states in his speech that worship is a form of unconsciousness and how it is part of our default setting. “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” (Wallace xvi). Wallace explains how he believes worship can be dangerous because it ties us down and makes it harder to break free from our default setting. The point Wallace is trying to get across is that more unconscious we become, the stronger and more apparent our default setting becomes.

According to Wallace, in order to break free of our default setting, one must choose to become aware and conscious. “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them” (Wallace xvi). In this quote, Wallace explains how freedom from our default setting can be achieved by being aware and paying attention to the world around us. He states how awareness or, “capital T-Truth”, is what keeps us from losing consciousness and falling into our default setting. This awareness allows us to choose what we place significance and change our outlook on life. Rather than being mad and letting the little annoyances of life get to us, we can choose to perceive our situation differently and find happiness in everyday life.  

“This is Water” is a commencement speech like no other. Instead of being uplifting, David Foster told the graduates how through our default setting, day to day life after college can be miserable and unbearable. Wallace explains how our default setting causes us to believe we are the center of the universe. This idea causes us to become selfish and not consider other people’s problems. Another issue that is caused by our default setting is how we dealing with boring everyday encounters. Our natural instinct is to become irritated and stress when faced with inconvenience.  Wallace counter to our default setting and the overall main point he is trying to portray is that our default setting is unconsciousness and the only of avoiding it is fight to stay aware. Becoming aware and conscious of our situation and the world around us allows us to have a different outlook on life and potentially make the frustrating day to day routine a little more enjoyable.
 