“This is water,” is a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. The speech uses dark imagery, vocabulary and diction patterns throughout the speech to let the college graduates of Kenyan college know that the world will not be what they want it to be, but by using their education and trying to be better everyday they will be able to make the best of this crazy world.

Foster opens the speech by telling the story of two fish going about their day when they run into an older fish who passes by and says “Morning boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish continue to swim along and not long after one fish looks at the others and says, “What the hell is water?” Wallace’s use of personification here is great. It is clear that he is relating the young fish in the water to young adults in college today. Like the fish not knowing that their world is made up of water, many young adults have no clue what the realities of life actually are. Foster continues on that he is no wise old fish but simply someone who is willing to tell young adults the truth of the world they are entering no matter how tough they may be.

Soon after we see Wallace begin to speak of himself and the self centeredness of all humans. He continues this pattern of speaking about how we as individuals need to be better. We must steer away from this idea of consumerism and self centeredness and think of those around us. Wallace has no intention of lecturing the students, but to merely give an example of what he does daily to be a better person, “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” (Wallace). The most important part of this statement is Wallaces use of the word “Choose.” We all have the ability to choose how we are going to act and treat others. He wants us to choose to be better for the common good of our world. Another interesting claim that Wallace brings up is ones ability to go trough their life on “default-setting.” Default setting can be described as the base or natural setting of something with no changes being made. When it comes to ones “default-setting” Wallace gives a few examples of situations when ones “default-setting” is used. In one example, Wallace gives the example of the absolute worst trip to the super market that anyone could ever imagine; Kids, blocking is aisles, hurried people with karts, Soul-killing corporate pop music and awful lighting. Wallace wants you to realize that in a situation like this ones natural tendency is to think about themselves and their own hungriness and tiredness, but this is not how we have to look at it. We have to evolve our default setting so to navigate awful daily activities and no view them as awful daily activities and by doing so we are being better and that’s for the greater good.

Another way in which Wallace gets the meaning of him speech across is through imagery. By using dark imagery like “I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved 

and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid god-damn people” (Wallace). By using this type of language Wallace is creating a picture in our heads of the misery that he faces on a day-to-day basis and that this is the misery that awaits us all in life. Another use of this dark imagery Wallace describes what it is like to be sitting in a traffic jam behind lane blocking SUVs, and v12 pick-up trucks wasting gas and all of the religious and patriotic bumper stickers tat just piss him off and so on. Again, this use of dark imagery paints a picture in your mind of that is just sad. No one likes to be stuck in traffic, but to give the absolute worst possible scenario makes it just that much worse. This use of imagery draws a sad picture for those upcoming graduates, but one that is a reality that Wallace believes they should prepare themselves for.

A pattern used through the speech is the idea of “learning how to think.” Wallace wants everyone to realize that yes, life can really suck, and that’s just the way it is. On the other hand he wants you to know that you can, through education and constant awareness you can always be learning and applying what you’ve learned to different situations. By constantly teaching ones self how to learn we are opening up our mind to evaluate situations differently and this is good. We want to steer away from that “default-setting,” and open ourselves up to seeing those traffic jams and awful grocery store trips in a different light. By seeing things differently we are teaching ourselves that we do not always have to see traffic jams and trips to the grocery store as our hell, but maybe think of them in a more relaxed and “could always be worse” mindset. 

Overall, it is clear to see that Wallace gives a speech many students and faculty did not see coming, but it was one of truth and reality to him. Through this speech Wallace uses language, patterns and imagery to describe the real world to these graduates and wants them all to realize that they have a choice in this world and that they can choose to better themselves and hope to better those around them or choose not to and live life in a “default-setting.” 
