“What the hell is water?” (Wallace X). Believe it or not, David Wallace isn’t talking about literal water, but actually about our surroundings and how the way we perceive the world around us affects our experiences. In “This is Water”, David Wallace uses story within a story, diction, and extended metaphor to explain that we should look at the things that are happening around us in a new light and to stop thinking that we are the center of the world.

David Wallace tells stories in his commencement address to help readers understand his main idea that every one of us experiences things differently and how our experiences can be affected by the way we interpret our surroundings. His first story within a story is about the two men arguing about the existence of God. The one man, an atheist, describes an experience where he cried to God for help after being stuck in a terrible blizzard. He then explains that two Eskimos passed by him and lead him back to safety. The other man, a believer, believes that the two Eskimos were God’s answer to the atheist’s cry for help, but the atheist thinks otherwise. Wallace uses this story as an example to show that people have different beliefs, which lead people to devise meanings from experiences differently. It is not about who is right or wrong, but about “the whole matter of arrogance” (Wallace XII) that we tend to have about our certainties and how being close-minded about our surroundings can affect how we experience things. Wallace then introduces another story about how dull a trip to the grocery store is and how irritating a traffic jam can be. “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 gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop” (Wallace XIV). Wallace calls our automatic, unconscious thinking our “default setting” (XIV). Instead of using our “default setting” to judge what’s going on around us, we should put in the effort to look at other options such as considering what other people might be going through and to stop thinking we are the center of the world.  For example, the “…fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line” (Wallace XV) could have been “…up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer” (Wallace XV). What we pay attention to and what we choose to think about can change our whole perspective on the experience. 

David Wallace’s diction throughout his speech is colloquial and makes the text more personal for the reader. He uses second person pronouns such as “you,” “your,” and “you’re,” which creates a conversational setting and makes readers think of how their own lives directly reflect to the text. He capitalizes the whole word for “you” and “your” to emphasize that we are indeed the center of every experience we have had. “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” (Wallace XII). He also does the same for the word “my” to emphasize that we tend to only care about our own immediate needs and not of others. “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” (Wallace XIV). Wallace chose “you” and “my” to stand out because the main idea of the text essentially ties into those two words. It is about the focus of one person and their tendency to only care about themselves.    

Wallace starts “This is Water” with an extended metaphor about three fish. The older fish asks the two younger fish how the water is, but the younger fish have no idea what water is. We represent the two younger fish. This extended metaphor relates to the larger message that we are not aware enough of our surroundings just like how the fish are unaware of the water they live in. Wallace says, “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.’ (XVII). The word “water” is the key term in this extended metaphor. “Water” is the surroundings. It is everything that goes on around us, yet we are so blind to it. This leads back to our “default setting” that our self-centeredness has prevented us from seeing the most obvious actualities of life. 

David Wallace’s “This is Water” reveals the truth of how most people live their lives: self-centered and unknowingly. For us, the things that are the most obvious and in plain sight can be the most difficult to see. He uses stories to give real life examples of instances or situations we could encounter and how we can interpret them in different ways. Wallace utilizes his diction to highlight important words that represent main ideas and also uses the extended metaphor at the beginning of the text to ultimately describe the fault in our “default setting.” As Wallace says, “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day” (XVI).
