The video for the speech, “This is Water,” by David Foster Wallace, reveals the everyday routines of adults. The video is directed towards upcoming adults, whom are most likely very excited to start their lives as adults, but do not realize what the day to day life is really like. Through this video, he creates the argument that awareness of day-to-day life is what allows adults to continue their life everyday, even if it is a repetitive routine. Through this video, he also reveals how event the smartest of people may not have the awareness he refers to, but if you were privileged with an education, then you should be capable of obtaining this awareness.

The video begins with a zoomed in view of fish in a fishbowl with a white background behind them. The viewer can barely even tell that the fish are in water. This allows the viewers to notice that the fish are unaware of the surroundings. The fish are a symbol for adults in our society. Wallace creates a relationship between the fish and adults with this fishbowl, because adults are just as unaware of their surroundings, as the fish are.  He continues on by explaining how adult’s lives consists of a routine that is repeated everyday. To accompany his speech, the video repeatedly shows clips of hundreds of cars driving on the highway. The images of these cars are blurred as the drive, which reveals how adults drive this route every day to work but they never slow down to think about what is going on around them. They are only thinking about getting themselves to work or home from work. They most likely misconceive what the other drivers on the road are thinking. 

Wallace then provides the viewers with an example of adults in a grocery store after work. The video is from the view of a shopper, which allows them to see what its like to be aimlessly walking through a crowded grocery store after a long day. Once again, most shoppers are only thinking about getting home. The visual also includes common sounds that you would hear while in the grocery store. For instance, the sound of the cashier scanning items is played over and over again. The scanning noise starts out close together, but then speed up. This reveals the repetitiveness of the grocery store at this time of day. It makes it an almost dreadful experience. He also uses the squeaking sound of the shopping cart wheels, and points out that something like this is what would annoy people who only think about themselves. If people only think about themselves, then little problems like this will bother them, because they are constantly only thinking about their own problems. If people were more aware of their surroundings, they would realize that there are bigger problems going on.

In addition, the video shows a mother moving slowing through the store with her son, who seems to be throwing a tantrum. Wallace believes that most people in the grocery store would find this annoying and question why the mother isn’t controlling her son. But, if adults were capable of having a different perspective on situations like this, then maybe they would think that maybe mother has been up for several nights caring for her sick husband, and is too tired to control her son, who we see continuously throwing a tantrum. At this point in the video, words in different colors and fonts begin to appear on the screen. The words reveal several different ideas of how adults think and how they should think. For instance, one visual was a man in line with his thoughts written out and revolving around his head. This clearly reveals that he is only thinking about himself.  Later, lines of all different colors also appear around one ladies head to reveal how she has several different pathways of thinking. Words and effects like this allow the viewer to realize what Wallace believes is important, which is that they are aware of what others could be going through.

The video then goes back to the cars on the highway, except now they are in slow motion. The slow motion reveals that Wallace wants people to take their time, consider other’s situations, and be aware of what’s going on around them. For instance, Wallace provides an example of someone driving a large SUV very slowly. Most adults would get very annoyed with the SUV very quickly, and not many would stop to think that maybe this driver had recently been in a horrific car accident. 

Lastly, the video concludes with a stack of books. Words slowly appear on the outside of the books. The words read, “the real value of a real education which has (almost) nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness.” The simplicity of this scene symbolizes how simple the thought of awareness is. The stack of books also symbolizes how awareness cannot be learned in books.  No matter how smart someone may be, they could always be oblivious to their surroundings. The final image of the video is the same fishbowl that the video started with, but this time the view is zoomed out. The zoomed out image of this fishbowl symbolizes how people need to see the bigger picture of things. The viewer is now aware that the fish are definitely in a fishbowl; they are aware of the fish’s surroundings, so now they should be aware of their own.
