Students being taught a Liberal Arts Education are told to look deep into what they are reading and studying to determine the underlying meaning in a text. 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 not looking 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 uses examples throughout his commencement speech to reach out to the graduating students emphasizing his theme of teaching yourself and taking a closer look at the more important things in life before too late.  

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 get the point across that not everything in life needs to be analyzed so deeply, that they miss what is right in front of them. A major point to this story is to show that the most obvious, important things in life are usually the most difficult to accept. Wallace then stated, “If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I’d ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious,” (Wallace, XI) supporting his argument that it is never easy to look at the obvious. 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 matters in life are usually the more difficult to recognize because they are so visible, that people tend to look right past it. 

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 choose how you construct meaning from experience” (Wallace XIII). Wallace is trying to get to the point that teaching oneself how to think is the ability to have control over one’s thoughts and what one believes to be 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. 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 or self-centered. He states, “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 husband who is dying of bone cancer” (Wallace, XV). Wallace chose this particular example because he wanted to emphasize his theme of being less self-centered and more aware of the other people around. Nothing is worse than being the person who only cares about him or herself. Being a better Samaritan, and giving back to the community is all that is going to matter in the end. Wallace’s advice is the notion to becoming a better version of oneself.  His theme of being more aware of others and less self-centered is going to be a vital piece of advice that will help you throughout life. 

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. 
