
In “This is Water,” by David Foster Wallace, Wallace delivers a commencement speech to a graduating college class that is about to enter the real world. Throughout the speech, Wallace gives many useful pieces of advice and life lessons that he wants the graduating class to take with them into the real world. The intention of the speech was to be inspirational, so it would give a new perspective on life and how to approach the real world. After Wallace committed suicide in 2008, the speech is interpreted in a whole new manner. Every single word was a cry for help and in 2005, when the speech was given, there were many problems in society. In relations to that, Eva Illouz published an article examining self-help and its effects on emotional life that could have potentially helped out Wallace. David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech in regards to his biography leads to a darker interpretation of “This is Water” and the cultural environment in which he lived in because of his devastating suicide, indirect hinting of his suicide, inability to follow his own advice, and current problems of American culture at the time.

David Foster Wallace’s suicide has created a whole new view on his commencement speech, “This is Water.” After reading the speech, many people interpreted it as a moving life lessons reflection, but people soon began to find out that he committed suicide. The thought of an individual creating so much hope and new outlooks on life, and then just ending it all was devastating to hear. Wallace was able to change the perceptions of people and made people appreciate life more, but unfortunately he was not able to do this for himself. In American society, a problem people face is when things are not going their way, people tend to give up. In Eva Illouz’s article, she provides examples of how self-help instead of clinical help would of been way more beneficial to a man like David Foster Wallace. His depression was partially influenced by the cultural problems that were going on in our society. This being said, if Wallace would have been able to use the tactics of self-help to get the help that he needed, and not let the current cultural environment get the best of him, Wallace could possibly still be with us today.

When Wallace performed this speech in 2005 for the graduating class of Kenyon College, the speech really impacted many people and created people to have new outlooks on life. This being said, three years after he gave this speech, Wallace committed suicide and allowed the text to have a whole new interpretation. Ironically speaking Wallace stated, “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger” (XIII). When Wallace wrote this, people must have read over it and just thought “that is a good way to put it,” but really Wallace was dead long before he even wrote this speech. When writing this, many people did not pick us on Wallace’s indirect hinting and looked to him for his wisdom. When Wallace gave out advice, when people looked passed it and didn’t consider or ask him about his struggles. 

The whole purpose of the commencement speech was for Wallace to open the eyes of many individuals on how to approach life and it really has. Many people gained priceless advice and life lessons, that some will practice in their daily lives. But, with some of the advice that he gave in the commencement speech, he was unable to feel fulfillment in his personal life. This makes his advice less valuable because it is hard to listen to advice if the person who says it does not follow along. Speaking of that, Wallace states “The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness—awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep remind ourselves, over and over: “This is water, this is water” (XVII). Being an inspirational speaker, you need to live by the advice that you provide. Wallace was unable to do so and the speech originally gave people a sense of hope, but after people found out that he committed suicide, people started to lose hope. Wallace told the reader that they needed to stay conscious and alive in the real world. Unfortunately, Wallace was unable to do so because he could not handle the real world anymore.  

Considering that he wrote this and could not even live by this, how are people supposed to live by it then. 

In American culture today, many people struggle to come to the conclusion of “life is not fair, get used to it.” Because of this idea, many people will start something and if things are not going their way, they will give up and blame something else. Wallace conceivably did this because after giving the world all of this hope and life lessons that people started to carry on to their lives, he just felt that was not enough and ended it all. This was a very unfortunate example of how if things do not go your way, you just give up. Considering this, Wallace gave out some pretty good advice about making the most of your life, but he was able to do this. He gave out advice excessively, which is very easy to do, but if you do that, you need to live by that advice. Wallace states, “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day” (XVI). Wallace was unable to follow this piece of advice and many more of his own because he said the freedom that we are given should be displayed with attention for others, awareness about others, and discipline. He was not able to show the attention to others and did not even think about how others would react to the fact that he will never be around again. In today’s society many people struggle to do this because they think everyone should just be giving them the attention. Wallace even got the attention and honor then many dream about and he threw that all away.

The article, “Saving the Modern Soul : Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help” by Eva Illouz deals with the corruption of society and the hundreds of problems that are going on. “Saving the Modern Soul” is very ironic in comparison to David Foster Wallace because Wallace killed himself from the corrupted society that we live in. Wallace also had depression and that made him make that decision. By reading this article, he would have been able to get a new approach on how to deal with his problems. It was also published the same year that he committed suicide so it could have been partially an analysis on him. The culture that we live in could benefit from this because the therapy and self-help is what many people in our society need. “The most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about” (X). Wallace wanted to leave everyone with the thought of it is hard to see what is actually going on in our society and he did everything in his willpower to be able to do that.

In conclusion, the life lessons that David Foster Wallace has showed us needs to be heard by the American society because this influential man had the potential for so much and let it slip away by ending it all. Wallace was looked at as a role model and his words of wisdom influenced many Americans. Unfortunately, he was unable to live by his own advice, and that led to his own demise. Wallace lived in an environment where he was praised, but in a society that had many problems of its own. The American Culture tends to have many problems arise at certain occasions, but a couple of them were what David Foster Wallace struggled with. Wallace struggled with depression, and that limited his ability to completely understand the current dynamics of society. When he wrote his commencement speech, one could tell his ability to understand what was going on in society. His values and attitude towards the world gave many people hope and aspired people to make a difference and be different, but his wise words need to be heard even more now. His own ability to influence society by a couple pieces of writing is remarkable and if we are able to put to use what he has said in his speeches and follow through, we would be able to shape our society into the bright eyes of Wallace’s and leave us better off in the future.
