
In the commencement address This is Water given by David Foster Wallace, he starts off with a parable of two young fish who are swimming in the ocean one day. Along the way, the two fish encounter an older fish who nods his head at them and says “Morning boys, hows the water?” (Wallace xiv) the two young fish swim on for a bit and eventually one turns to the other and says “What the hell is water?” This is a simple little gimmick to not only entice the audience, but also to slowly introduce this deep concept of innate self-centeredness and other similar flaws in society. He uses many anecdotes and real world scenarios like this one to get these points across. This paper will look to explore the concepts of self-centeredness, negative perception on the world, and our ability to not accept others by looking at his examples in his speech and analyzing them in depth.

The first didactic the reader sees DFW use has a direct message. Before telling the story he sets the scene for the reader. Two men are sitting together at a bar in the remote Alaskan Wilderness, one of the men is religious and the other is not. After a few drinks the men begin to argue over the existence of God. 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 the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.’" (XI) and the religious guy becomes very confused and says he must believe in God now because he is alive. The atheist replies "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp” (Wallace XI). The story ends here but one can only imagine what happened next. To the religious man that story backs up his idea that there is a God because he believed the Eskimos were God sent, however the atheist just believed it was simple coincidence. The takeaway of this little story is, “the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to different people.” (Wallace XI) it is important to become aware that different perceptions on the world are way more common than not and everyone constructs ideas and beliefs their own ways. The problem with society is not that we are diverse however, it is what David Foster Wallace calls “blind certainty” (XII) its the close mindedness that limits the brain to the point it does not know it is being limited. Wallace is calling the audience to liberate their minds because having it closed off makes you extremely arrogant. 

The next example he uses to teach comes from adulthood. Foster Wallace discusses the internal struggle all adults go through when the complete the infuriating but necessary tasks of adulthood. He specifically talks about grocery shopping and commuting in 5 o’clock, bumper to bumper traffic. Once he begins to just describe the horrendous process of going to the grocery store and buying food the reader’s brain is already bored. By the time he finishes talking about the miserable process and all of his negative thoughts he once again begins to teach the audience by saying “The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna 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 gonna be pissed and miserable every time I shop” (XIV) the point DFW makes comes with the “conscious decision” because it is so easy to let the mind travel and focus all thoughts on one’s self. Its humans instinct DFW says, “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” (XIV) this is where he shows us the innate selfishness of the human mind. Everything a person does is revolved their well being. The problem with this is that the humans begin to assume they are the only important one on the planet rather than becoming aware that everyone else is going through the same struggles or matter of fact, their problems are even worse. Again we see DFW preaching to the audience by instructing them to resist these innate thoughts of selfishness and self-centeredness by valuing others higher than valuing one’s self. 

Lastly, looking back to the first story of the two fish, DFW makes it clear to the audience that he is not the wise old fish in the story and that is not why he started with that anecdote. He explains the meaning of this story when he says, “the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about” (X). This meaning translates to the story of the fish because the young fish did not know what water (their source of breathing and life) was. The story is told with a witty/ironic tone that makes it easy to simply laugh at and quickly move past it, however it can be implied that that is not DFW intended. He more than likely used this parable in his introduction because it most accurately paints the picture of how most humans live their life now on a daily basis. Not only are most humans too stubborn and self-centered, but they are too consumed being the center of their own universe and being pissed off at whats going on around them to pick their head up and see all the blessings sitting around them.

This speech was an assessment of why a liberal arts degree carries far more weight than just the money received from a job. A liberal arts degree does not tell you what to think but how to think instead. That concept was repeated throughout the speech numerous times especially through his didactic stories and real world examples. He is practically begging the audience to rise up and change their mindsets to a more positive one. It can be implied that you do not have to have a liberal arts degree to achieve this either. But through positive reinforcement, and liberation of the mind, and change in perception, society can overcome these flaws.
