Almost every human being is guilty of thinking a certain way. Most individuals think in an automatic manner that puts themselves as the main focus of every situation they experience, instead of considering what others are experiencing. Usually, people are not even aware of the egocentric ways they think about their situations. David Foster Wallace exposes this manner of thought in his commencement speech to the class of 2005 at Kenyon College, “This is Water.” By looking at the fourth paragraph of his speech, we can see Wallace’s use of illustrating examples to convey his message that we are in complete control of the way we think, which is important because he is encouraging us to choose to look beyond our own experiences for once and to consider those around us.   

A main goal of Wallace’s speech is to make the listener aware that we often view ourselves as the focal point of our environments, yet we have the power to change this self-centered perception. Every day we follow our personal routines and experience everything from our own point of view, which makes it extremely easy for us to only consider our own perspectives. We seldom think from the perspectives of others because it is uncomfortable and unfamiliar for us to primarily consider what others are going through over what we are going through. Wallace expresses how people only consider their own perspectives by illustrating an example through a story between two men where one is lost in a blizzard, prays to God for help, then concludes that he ran into natives that showed him back to camp by chance, not because of a higher power. The other man was sure those natives were put in his path by God. Wallace points out the flaw in the two men’s stubborn personal interpretations of the same story: “But religious dogmatists’ problem is exactly the same as the story’s unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up” (XII).  Wallace interprets this example by explaining that the men face the same obstacle of being oblivious to the other’s interpretation of the story and they stubbornly see their sides only. He is shedding light on the fact that there is a choice that the men could make that would allow them to view the story from the other’s point of view. We have the power to make this same choice about the people we interact with each day. 

In this excerpt of the speech, Wallace uses figurative language to express how the people who think this way aren’t even aware of their own faults. Wallace describes the men’s close-mindedness through the metaphor: “an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up” (XII). Wallace compares the refusal of the men to consider each other’s interpretation of the story to being imprisoned. They are “locked up” (XII) due to their inability to open their minds to outlooks different than their own. Wallace utilizes this metaphor to illustrate the mistake of both the religious man and the nonreligious man, which is being “blindly certain” that the interpretation they derived from the story based on their own beliefs, is undoubtedly correct. By highlighting this issue between the adults, David Foster Wallace is exposing the majority of society that suffers from this problem, too, in hopes that the reader will choose to free themselves from the same imprisonment. 

The problem of the two men relate to the tendency of the greater population to only acknowledge their own perspective and not consider those of other people. Wallace lets the audience know that we have the authority to change this way of thinking that is so normal to us. We have the choice to put ourselves in the shoes of others and to consider their opinions and interpretations of the situations we share. It is important for people to do this because it allows them to have empathy for others, which is the way individuals understand what others are going through. Empathy is a crucial skill to have especially because relationships are such an important aspect of people’s lives. Every day we are interacting with hundreds if not thousands of people. We exchange encounters with the cashiers at the grocery store, our professors in class, the maintenance staff in our residence halls, and employees while shopping. We pass hundreds of people on the way to class that we don’t even know the names of let alone their background, childhood, family life, and past experiences. We do not know what they are going through at those moments or what they have gone through previously that has affected them today. It is important to consider situations from someone else’s point of view instead of being stuck in the one track mind we so often find ourselves in. David Foster Wallace is making the audience aware that we have this choice and the authority to choose to not be so self-centered all the time. It is vital for us to be able to view things from the perspectives of others because if we do not, we will never see beyond our own mindsets and we will never grow as people or as a society. 

Through the use of illustrating examples, David Foster Wallace supports the main point of his speech that people have the power to put others as the focal points of their experiences and situations. He shed light on the fact that humans automatically think a certain way, only perceiving themselves as the center of their environments. He relayed to the graduating class of 2005 at Kenyon College and to society in general that people have the choice to think differently. The population has the authority to become aware of the other people that surround them and to consider what they are experiencing. The example of the story between the two men and the metaphor describing their faults, exposes our own generation’s flaws and how the power is within ourselves to change our ways of thinking. 
