Throughout his commencement speech, titled “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace assesses the value of a liberal arts degree. Essentially he is trying to rewire the brains of this particular graduating class to think in a new way. We live a life full of freedom, but how are we supposed to actually live, if we don’t know what that freedom entails? That is the question David Foster Wallace answers in his commencement address. He starts out in paragraph one, by telling a story about “two young fish swimming along”. After having sat in an auditorium at a graduation ceremony, waiting anxiously for a speaker to wrap up his or her speech, it is so easy to look past this parable in general. But in reality, the parable used is the point that David Foster Wallace is trying to get across. He argues that there is much more value to a degree than any material payoff. He wants these eager graduates to go into the world and see it for what it actually is, rather than simply swimming along.  He says, “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” (Page 1, Wallace). Wallace understands that none of this is easy, and even tries to apologize, however, he is teaching the value of freedom that most people generally ignore because we have never had to acknowledge it. Yes, we live in a country that is free by law, however, we are enslaved by societies demands that we are actually not living a life of freedom at all. Wallace says, “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” (Page 2, Wallace). We go about life oblivious to the fact that true freedom is at our fingertips, we just have to put in the effort to grasp it. When David Foster Wallace mentions the “fish” and “the water” for a second time, he is trying to make us understand that it is easy to not be aware of your surroundings and swim along anyways, however, what is the point of living a life that you are not aware of (Wallace).  

David Foster Wallace then uses the example that you are the center of your own universe, and how it is not our fault that we think this way because we are pre-wired to do so, it is our “default setting” (Wallace). He starts to repeat himself by saying, “The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor” (Page 3, Wallace). We never feel the need to think about other people’s thoughts and feelings because they are rarely communicated to us (Wallace). He says, “It’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self” (Page 3, Wallace). He uses the term free in relation to freedom because you essentially have to let go of the life that you know in order to become free and true to yourself. He then goes back to assessing the value of a liberal arts degree when he says, “… an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect” (Page 4, Wallace). It all comes down to freedom, and having the choice to think. He says, “… learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed” (Page 4, Wallace). He is saying that having the freedom to choose to learn, and choose to think is the value of a degree, not the degree itself. Because if you ignore this freedom, all that you have worked for and the life that you are about to start will be for nothing.  

Also, on page 4, Wallace describes what we all presume to be “real life”, or “day in and day out” (Wallace). When he mentions “an average adult day”, you begin to realize how truly easy it is to get so caught up in your own world that you don’t care about anything else going on around you and how mind-blowingly frustrating it is when people try to get in your way (Wallace). However, that is what Wallace wants you to avoid. He wants you to be free in the sense that you have the power and ability to escape your own reality and take into account the realities of the people around you; altering your “default setting”. David Foster Wallace uses repetition multiple times to get his point of freedom across. He says, “And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and danger and frustration and craving and worship of self” (Page 9, Wallace). He is referencing how our current culture emphasizes the importance of money and wealth and materialistic items, and how easy it is to worship those things and live in your own world where you only have to worry about yourself instead of believing in something greater and having to worry about others. His point is that you can still have freedom if you change the way you have been living your whole life (Wallace). In order to have freedom, you have to try and do the opposite of what you know to be your default setting and become aware and conscious of “the great outside world” (Wallace). 

Wallace understands that what he is trying to get you to see is not easy, when you have lived your whole life hidden from freedom that is right in front of you. He is referencing your “default setting” when he says, “Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It’s the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities” (Page 6, Wallace). However, in order to change, you need to start somewhere. Because this is a relatively impossible task, most days, you will need to force yourself to consider the possibility that everyone else living in the “adult world”, that the people living “day in and day out”, are just as bored and frustrated as you, and probably have life way worse than you could even begin to imagine. Wallace says, “It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won’t be able to do it, or you just flat out won’t want to” (Page 7, Wallace). He then says, “If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really want to learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options” (Page 7, Wallace). It will be up to you to see something as valuable and beautiful, instead of what simply lies on the surface. And once you are able to accomplish this task, you have begun to live a life of freedom. 

Living this life of freedom won’t just come naturally to you, unfortunately the only thing that does come naturally is living your life according to your “default setting”. However, that is the easy road, and nothing worthwhile ever comes easy. David Foster Wallace says, “The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to see it. This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship” (Page 8, Wallace). Either you will worship a society that praises materialistic items and get so caught up in your “default setting” that you simply can’t see the other lives happening right before your very eyes, or you will choose to live a life of freedom and become a little less arrogant, and a little more self-aware. When Wallace mentions “The capital-T Truth”, he is saying how you need to start living your life before it is too late (Wallace). He says, “The real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time” (Page 9, Wallace). He goes on to mention that it is nearly impossible to be aware in a world that makes it so easy to get caught up in. However, this is the point of freedom. He says, “I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away.” (Page 9, Wallace). If this was easy, the world would be a world that none of us recognize as our own. He is trying to say that life isn’t about Dr. Seuss’s, “Oh The Places You’ll Go”, but rather life is about the nasty truth. It isn’t always sunshine and daisies which is why it is so important to be conscious and aware of the people and surroundings that are a part of our everyday lives, because if we aren’t it can be detrimental to society. Finally, he says, “That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing” (Page 9, Wallace). That is a freedom that every single person should strive for. 
