In the article “This is Water”, David Wallace uses a variety of examples, casual language and metaphors to further his point. In the article, Wallace describes how people become absorbed in everyday life, which leads them to lose awareness of the moment. Specifically, Wallace uses casual language, examples of mundane life and worshiping to further his argument.

Wallace starts the article in a very interesting way, he uses a short story about two fish swimming along until they are asked “how’s the water?”. This prompts the two fish to respond “What the hell is water?”, this informal tone at the beginning of the article is peculiar, and fairly uncommon, however it gives the article an almost casual feeling. By using the words like hell, bullshit, and crap throughout the article it gives a conversation like tone and relates to real life. He uses these words which are often used to describe everyday life in order to contribute to the theme of his article.

Everyday life can be awful, everyone knows that, however Wallace uses this fact to help illustrate his topic. Wallace uses a few examples to describe the horrible, mundane, routine of an adult’s life. His first example describes how the average person may feel “tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home” (3); at the end of the day in order to insinuate that practically everyday you go to work and feel this way. He furthers this example by explaining the struggles of trying to go to the grocery store during rush hour traffic then waiting in a long line in the grocery store. He uses these examples to describe how people get consumed by everyday routine which takes their focus away from the smaller things in life. 

Today, people are always distracted, whether it is by a Tv, cell phone, tablet, etc., however Wallace sees something else that people are distracted by. Wallace describes how today worshiping often distracts people. People today will worship anything from money and power to appearance and intellect. These examples are used to illustrate how people are distracted everyday. When people focus on these things they take their eyes off of everyday life and will feel insignificant because greed is human nature and people can never get enough. 

Nearing the end of the article, Wallace starts to tie everything together. He describes how the real meaning of the article is about awareness. It is about getting old, “without wanting to shoot yourself in the head” (8). He uses this style of informal text to help illustrate everyday life and to portray a struggle people feel. He describes how hard it is to stay aware and focused in everyday life. 

By using a wide variety of examples and facts Wallace is able to connect with a bigger audience, while advancing the point of the article. An informal tone is used to connect to his audience and relate his article to real life. Wallace uses a wide variation of examples when describing how worshiping affects people. By doing this, he connects to a much larger demographic. In the article Wallace instead of describing what the topic is about at the beginning, he describes it at the very end. By doing this Wallace ties his entire article together, clarifying everything that he discussed. This allows the reader to create their own ideas about the topic of the text. Wallace successfully uses a casual tone, and a wide variety of examples to illustrate that people get absorbed in life and  lose awareness of the moment.