
Students being taught Liberal Arts Education are told to look deep into what they are reading and studying to determine the underlying meaning to them. In “This Is Water”, written by David Foster Wallace, he gives a commencement speech to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005 expressing his thoughts about looking at what is right in front of oneself and to not look so deep into something. He also elaborates on the idea that students are not going to school to become more knowledgeable about facts and figures, but rather to learn how to think. Wallace explains that by looking at the obvious things in life and encouraging students to be taught how to think they will be more aware of others, leading one to live the true adult life. 

The most obvious things in life are the most difficult to understand and acknowledge. In “This Is Water,” Wallace relates his argument back to a story about two fish, ‘“Morning boys. How’s the water?” 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?’” (Wallace, X). Wallace relates this fish story to real life advice because he is trying to come across the point that not everything in life needs to be looked at in every detail and one does not need to over intellectualize something, but to look at what is right there and state the obvious. The most evident important realities are usually the most difficult to accept. Intellectualization has been taken to a point where they don’t want readers to look at what the main point is, which should be obvious, but to explore into detail what the author has hidden in the text. Wallace is trying to reach out to these graduating seniors and teach them that education is there to teach one how to think and interpret information. The most obvious situations in life will usually be more grueling to think about and construe. 

Students should be going to school to be taught how to think, not to be filled up with knowledge. As Wallace got older he came to a deeper meaning of what “teaching oneself how to think” really is. “Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what someone thinks. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience” (Wallace XIII). Wallace is trying to get to the point that teaching oneself how to think should be an attempt to be a better person and not self-centered. Learning how to think is the ability to have control over one’s thoughts and what one believes to be is important. It is the ability to choose what one wants to pay attention to and to take in what has been learned from that experience. Living each day and learning from mistakes enables one to have the opportunity to reflect on their past, to better themselves for the future. Thinking about making the right choices rather than the wrong. Wallace spoke to these graduating seniors and preached that they need to teach themselves how to think and to look at what is right in front of them. 

Thinking less about oneself and being more aware and conscientious of others is another vital piece to Wallace’s commencement speech. He gave an example about adult life being boring, routine, and frustrating. Wallace’s reasoning behind this example was to get to the point of being more alert of one’s surroundings and to not be arrogant and self-centered, “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. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer” (Wallace, XV). Wallace explains that no matter what kind of day a person has had and how badly they want to get home because it has to be done all over again tomorrow, someone to the right or left of them is going through something worse. One person may be acting more arrogant or selfish and no matter how badly one would want to say something, they could have had an even worse day than another person has had. Take a second and consider all the possibilities of why that person may be acting that way. Do not jump to the first conclusion thought of because there are so many possibilities it could be. Learning how to pay attention to surroundings, will reveal other options. Wallace says that there is one universal truth behind this. It is an individual’s choice how to handle the situation. Either be the one who thinks of all the different scenarios of what could be happening in that person’s life, or choose to be the one to falsely accuse someone. This is the idea of real education--getting to decide what has an important meaning to it.

In “This Is Water,” written by David Foster Wallace, he comes to the conclusion that the most obvious things in life are the most difficult to see, and that students should be taught how to think. Making mistakes in life will help students determine what is important to them and what they think will be the most obvious answer to them. In the end, his speech was meant to give lifelong advice to these graduates to think twice before assuming the worse and to make sure they know what is important and meaningful to them. 