It was a hot, sticky morning in Ohio back in 2005. David Foster Wallace stood in front of a bunch of graduating seniors at Kenyon College. He looked a bit out of place, maybe even a little tired. He didn't give them the usual "you can change the world" speech. Instead, he talked about fish. He talked about groceries. He talked about the soul-crushing reality of a traffic jam on a Tuesday. This speech, eventually known as This Is Water, has since become the unofficial manifesto for anyone trying to stay sane in the modern world.
The Most Obvious Realities are Often the Hardest to See
The core of This Is Water is a simple joke about two young fish swimming along. They pass an older fish who nods and says, "Morning, boys. How's the water?" The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually, one of them looks at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"
Wallace wasn't trying to be cute. He was making a point about our "default setting."
We all walk around as the center of our own universe. It’s hard not to. Everything you experience is through the lens of your eyes, your feelings, and your hunger. When someone cuts you off in traffic, your immediate, lizard-brain reaction is that they are an asshole who is personally impeding your progress. Wallace argues that the real value of an education—the kind these kids were just finishing—isn't about filling your head with facts. It's about the "simple" job of becoming conscious enough to choose what you pay attention to.
Honestly, most of us spend our lives on autopilot. We react. We don't act.
Escaping the Default Setting
Let’s talk about the grocery store. You know the vibe. You’ve worked a nine-hour day. You’re exhausted. You just want to go home and eat, but you realize you’re out of food. So you go to the supermarket. It’s crowded. The fluorescent lights are buzzing in that way that gives you a headache. The person in front of you in the express lane has twenty items.
Your default setting kicks in.
You start thinking about how unfair this is. You start judging the person in front of you. You think they’re selfish or stupid. This is what Wallace calls being "lord of your tiny skull-sized kingdom." It’s a miserable way to live. But the thing is, it's also a choice.
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Wallace suggests that "learning how to think" actually 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. You’ll be miserable.
Maybe that lady in the express lane has been up all night with a sick kid. Maybe the guy who just cut you off in traffic is trying to get to the hospital. You don't know. But the point is that you could imagine it.
The Worship Trap
One of the most famous parts of This Is Water is the section on worship. Wallace, who struggled deeply with his own demons, was very clear about this: In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
If you worship money and things—if they are where you tap meaning in life—then you will never have enough. You will never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.
On some level, we all know this. It’s the stuff of myths and proverbs. But the trick is keeping the truth in front of you in the daily mundane struggle.
Why We Keep Coming Back to David Foster Wallace
People still share the YouTube audio of this speech every single graduation season. Why? Because it’s not cynical. Wallace was a guy who knew about the dark stuff, but he was desperately trying to find a way to live a life that was "vivid" and "real."
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He wasn't suggesting some "The Secret" style positive thinking. He wasn't saying you should pretend everything is great. He was saying that the "real" freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
It is unimaginably hard to do this.
It takes effort. It's much easier to just be pissed off at the guy in the Hummer. But Wallace reminds us that "this is water." The most important realities are the ones that are all around us, all the time, hidden in plain sight.
The Tragedy Behind the Words
It’s impossible to talk about This Is Water without acknowledging that David Foster Wallace took his own life three years after giving this speech. Some people use this to dismiss his advice. They say, "Well, if he couldn't do it, why should I listen?"
That's a mistake.
If anything, the tragedy of his death makes the speech more vital. It shows that he wasn't speaking from a place of moral superiority. He was in the trenches. He knew exactly how heavy the "default setting" could be. He was writing a map for a territory he was struggling to navigate himself.
The speech is a plea for empathy—both for others and for ourselves.
How to Actually Practice This
If you want to take the lessons from This Is Water and actually use them, you have to start small. You can't just flip a switch and suddenly be a zen master of the checkout line.
- Catch the "Default" Early: When you feel that surge of irritation, just name it. "Oh, I'm in my default setting right now." Sometimes just acknowledging it takes the power away.
- Invent Better Stories: Since you don't know why people do what they do, you might as well invent a story that makes you feel less like a victim. It's not about being "right." It's about not being miserable.
- Acknowledge the Water: Take thirty seconds a day to look at something totally mundane—your faucet, the way the light hits the carpet, the sound of the wind—and just realize it exists.
- Stop Worshipping the Ego: Pay attention to when you are making yourself the protagonist of a tragedy. You’re usually just a background character in someone else’s.
Living a conscious life isn't about some big, dramatic change. It’s about the boring, daily work of choosing to see. It’s about realizing that the person who looks like they’re in your way is actually just another person trying to get through their day, just like you.
It’s about the water.
It's about the fact that you get to decide how you’re going to see the world. That is the only real freedom you have. It's not easy, and it's not always fun, but it's the only thing that keeps us from becoming the very things we hate.
Stay conscious. Keep your eyes open. Remember: This is water.
Actionable Insights for Daily Awareness
- The "Maybe" Exercise: Next time someone irritates you in public, force yourself to come up with three plausible, non-malicious reasons why they might be acting that way.
- Attention Audit: Identify one routine task (like washing dishes or walking to the car) where you usually zone out. Commit to being fully present during that task for one week.
- Worship Check-in: Ask yourself honestly: "What have I been seeking validation from this week?" If it's something external (likes, money, appearance), consciously shift your focus to a small act of service or a moment of genuine connection.