Friday, March 23, 2018
Gone Too Soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
Listen to Wallace’s speech and read the transcript again. Please articulate what you believe is the main point that Wallace tries to convey to the graduates. In your answer, you may, of course, write about more than one of the ideas that Wallace uses to help him make his point. Do you agree or disagree with what Wallace says? Be sure to use examples that are not taken from the speech to support your agreement or disagreement.
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Life is something we try to figure out the entire time we live it. We constantly ask the question, “What is the purpose of life?” In Wallace’s speech to a group of college graduates he tries to convey to them some of the “secrets” of life. One of the first things he talks about is our natural default setting. We make everything we experience revolve around us. We do this with the big things, like going through a tragedy, to even small things, like getting stuck in traffic or having to shop in a crowded grocery store. We think about how tired WE are and how WE want to get home so that WE can put up our feet and relax. We are a self centered society, but when you think about it this, what we need or want to do, it’s easy to get wrapped up in this focus-on-yourself society. The key is, as Wallace tells us, is to imagine other people in a worse situation than yourself. Sure, this isn’t easy and sometimes you may imagine a very unlikely situation. He talks about thinking a man who cuts him off in traffic trying to get his sick child to the hospital. Sure, if this man’s daughter was that sick he probably would have called the ambulance, but either way, it’s a situation worse than your own which helps create sympathy, which in turn takes focus away from yourself and what you want. This kind of compassion can be hard, for all of us. He even admits that it isn’t easy for himself and he gets trapped in this type of society as well. One of my favorite points he talked about was belief and worship. Everyone worships something. Now you can argue that atheists don’t worship anything because they don’t have a religious belief. But even us, as Catholics who believe in God, can find ourselves worshipping something or someone who isn’t a religious figure. Money, power, technology, yourself, all things people worship. Part of what defines you is what you worship. Worship money and you’re seen as greedy, technology and you’re seen as smart, yourself and you’re seen as self-centered. And maybe this is who you are, but maybe it’s a small perception of you that others are taking in. They are seeing that single story and judging the person you are based on one aspect of your life. The life you’re just trying to live, and figure out along the way.
ReplyDeleteYou made a very good point about his point about revolving the world around you own problems. He speaks of this the most and I agree about the part of being self centered.
DeleteI liked how you talked about our self centered society, I wrote about that as well. I don’t quite understand the part about the man calling an ambulance.
DeleteAwareness is a fickle thing. It requires a rare degree of true consciousness many, including myself, would believe themselves incapable of. It requires a relocation of focus and of self. It requires a prolific understanding of more. It requires attention. On May 21, 2005, David Foster Wallace delivered his memorable, profound commencement speech “This is Water”. In this particular piece, one which Wallace himself only addressed as the “big scary” one, David Foster Wallace manages to persuade his audience of the values of awareness, connection, and a number of other varying themes of significant philosophical and social relevance. He achieves this with the delicacy required, intricately and successfully balancing both humor and gravity with a combination of quips, anecdotes, hypotheticals, questions, and, perhaps greatest of all, a strong undercurrent of integrity. Perhaps most prevalent is Wallace’s emphasis on empathy or, more accurately, the struggle to be sympathetic. Throughout, Wallace gives examples of situations in which one would fall short of the paradigm of empathy. He relays stories of routines and grocery stores and highways and pettiness with the exactitude of one who has experienced all of these rather human irritations. Wallace knows these to be expressions, experiences, and encounters familiar yet foreign to his audience of college graduates. And with that, he induces what can only be described as the shame of apathy. He makes the audience aware of its unawareness. He also identifies the root of this unawareness—self-centeredness. Wallace speaks of self-centeredness in what is perhaps the most literal interpretation possible; that is to say, we are all at the center of our own perspective, something that essentially cannot be severed from the human experience. This is where empathy and awareness intersect. It is impossible to be truly aware without empathy, and likewise, it is impossible to be truly empathetic without awareness. Somehow, Wallace manages to deliver all of this truth without ever lecturing his audience. He is not merely ‘spewing philosophy’ for the sake of appearing smart or interesting or, as Wallace himself would say, “well-adjusted”. He is aware that he is flawed and faulty in his own perceptions, yet the difference remains. Wallace is actively pursuing self-awareness and truth itself throughout “This is Water”. As odd as it may sound, to me, this work is strangely resonant and reminiscent of Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion. Both men suffered greatly with mental illness, and their pieces were reflective of that fact. Anno, much like Wallace, focused on themes of isolation, apathy, and selfishness without an emphasis on any sort of judgement. Neither feel preachy. Instead, they are living, breathing testaments of pain endured and questions left unanswered. To me, “This is Water” is an existential quandary, a soul-search, that is never truly resolved.
ReplyDeleteI like how you talk about him actively working on himself. It’s something we can all take away from this.
DeleteWhat truly is “thinking.” Many people portray it as how much math someone knows or how well their grades are, but Wallace’s opinion of what thinking means is much more probable. Wallace’s main meaning of the speech to the graduates is that the reason they went to college is to learn how to think. He clearly states not how much we think but what we think. Wallace explains to the graduates that the path most adults go down is what he calls the “default setting.” The default setting is when one thinks the world revolves around them and leads them into a lonely, stressful, and extremely boring life. I think this is very true about how many are led to think the world revolves around them. Wallace encourages them to get out of the default setting and think more. If you learn how to think you get to pick and choose your own situations. Then most of the time, these situations are what make you happy. Wallace encourages the graduates to be more open to thinking and less arrogant because the main meaning in life is to learn how to think and think how to learn. Wallace’s main repoint in the speech is the if you learn how to think and do not operate on the default setting you will earn real freedom which is love and consciousness. I agree with what Wallace says throughout the speech. I support his thoughts on thinking because people do think the world revolves around them including me. People do get caught in this default setting which leads them to be miserable. The suicide rate in the world is insane right now! The main reason people commit suicide is because they are miserable and bored, but if they knew what to think than it wouldn’t be like that. If you do learn what to think you will take time and construct meaning from things that make you happy or interest you. Many people are led into this situation where they do not enjoy what they do and as Wallace puts it “it is death long before it is actual death.”
ReplyDeleteI like when you talk about what leads people to be miserable. However, I don’t always think this is true. Sometimes there are other reasons people get to that place.
DeleteI agree about all of your points about thinking. Isn’t it amazing how much we can miss out on if we only think about ourselves? I liked your use of the word “default setting”, it really gives you a sense of how dangerous this bad thinking can do to your life.
DeleteI do agree with the part about worshiping these things making people miserable I think this is very true.
DeleteI think that the main point in which Wallace is trying to convey to graduates is that they need to open their minds, and see things out beyond what they already see. Many people choose to only see to the extent of what they can already see. He exclaims multiple times that you need to think and make choices beyond the choices that you make at default. Relying on making these default choices can lead to being unaware of what is actually real and essential to our lives. I agree with most of what Wallace says. The things he says about becoming aware before we see the reality of things I agree with mostly, but I do not agree that we are at the center of all of our experiences. Saying that you are the most important aspect of a single experience is almost self-centered. I also believe with the statement that everybody worships something, whether that something is an idol, a material object, money, or anything in that spectrum. These are also what he refers to as a default setting, relying on something material and not becoming aware or opening our minds to worship something meaningful, such as religion. In the speech written by Wallace, he says that the only way we can express freedom is by becoming aware, paying attention, becoming self disciplined, and putting in an effort to not rely on the defaults that we tend to rely on when there is nothing else visible to rely on. We rely on the things that we believe have meaning or not, but because we get to choose what has meaning, the things that we may rely on may not be the most efficient. We have the opportunity to make choices, but we need to be aware enough to realize that the choices that we make are fully conscious and in the best interest for ourselves. Overall, the main point of this speech is to prove that once you can become fully aware of the choices you make and the outcomes they have, you will become the best you that you can be.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of a commencement speech is to prepare graduates for the world ahead of them. In doing so, Wallace gives a candid explanation of the life most succumb to, a life of apathy and unawareness, a free yet enslaved world that most will complacently “swim through.” This analogy is core to conveying his view that, like fish, mankind mindlessly wander their surroundings, unaware of the complexities surrounding others, centered only on their individual pursuits. In other words, mankind are more disposed to suffer, silently, under a guise of short-lived elation, than to right themselves by pursuing a meaningful life. This is fundamentally true to human nature, and has become more apparent than ever before in the modern age. As Wallace puts it, this is our “default setting.” A setting that people default upon when challenges are thrown their way. Most will enter a state of apathy rather than confront the issue at hand, most will simply dub the matter as meaningless and unnecessary when, in fact, doing so only makes one’s life slightly more meaningless and unnecessary. Society is rife with examples of the inherent inability to free oneself of sin and sufferance. From rush hour on a busy highway, to interactions with others at a store, to completing menial activities at work or school, few will ever perceive such exchanges in a view contrary to their own unless one deliberately seeks to, or alters one’s default setting. People are free to choose whether to be free or enslaved. Unless this is recognized, those who are apathetic toward such radical understandings of the world will inevitably be chained to an aimless and unfulfilled life. Wallace addressed this clearly, but of the listeners nearly all will continue to live free as slaves.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of this speech is not to teach us “how to think”, but to teach us to control and practice how and what we think. He also states that it is up to us to decide how we see life and gain meaning from it. In the speech he also talks about how we are the center of every memory that we have. This is no doubt true because it is human nature to worry about how we feel all the time. Not only is this the way that our minds and bodies are “telling” us to feel, but in the media today the message being portrayed is this; if it feels good, do it! We have been taught, from media and from ourselves, to only think about our feelings, our problems, our issues, our hunger, our busy schedule, and our lives. Wallace uses the example of the grocery store scenario. In this story we can see a person who is having a pretty bad day, this person is only worried about how they feel and does not think about how the other people in the store, most likely are have the same feelings about him. Wallace then switches the story around and shows us how to think a different way. He acknowledges the feelings and potential lives of those other people in the story, thus showing us a different way to think. Wallace also addresses worshiping and atheism. I agree with the statement that there is no such thing as l not worshiping”. The fact of the matter is, is that everyone worship something or someone. For example, You might worship God, while your neighbor is an “atheist”, and worship money. No matter who we are, no matter where we live, and no matter where we come from, we all worship something or someone. Another point that Wallace touches on is the capital T-truth. In speaking about this, he explains that we get the choice to see life however we choose. We all have our own opinions and our own truths. There is no right way to think, but we need to construct out own way and do it well.
ReplyDeleteWhen people read Wallace’s speech they think he is too harsh, but if he wasn’t harsh would the point he is trying to make affect you? He doesn’t have a main point he mainly just talks have life without a set point. Wallace tells the college students listening to him give this speech that the world and the experiences they have while living here don’t revolve around them. He makes a good point when he says that all we think about is how WE are this and WE are that. We are tired, we had a bad day, we are hungry, we we we we, and he’s right you are like that and so am I. In his story about the grocery store he gives an instance of when a person goes to a grocery store after a long day of work. They are hungry and irritable and the only thing on their mind is getting their makings for dinner and rushing home. Once at the grocery store they realize that everyone is doing exactly the same thing, some even with little children who won’t listen and get in everyone’s way which makes the atmosphere even heavier. Then next comes the checkout line where a frantic cashier is STILL at work trying to get people home as soon as possible. Now the person in line starts getting mad, mad at the cashier, mad at the people in line, and mad at the world. Then they start to think; maybe these people in line have had bad days, maybe their family members are dying, maybe the cashier has been at school all day dealing with teachers who take things out on them and with students who make their lives miserable and now they are here dealing with cranky people like you. The person finally realizes that the world doesn’t revolve around them, other people have things going on too. This is what Wallace wants us and everyone else to realize, the world does not revolve around YOU. He also talks about how even if you don’t worship God you still worship something or someone whether it’s money, work, your mother, or an uncle. This tends to make people self centered and again makes them think about THEMSELVES. We all worship something no matter who you are. Wallace is admonishing his listeners for “crimes” that some of them have probably committed already and warning others about the future and things they will inevitably encounter. He doesn’t want them to make the same mistakes as their peers, but Wallace soon makes a mistake he kills him self weakening his point about revolving the world around your self and your troubles
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