5.21.2016

This is Water

Last weekend my grandson graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. While I didn’t attend any of the events, and there were a great many, I watched most of them on the commencement webcasts.

Here I was in Portland, Oregon, sitting comfortably in my warm apartment watching the goings-on, while everyone in Philadelphia was sitting outside, in a vast stadium, on a cold and windy day. Once again, the miracle of the Internet was at its best.

Lin Manuel Miranda was the invited commencement speaker. He spoke briefly, to my relief, emphasizing the importance of stories in one’s life. But his talk was by no means especially memorable.

The most indelible talk I’ve ever known about was delivered by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. I wrote about it soon thereafter. Here is what I said.

David Foster Wallace began his widely discussed and recently published (This is Water) commencement address at Kenyon College in May 2005 with a parable. In the parable two young fish happen to meet an older fish that says to them “How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on a bit until one says to the other “What the hell’s the water?”

Wallace writes: “The point of the story is that the most important, obvious realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.”

To the graduating students he says that the really significant education they have received isn’t “about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.” Later he added this 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.”

He says that in his experience the most dangerous consequence of an academic education is the tendency to “over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right of front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.” It’s the water parable again.

Much of the talk is a warning to the students about what adult life is really like. “Let’s get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in day out” really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about.”

Wallace then proceeded to unpack what that means. You get up, you go to work, you are there eight or ten hours, you are tired and exhausted and now you are stuck in traffic on the drive home, and then you have supper if you are lucky enough to have someone prepare it, otherwise you stop at the market and try to find something to eat and wait a while longer in the check out line, and get back on the freeway, where the traffic is as bad as it was when you got off, and then you try to unwind a bit after your lean cuisine, whereupon you hit the sack early because you have to get up early again the next day and go through it all again.

“Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn’t yet been part of you graduates actual life routine, day after week after month after year….The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in.”

“This I submit is the freedom of 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.”

For Wallace being educated is being able to recognize the importance of attention and awareness and discipline and he adds “being able to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty unsexy ways every day.” These are not our default settings. They have to be learned and the learning isn’t easy and it is readily forgotten in the midst of all the distractions that usually take control of our lives.

Wallace concludes that his remarks (“stuff”) isn’t your normal inspirational, optimistic, commencement speech. He reminds the students again that the real value of their education has little 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, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water.”

Even if his remarks are far from cheerful, they are pretty inspirational in my book. Even more, they are true. The audio version of his talk can be heard here

6 comments:

Linda said...

I've read Wallace's famous speech - what he said is inspirational and true and even more apropos to our current times. Deciding what has meaning is not easy - for me it has become almost a daily struggle - perhaps that is part of growing older and becoming more aware of time running out.

What is tragic about Wallace is that he gave up the struggle at such a young age - and I am not being judgmental at all, just sad that we lost such a wise voice too soon. I think some people, especially artists, are sensitive to "the water" to the point of pain and they are unable to anesthetize themselves with triviality like the two young fish and most of humanity.

Richard Katzev said...

Linda:
I am surprised to hear you have difficulty "deciding what has meaning." It seems such a simple matter today given the extreme polarization of our country and the vulgarization of so much life. The older I get, the simpler it gets, what is important is clearer than ever.

Yes, Wallace was a deeply troubled man and apparently when he stopped taking his anti-depressive medication, he lost it all.

Try reading Infinite Jest, if you haven't already. Wallace will be with you for a very long time once you start. I will start reading it soon.
Richard

Linda said...

I tried reading Infinite Jest a few years ago, but just could not stay with it. I need to try again.

Regarding deciding what has meaning, I think about activities and tasks that I do out of habit, things I've done for years, that take up significant chunks of time, things that people seem to expect me to continue doing - I am constantly weighing whether what I'm doing is a meaningful value add to my life (sounds selfish, doesn't it). But that's really a time and energy management problem, isn't it? Not "deciding what has meaning" in the larger sense.

A thought-provoking discussion, Richard.

Richard Katzev said...

Linda:
Give it another try, if you have time. And you don't have to finish it in one sitting. It might take a year or so.

Changing a long held habit is difficult but it can be done once you make a commitment to do so. Ditto for what people expect of you.

I am a solitary soul, so I don't have to worry about what others expect of me anymore. No, it's not selish to think of yourself after a long life of contributing to others.

There are so many things that constitute a meaningful life, you should have no trouble. Pick one, try it out, stay with it if it works, try another if it doesn't.
Richard

Shelly B said...

Very nice

Richard Katzev said...

Hi Shelly:

Just as nice to hear from you. I've always admired Wallace's commencement address. Hard to beat. How often we forget his message. Richard