In the text “This Is Water” by David Foster Wallace, he uses a lot of examples and deep description throughout his speech to help you visualize the colloquial situations in which people tend to think more about themselves over others on the daily basis. Wallace basically says that we tend to put ourselves over others because of our “default-setting; which can be interpreted as being selfish & pessimistic. In “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace, the author uses point of view in different situations to illustrate instances in which we should be more aware, selfless, and optimistic; the opposite of our “default-setting”.

Further into the text, Wallace sets up a visual depiction of a typical person’s day. They get up for work for hours and then they want to go home but forgot they don’t have food at home. So then they have to go to the supermarket and buy food, but on the way there there’s a lot of traffic. On top of that, when you finally arrived to the supermarket, it’s swarmed with people and et cetera. The reason that David Foster Wallace puts us in the average person’s point of view is so that we can experience a situation in which our “default-setting” comes into effect. In this situation, it can be interpreted that our natural instinct is to get mad and upset because the person is constantly thinking about himself or herself and not the things going on around us that we can’t necessarily control. I also inferred that he wants us to believe that we should take into account other things before they get mad because we’re not fully aware of what the other person’s situation is. Another example is when David Foster Wallace was speaking on the “all the vehicles stopped and idling in my way” (Wallace XV).  He puts us in the point of view of other people when he says, “it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and maybe he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital.” He finishes that paragraph off by saying, “it is actually I who am in is HIS way” (Wallace XV). By putting us in the person driving the SUV’s point of view/perspective, we tend to get an optimistic view of what might actually may be happening in these situations & that we need to be selfless so that we can understand the different circumstances in the moment. David Foster Wallace is saying that in these situations, we don’t see what’s happening on the other side of the fence because we’re too busy worried about our selves, our emotions, our feelings that we don’t think outside of our “default-setting” and consider the reasons for other peoples’ actions. What he wants us to gain from this example is that we need to have keen insight on what’s going on before we assume what’s going on because of our “default-setting”. 

Further into the speech, Foster Wallace began talking about a “fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line” (Wallace XV). In this line, I inferred that the lady is probably tired but the average person’s “default-setting” doesn’t acknowledge that. The next line says, “Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer.”  In this case, nobody is really thinking of what else is happening in her life. At that moment, we’re just thinking of this lady yelling at this little, innocent child in a very belligerent manner. Everyone’s  “default-setting” doesn’t know that her husband is dying of cancer or that she’s the lady “who helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness” (Wallace XV).  We pay so much attention to our problems and ourselves that we don’t seem to think about the underlying issues that someone else may be faced with. We only pay attention to ourselves because we tend to be selfish and unconcerned about everyone else’s situations and circumstances.

I believe that the moral of David Foster Wallace commencement speech was to tell us that we should start being more aware, selfless, and more optimistic. Also, that we should put our self in the perspective of others so that we can understand everyday situations on a different level. Additionally, we should take from his speech that we need to think before we let our emotions show, and start to consider underlying things that are going on that we can’t control in our environment and the people around us. We need to get more out of our “default-setting” of being selfish & be more understanding. He wants us to think of the unthinkable so that we can be more apprehensive. He understands that we all are born selfish and all want more for ourselves but that we also need to be cognizant of other unstoppable factors that might have an effect on others before we get frustrated and upset.
