David Foster Wallace was an American novelist and a short story writer who was born in Ithaca in New York in the United States. He is remembered for novels such as Infinite Jest and other non-fiction magazine pieces that have been termed as maddening and dense. He is remembered as among the best writers of his time and who eventually committed suicide after battling with depression for more than 20 years. The ethos approach essentially considers the credibility and trustworthiness of the speaker. By his excellent track record he comes out as a credible person. David Wallace gave a commencement speech to the graduating class of Kenyan college that is quite different from what would be expected of a ‘normal’ commencement speech that are usually filled with congratulatory messages and hurray’s for the graduating students. It was full of intricate and tragic pathos but at the same time was the deeply educating. The wisdom of the speech will always be remembered as it gave the students the harsh realities of the life they were about to start as adults.
At the start of his address to the graduating class of Kenyon College in 2005, David Foster gave a short story about two young fish and an older fish. This applies the pathos approach whereby one appeals to the emotions of the audience. This short illustration gives an opening that demonstrates the need for the students to be always aware of their surroundings. It is true that most students leave school expecting the same naïve and enclosed world as the one they left in school which can be quite frustrating for them. He also makes a point of stating the importance of his first lesson to them through the speech by stating that, “but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance”. This is the story that sets the whole theme of the whole speech.
The purpose of his speech to them is to inform the students to move away from the thinking that they are the absolute center of the universe. This is the logos approach. It appeals to the logic. It shows them that everyone has been set by default to be lovers of self and that although hard to do, even for him, it is possible to reset that system. That it is possible to look at other people and actually care for them as people. He refers to this as the real meaning of being well adjusted and insists that the term is not there by chance. One has a choice to focus on other people’s feelings and actually care about them. The world does not revolve around us and one need to consider what may be going on in the other people’s lives and care to understand. We all do need to be more considerate to each other and try to make each other’s lives livable and not miserable.
A note of sympathy can almost be noted in the speech where he actually feels sorry for the students because they have no idea or a clue about the day-to-day rat race that they were going to experience in their adult life. He gives an example in fine detail about a typical day for an average American and how hard it may seem and how easy it is to feel that the world owes you some peace. Because one feels that their feelings are more important, they fail to care about other people feelings because those people may actually be facing a tougher day. For example, the driver, who is annoying, that is weaving his way out of traffic may be trying to get his sick kid to hospital or worse. The petty unsexy sacrifices, David mentions, involve showing kindness and being aware of other people emotional state and situations. And he openly puts it that you actually have a choice. The obvious is all around to keep reminding yourself that ‘This is water. This is water’.
David Wallace in his speech states the meaning of learning how to think is different and in-depth from teaching how to think. It actually means being conscious about the choices we make in life which should be the purpose of real liberal arts education. How old clichés are actually meant to teach how to go through the adult life without being a slave to our heads and the natural default settings that humans have of being uniquely, completely, imposingly alone every day.
He talks about worship and enlightens them about the fact that everyone worships something, consciously or unconsciously. “There is no such thing as not worshipping.” He contributes the fact that whatever you worship will eat you alive. And he lightly warns the students about worship of material and tangible things. For example, if you worship power, you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. And the worst thing about worship, he continues to explain, is that it is unconscious and the world will not discourage you from such worship and expression of value to such things.
David Wallace was a deep thinker and he even states that education has taught him how to overanalyze everything. He says how he occasionally does not pay attention to the things that go on around him since he is constantly having monologues in his head about things and tendency to over-intellectualize stuff instead of paying attention to the things going on around him. He says that it is hard to stay alive and conscious and at the same time, even for him, to be able to do this. This could maybe the reason he committed suicide, maybe. It is clear from this speech that David Foster was a full of manic curiosity about life that made him always speculate real life issues deeply and in a different, deeper scope.
In conclusion, although this speech was different from the expected commencement speeches, it was necessary for the students to know what was really going to happen in their adult life after school. It was actually exactly what the students needed to hear as they prepared to ‘go out into the world’. He actually even acknowledges it himself that these are truths that students are not told in their commencement speeches. Although he insists several times that the speech is not a moral advice to the students, it actually does prove to be a moral advice for their new lives as adults.
Works Cited
Glasgow, R.D.V. The concept of water. Glasgow: R.Glasgow, 2009. Print.
Wallace, David Foster. This is water : some thoughts, delivered on a significant occasion, about living a compassionate life. New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2009. Print.
