In 2005, David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College entitled “This is Water.” The speech was incredibly unique because commencement speeches are normally thought of as positive and inspiring, where as this speech was bleak and depressing. What starts out as a harmless anecdote about two young ignorant fish and a wise, old, advice-giving fish turns into a dark and depressing lecture. The point Wallace was trying to convey to those college graduates is that life is misery. He dives into extensive analogies and stories to show that life is simply one painful scenario after another. He discusses the misery in life through examples such as the grocery store, the disappointment of worship, and makes it seem nearly impossible to escape the endless misery of a person’s daily life. David Foster Wallace sees the world as a misery ridden place and conveys this view onto the young minds of the college graduates by discussing the numbing boredom of day to day life, the tendency to fall into the default setting, and the uselessness of religion.

One of the most powerful examples Wallace uses is his melancholy experience grocery shopping. “The store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out” (Wallace XIII). In this rant, Wallace goes into depth about how terrible the supermarket is. He uses descriptions like “soul-killing” and “hideously, fluorescently lit” about such a common activity like grocery shopping to show even the most everyday activities are their own version of hell. Prior to this, he describes a person’s job as an incessant distress and when they finally get out they have to go to the supermarket. He is trying to show that there is no escape to the misery that life causes, one simply goes from one pain to another. The smallest detail can drive one insane like the flimsy grocery bags and the voice of death from the checkout lady. An outlet that a great number of people have is their music. Wallace purposefully uses the word “muzak” for “music”, a common word used for the bad music played in supermarkets and elevators. He does this because even music, something that millions of people listen to for joy, can be ruined by corporate supermarkets. As if a miserable day job and a depressing trip to the store are not enough, then Wallace continues the tragedy as he describes the ride home from the supermarket. The parking lot is crowded, full of other people in the same mind numbing rut. Then out to the jam-packed highways with bumper to bumper traffic. “About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way.” (Wallace XIV). This quote shows the egotistical nature of people. He emphasizes “MY” because he is only worried about the struggles he is going through and has no concern with the guy next to him and how hungry he is. Wallace goes through all this pain and suffering at his job, at the store, and on the road. All he wants to do is get home and eat but he feels as if everyone else is in his way keeping him from happiness. 

A great number of people also receive comfort and happiness from religion. Wallace does not take off the boxing gloves when talking about worship. “If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life then you will never have enough” (Wallace XVI). Here he says whether it’s worship of a religion, worship of things, or worship of anything the follower will be left greatly disappointed. He explains that if worshipers of beauty and their body will always be disappointed in themselves. Those who worship money and things will never have enough. Worship, something that so many people rely on, also leads to disappointment and misery. Wallace is determined to make every single aspect of a person’s life another step towards misery. 

Towards the end of the speech, Wallace does give a glimpse of hope but then quickly crushes it by making it seem nearly impossible. “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day” (Wallace XVI). In these lines, Wallace emphasizes that, in order to be happy in the world, one must constantly put in effort to not give into the “default setting.” “They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing” (Wallace XVI). Here, he makes it seem so easy to slip back into the normality and misery. Wallace suggests that a person will not even notice being pulled back into the default setting, it will gradually just happen. At the end of the speech, Wallace wishes the graduates way more than luck because he knows they will need a lot more than luck to avoid misery. Unfortunately, a few years following the speech, Foster Wallace ended his own life. Wallace was unable to escape the endless misery of the day to day life and fell into that same default setting he warned the graduating class of 2005 about. 

In this commencement speech, Wallace is informing a group of positive, ready to get into the world college graduates of the misery and pain in the world. His description of the horrendous experience of grocery shopping, his pessimistic opinions on worship of both religions and material goods, and his almost impossible solution to being happy all convey his underlying message, misery. He describes the grocery store as a terrible, hellish place that is overcrowded, full of people that came from their miserable job. It has “muzak” not music that kills the joy of customers. Wallace tears into worship saying all it will bring is misery. No matter what a person chooses to worship, they will be left sorely disappointed and worse off than they began. Last, Wallace discusses how difficult it is to breakout of the “default setting” that daily life constantly pushes people down into. To be happy, it requires constant effort. Overall, David Foster Wallace wanted people to see the world as he saw it, a terrible, mind-numbing place where happiness is next to impossible and misery is customary. 
