Influential author, Professor at Pomona College, CA
Commencement Address at Kenyon College, 2005
In 2005, the late David Foster Wallace, a celebrated author known for his groundbreaking novel "Infinite Jest," addressed the community at Kenyon College. His visit provided students and faculty with a unique opportunity to engage with his literary insights, delve into his complex narratives, and explore the creative process behind his distinctive style of storytelling.
10 top life lessons by David Foster Wallace
- The Importance of Perspective: The story of the young fish not recognizing the water teaches us that the most obvious and important realities are often the hardest to see and talk about.
- The True Value of a Liberal Arts Education: A liberal arts education isn’t just about acquiring knowledge; it’s about learning how to think and, more importantly, choosing what to think about.
- Avoiding Arrogance: We should aim to be less arrogant and more open to different perspectives and interpretations. Being too certain in our beliefs can blind us to the truth.
- Exercising Control Over Your Thoughts: Learning to think means learning how to control what you pay attention to and how you construct meaning from your experiences. It’s about choosing your mental focus.
- The Danger of Over-Intellectualization: Don’t get lost in abstract thinking; stay alert and attentive to what’s happening in the present moment.
- The Freedom of a Real Education: Real education provides the freedom to consciously decide what has meaning in life, rather than defaulting to unconscious, self-centered patterns of thought.
- The Choice of What to Worship: We all worship something, whether it’s money, beauty, power, or intellect. Choosing what to worship is crucial, as the wrong choices can lead to dissatisfaction and suffering.
- Real Freedom Involves Sacrifice and Awareness: True freedom involves being aware, caring for others, and making sacrifices for their well-being. It’s about understanding the value of simple, everyday awareness.
- Life Before Death: The real value of education lies in understanding the world before death, appreciating the ordinary, and finding meaning in the everyday experiences.
- Education as a Lifelong Journey: Education isn’t limited to the classroom; it’s an ongoing process that continues throughout life. Stay conscious and alive in the adult world every day.
Best quotes of David Foster Wallace‘s speech
"""Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."" ""The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about."" "Video of David Foster Wallace‘s Commencement speech at Kenyon College
“It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.”
Commencement speech transcript
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
… 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.”
“This is water.”
…
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realist, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. 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. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.
As I’m sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: 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. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
…
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.
Read the full commencement address »
Kenyon College
Gambier, OH
May 21, 2005