It always feels like you have more time when you are thinking about the present.  When a person does not focus on the present we fall into our daily routines.  We go about our way of doing things and also have a daily routine. People have set times that they wake up and do the same thing over and over. Most grown-up daily routine consists of eating breakfast going to work, picking up children from after school programs, and get ready for bed.  In this speech “This Is Water,” David Foster Wallace uses the themes of tradition vs. change and facing reality to suggest that as we grow up we fall into unconscious routines that hinder our chances at experiencing everything life has to offer.

David Foster Wallace implores his audience to accept change in spite of tradition.  Tradition is something that you don’t think about it’s just something you practice without thinking about it.  We fall into tradition because we were raised that way.  For example, when your parents woke you up for church on a Sunday.  Majority of the kids did not know what church was really about until one day until you thought to yourself why.  This is a tradition that your parents pushed on to you.  The author states “Learning how to think really means how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what we pay attention to and choose how you construct meaning from experience.  Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally housed.”  Learning how to think when you follow tradition is something you don’t think about, you just do it.  The author is saying as you grow up it is very hard to get away from tradition because you’ve been following it for so long.  When we follow tradition we are doing the total opposite of what the author wants us to do.  Tradition is doing to the same thing all the time and change is something new.  Change is different than tradition.  Although change can be bad, a lot of good can result from change.  Changes could result in new opportunities, new people, and new environment.  

By using the theme, the author uses tradition vs change to support his argument.  As a result of staying in tradition we may not able to be aware of missing out on experience, meeting new people, and open to new ways of thinking.  We fall into routines, but as the author suggests a change must occur in order for us to experience our life.  As the author states “But it’s pretty much the same for all of us.  It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth”.  The author is saying from birth we don’t tend to know what is going on, mainly because we don’t have a choice in what we do and how we behave.  In a way tradition affects all of us but the author realizes this and suggest that a change should be made.  

Just as change is not easily accomplished, neither is facing reality.  In order for a person to face reality he has to accept the facts, be aware of what’s going on, and understand that it is going to be challenging.  Facing reality is hard to do because most of the time it’s not what you want to hear and it is not something you want to do.  Another reason it is hard is that you have changes in your life without your consent.  When a person does not face reality they can go crazy, live in a fantasy world, and also hard to connect with the world around them.  “Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it.  Because it’s hard.  It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won’t be able to do it, or you just flat out won’t want to”.  Most people as kids was forc3ed to do what their parents tell them to, but as you get older if it was not something you want to do you wouldn’t do it.  Tradition is not easy to get away from knowing you have been doing this all your life. Facing reality is something everyone has to deal with because some changes you have to accept.  The author implies that he knows that facing reality is not an easy thing to do, some days will be harder than others and sometimes becoming somebody who you think you were is hard to grasp.  

As a result of facing reality it helps to experience the things we don’t want to face in our lives.  It also helps us not create a routine and as a result we come out better people that we thought we would be.  If someone continues to face reality they continue to be aware and that life changes. Also understand that life changes because of their awareness; they know it needs to happen.  “That is freedom.  That is being educated, and understanding how to think.  The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite things”.  We have freedom to not follow tradition because freedom allows us to choose.  Also, the author emphasizes that the result of not being aware can lead us to a chaotic routine of becoming an adult.  People have had to change the way they think because of the experiences they’ve had.

The author has a unique style in writing because he relates to readers, it is simple to understand, and uses humor to grab the attention of the reader.  As the author states “By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight to ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tried and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good super and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all over again”. The author really proves the point of a routine of an adult.  By reading the quote the daily routine of an adult is extremely done and also tiring.

As we are aware we do not follow routines, we do new things such as traveling and meeting new people.  The author proved the argument by using examples of the two themes to show that we fall into unconscious routines.  As a kid tradition was something that you had to follow because you did not have a choice.  As we get older if we are still following tradition you would not experience new things or meet new people.  The whole point of the speech is to show that we have to put ourselves in uncomfortable positions for change to happen.  Change is needed.  Facing reality is something we all have to deal with.  These themes help in understanding how our experiences are hindered.
