About book Das Hier Ist Wasser/This Is Water. Gedanken Zu Einer Lebensführung Der Anteilnahme Vorgebracht Bei Einem Wichtigen Anlass (2009)
I thought this was a book of essays that simply INCLUDED the titular transcribed speech. But turns out it's a tiny (TINY!) book that contains ONLY the titular transcribed speech. Highly disappointing but I guess I would have figured it out if I'd done my homework. Still a 5-star book, but I would advise against buying it if you're interested. You can find the text duplicated all across the internet but the best way to go is to find the actual audio of DFW reading it at some college commencement (or something) because obviously that's better than reading it with your own stupid voice. Keep reminding yourself that "This is water This is water This is water" and you'll be okay :)This passage will serve as my review because no review could do this justice. "It is about the real value of a real education, which has nothing ot do with grades or degreees and everything to do with simple awareness- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: This is water. This is water." (131-133)If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important- if you want to operate on your default setting- then you, like me, probably will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars- compassion, love, the subsurface unity of all things. (91-93)"Learning how to think" really 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 or will not exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about the mind being “an excellent servant but a terrible master.” (53-55)It’s the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities. (83)
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Short and sweet, the commencement that we all wish we had.
—shoba
