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This is Water

submitted by randeepsamra
1 decade 1 year 7 months 2 weeks ago
In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn't become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we've ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.
This video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested. However, we encourage everyone to seek out the full speech (because, in this case, the book is definitely better than the movie).

31 Comments

articiansays...

This whole video feels like a passive aggressive “it’s okay to conform to your shitty reality” message. Very well done production, sure, but something I fundamentally disagree with. Our modern lives aren’t solely issues of acceptance and perspective. They are an issue of acting, forming and changing our shared reality to the betterment of our shared, personal existence. The guy who wrote this clearly had good intentions, but conveys a fundamental roll-over, accept-things-as-the-are message.

We can change our reality, and this makes no suggestion of that. Sure, most young peoples “default” is to grow frustrated with the tedium they find in day-to-day existence, but the answer isn’t entirely one of personal judgment. We can change all of this in many, many ways.

It’s healthy to consider that everyone around you feels the same way. No one is the center of the world. Everyone in it is just as important as you, but no more, and no less. You should fight for everyone around you just as hard as you fight for yourself.

This video was irritating and manipulative on several different levels.
Don’t buy into this.
Be a good human.
Change your environment for the passive-betterment of everyone.
If you hit a wall, find another way.

And if I have any personal grudge to add it’s this: certainly don’t be the waste of space who accepts the status quo, and then ostracizes those who reject it just because you too weak to do so.

poolcleanersays...

^ All well and good, but it's important not to define and judge people by our momentary interactions with them. I don't think he's saying "THE RAT RACE IS AMAZING AND YOU SHOULD ALWAYS ABIDE BY IT" but rather, when you're in a shitty moment, don't go with your default irrational bitch and moan.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Now you can define yourself and redefine yourself to better eliminate the negative qualities of the status quo, but the fact is, you're going to (metaphorically or not) stand in a line and it's up to you to define that experience.

I'm judged by my extreme nature every day. I sometimes get in peoples faces and challenge them with momentary awareness that they are an interactive object in my environment. It freaks em out, sometimes it makes em smile. Either case, I'm a weird fuckin' dude. The train of perception goes both ways.

Wildflower, don't judge the potted roses just because they judge you. Just challenge them. Add an interactive element. Peaceful, please. hahahahaha

articiansaid:

This whole video feels like a passive aggressive “it’s okay to conform to your shitty reality” message. Very well done production, sure, but something I fundamentally disagree with. Our modern lives aren’t solely issues of acceptance and perspective. They are an issue of acting, forming and changing our shared reality to the betterment of our shared, personal existence. The guy who wrote this clearly had good intentions, but conveys a fundamental roll-over, accept-things-as-the-are message.

We can change our reality, and this makes no suggestion of that. Sure, most young peoples “default” is to grow frustrated with the tedium they find in day-to-day existence, but the answer isn’t entirely one of personal judgment. We can change all of this in many, many ways.

It’s healthy to consider that everyone around you feels the same way. No one is the center of the world. Everyone in it is just as important as you, but no more, and no less. You should fight for everyone around you just as hard as you fight for yourself.

This video was irritating and manipulative on several different levels.
Don’t buy into this.
Be a good human.
Change your environment for the passive-betterment of everyone.
If you hit a wall, find another way.

And if I have any personal grudge to add it’s this: certainly don’t be the waste of space who accepts the status quo, and then ostracizes those who reject it just because you too weak to do so.

Asmosays...

I think you missed the point Artician, he emphasises multiple times that it's up to the individual to make the choice. If that choice is changing your environment, so be it. But when you cannot, or will not, change the environment, choose how you deal with it.

DuoJetsays...

Well said Artician. DFW's view of life was obviously colored by the depression that eventually led to his demise, and he mistakenly believed that everyone is so inclined.

And yes, do be a good human. Being stuck in traffic or standing exhausted in a grocery store line is a lot less painful if you're not a selfish, self-centered asshole.

SveNitoRsays...

I don't think DFW was saying to silently accept everything, just that in every moment you have the possibility to try to change how you think about that very moment. There is nothing depressive about this way of thinking. There are an infinite amount of ways to think about (and change) seemingly mundane tasks. Some ways are more enjoyable than others.

Certain parts of life will be boring, stressful, repetitive, anxiety inducing, and so on. A lot of things you can (more or less) change, others not. Every moment there is the potential to move from one's automatic default state to consciously choosing what to do and how to perceive what is happening.

My take on it, anyway.

DuoJetsaid:

Well said Artician. DFW's view of life was obviously colored by the depression that eventually led to his demise, and he mistakenly believed that everyone is so inclined.

And yes, do be a good human. Being stuck in traffic or standing exhausted in a grocery store line is a lot less painful if you're not a selfish, self-centered asshole.

siftbotsays...

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by RFlagg.

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