In “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace, he displays his graduation speech, as a guest, in such way which is different from most speeches heard today. Unlike most speeches today, he wants the Kenyon College graduating class of 2005 to understand that everything up to this day is nothing until its put to use. And instead of telling the students of all the good that they have done, he is blunt with them in that what they are about to encounter is not easy and is a major challenge. The author wants students to realize that everything they’ve learned so far means nothing. Maybe they will use some of the actual knowledge given to them, but Wallace wants to prepare these soon to be graduates what the “real world” actually is before they are thrown out there with no turning back. He plans to aid these students in understanding what this life is, the many different things they will encounter along the way and how to handle difficulties when they are thrown at them. 

Wallace wants them to realize that the change they are about to go through is something they do not fully realize yet, but soon will when they jump out into the real world and start a career of their own. In his opening paragraph, he states, 

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet and older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘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?’(X).

This analogy of life is an example that they do not have any knowledge of what they are about to go through in the “real world.” His story of the two fish is an example which shows young people do not realize what they will go through until they actually stand face to face with it. Wallace uses the example of fish because fish live in water their entire life. They do not understand what it is because it is something they do not even think about and is merely part of living. This example relates back to students in the idea that they do not fully understand life yet. They have grown up in this world learning how to live under the influence of someone else, but do not realize what they are actually a part of or how to understand the world itself. The two fish keep swimming on for a bit then stop and realize they do not understand what it is they live in. The same relates back to students about to be on their own in that they need to understand they are not as smart as they believe to be. They are going to learn more truths over the next year than probably in their entire lives. The author later states, “The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” (X). This quote shows that not many people do not like to talk about the matter of life at hand. People are scared to explain what life actually is because for many people it is actually understood in a way they do not know how to explain too themselves which makes it difficult to teach others. Understanding what life actually is and what it means to them comes with experience and is something they do not truly understand until they have actually been out into the “real world.”

Wallace also wants students to understand what they will go through in this journey titled life. He uses the story of the religious man and the atheist man as one example of this (XI). He is showing them that in life they will meet many people, some they may agree with about certain topics and some they may not agree with. And since people have different views they are scared to say which one is right and stand up for what they believe.  He also states, “everything of my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in the world” (XI).  Everyone has this view. Everyone believes their opinion and what they believe is the absolute right truth because that’s their idea. They think that if they believe something then it should be right even if they are completely wrong. He tells students that eventually they will have a normal life, stating

By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again(XII).

This quote is an example of how routine one’s life will be. By going to work and doing the job that one worked hard and studied for all growing up, you just do that every day which to an extent will become greatly boring if it is not a job which is enjoyable. Once they get home if it is not something they enjoy they can become stressed and ruin the rest of the day after work which becomes something unenjoyable. 

Finally, Wallace wants students to understand how to handle what this “real world” throws at them and how to push through making life enjoyable and not that soul-killing life previously mentioned. He uses the example of the being in traffic to show that people hate being stuck in traffic, but the fact is that they might be just going to the store to get something (XIII). Others in the traffic might be trying to get to an emergency or just scared of getting in a terrible auto accident. He wants students to realize that the obstacles they are going through, there will always be others going through more urgent or worse situations than them. Yes, they may be in some of these terrible situations, but that’s a fact of life and once that is gone to realize that other people are going through the same or worse situations at a different time than them. Wallace mentions how you will end up having default settings of your everyday life and beliefs. He uses these as one of the more joyful examples in his speech. He says they will go through times when they are weak, afraid, smart, dumb, and a fraud. He wants students to learn that these are things everyone goes through which some may not be what they want at the time but are things to learn to be thankful for. These settings will cause frustration, but in the end it will all be because of self-worship(XVI).

All three of these main ideas Wallace gives them are real world scenarios that will actually happen one day will going through life. He uses real world stories and examples to show students what life is, what they will go through, and how to handle themselves through these situations thrown at them. He shows that many students listening to this speech think they know what life is but actually have no idea. He is not trying to scare them, but wishes to warn them of what is coming and how they should go about life in the “real world.”
