My senior year of high school, my English class was gifted a commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave to the 2005 class of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio titled This Is Water to prepare us for our own impending graduation. Since then, I listen to it when I feel overwhelmed or need a little perspective; just before moving back to Belmont this semester, I had my parents listen to it with me as we began to pack up the car one final time. By the end, I felt at ease and ready to devour another year of college.
If this speech is foreign to you, its driving point explains how liberal arts schools are not necessarily set up to allow you a vast center of knowledge (which they can/do), but rather to teach their students what to think about. Wallace goes on to explain how each and every human has what he refers to as a “default setting”, or the idea that in our own minds, we are the center of the universe. To an extent, this is true—we are at the core of every single interaction we partake in—especially because as college students, we have not yet fully entered the adult world where tedium becomes inescapable at times. What he begs his audience to consider is to escape their own inner monologues and open up to different minds in a room. One of the best examples he gives of this in relation to diving back into the growing realm of different opinions that is Belmont has to do with an Atheist and a Christian having a conversation concerning the existence of God.
Trying to express his disbelief, the Atheist confides in the Christian his attempts at “trying out the whole God and prayer thing,” which includes a situation where he may have frozen to death in the Alaskan wilderness. He tells of how he dropped to his knees and prayed to God for a way to survive, and a couple of Eskimos happened to show up and pointed him to safety. Confused, the Christian questions how he couldn’t believe in God after that occurrence, to which the Atheist replies that he feels as if it were just by chance. After, Wallace describes how a liberal arts student can be taught to analyze this story and see how both sides have valid arguments. In the end, it is the blind certainty of each individual that hinders either of them from coming to a conclusion they can both agree on.
Being a self-proclaimed Christian Liberal Arts college causes Belmont University to do a creative little dance on a devastatingly thin line—while the university itself seems to handle it well, the real task is passing the same values on to students. In the wildfire age of social media, ideas are slung like half-hearted tomatoes out into the void; instantaneous responses fill up our inboxes, newsfeeds, and classrooms. This Is Water guides listeners to direct their thoughts beyond their own conscience, beyond their own immediate reactions. Students of all ages can learn from these suggestions, and learn to choose how to think, which is what Wallace pens as the liberal arts cliché that turns out to be absolutely, capital-T true. We can all leave our dorms in the morning thinking about how hot it is, how unbelievably inconsiderate skateboarders are, grumble over the cafeteria options or even wonder why we pay heaps of money we don’t have just to look decent on paper at a job interview—or we can decide to think differently.
Another application of this speech is in dealing with peers on a regular basis. After a summer of lounging around at home with mostly my parents, dog, and occasionally a friend or two, coming back to Nashville’s metropolitan antics and Belmont’s growing community is naturally bound to be a bit of a culture shock. I am never alone, just the same as most college students. However, by reminding myself of the complexities lying within each person I meet, I find a sense of comfort being lost in a crowd of stories and opinions I have the opportunity to encounter. Without them, I would be nothing more than I was the day before—and what a miserable cycle that would be.
In the upcoming year, I hope to experience countless new ideas and humans that will enhance my ability to think in a way conducive to my own goals: to grow into my own authentic self, and to bring out the best in others. Listening to David Foster Wallace support the type of education I choose to partake in daily makes me feel as if I made the right decision. Here is to another semester of reminding myself, “This is water. This is water.”
If you’d like to read this incredible commencement for yourself, you can find it here: