
“We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it is socially repulsive. It is our default setting, hardwired into our brains at birth.” (Introduction XII). The main point of Wallace’s speech was to explain to these graduates why their liberal arts education was important in the real world. While doing so he brought up what I believe to be the actual main point of the speech. Wallace argues that people are not innately narcissistic and judgmental but rather they are victims of this default setting that everyone is born with. 

Wallace describes this manner of thinking in a default setting in order to analyze the innate nature of humans that causes them to be shallow and narcissistic. This is easily depicted when Wallace states “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.” (Introduction XII). Wallace acknowledges and criticizes those who succumb to the familiar and deceptive “default setting”, while at the same time owning up to it (and establishing a little bit of ethos with his audience) by claiming that he has fell victim to the “default setting” as well. He clearly states this when he says “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.” (Introduction XIV - XV). When Wallace includes the anecdote about a day in the life of an adult, he is relating to the adults in the audience while also providing some horrifying insight for the graduates, but at the same time he is establish pathos by making the audience feel ashamed about the completely unnecessary and unjustified judgements people make all day every day.

Wallace uses the default setting to show how, as a species, our actions judgments and interactions are controlled by this instinctive tick. He is very nitpicky in his syntax, he could have chosen words such as instinct or habit, but that makes it seem as if we have a choice and are still choosing to be judgmental and shallow. No, by using the term “default setting” Wallace depicts how little freedom we have and how this innate nature is victimizing us as humans. This can be seen where Wallace states “Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever.” Wallace is explaining that it is not our fault that as a society we are so self-centered because you have never had an experience that wasn’t your own, and this has helped to strengthen the control that the default setting has over us. Wallace shows how frustration and mind-numbing the world can be when seen through eyes locked in the default setting. He depicts this by describing the daily routine in the life of an adult. “ 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 foodshop, 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?” (Introduction XIII). Wallace explains that he did not choose or want to think this way but in reality it just happened. While at the same time showing that anyone, not even himself, can stop themselves from falling victim to this default setting.

 Wallace then changes the purpose of the default setting from a limitation to a challenge, and by doing so he gave the graduates a meaning for their education that the cliché gods were pinning for. This can be seen where Wallace is pleading at the graduates, saying their liberal arts education (unknowingly) taught them “how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.” (Introduction XIII). When Wallace reverts back the used daily adult routine anecdote he is depicting that when the “default setting” is turned off these annoying and exhausting scenarios can be turned in actually social and beneficial interactions. He explains this when he says “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 up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line maybe she’s not usually like this.” (Introduction XV). He then explains what the world around you is like once the default setting is turned off. “Once you use the knowledge you have to turn off the default setting, 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 made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.” (Introduction XV). 

When Wallace brings up this idea of having a default setting of how to think, he is explaining to these graduates that their education has granted them with the skills to change this setting. This can be seen when Wallace recounts the fish and atheist anecdotes. “And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?" (Introduction X). Wallace then describes the story of the Atheist and the religious man at an Alaskan bar “Oh, 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 happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.” (Introduction XI). Through these anecdotes Wallace is revealing how people who think in this default setting are so close minded and stubborn that they are completely oblivious to the obvious truths around them. Wallace does not blame the fish for being so self-absorbed and unaware, just as he does not blame the atheist (as well as the religious man) for being so close minded. He is merely pointing out how they, as well as society has been affected by their victimization to the default setting. 

However he believes that we can change that. Wallace theorizes that if we are able to consciously make the decision to see the world for it truly is and to not be so close minded and narcissistic we will be able to break away from the choking, life-controlling grip of the default setting.