A brief reminder for those who have never encountered DFW before. A commencement speech. Three extraordinary rambling novels. And a collection of the finest short stories in the English language. All of which feature David's remarkable ability to turn the world on its side, and make you see it differently for the rest of your life.
It's so strange and refreshing to hear such a brilliant mind speak on such banal topics. And yet his point is remarkably clear and compelling. Lately I've been allowing myself to lord over others, to put them down when they clearly are in the wrong and to revel in it. I realize now that even if I'm right, I end up wrong. To not think about the various factors that go into a human mistake and to not empathize even with those that anger me is the blind certainty of self-righteousness he speaks of.
DFW was a thoughtful humanist of the highest order. I do in fact use "this is water" as a kind of mantra when I need to remind myself to be aware of what's in front of me. Thank you for posting this - the world needs to hear what DFW had to say.
I'm sorry to say that I too, was unaware of this man. But after hearing this speech it makes it so much more potent and sad that he too found himself unable to resist the hypnotism of his own thoughts. What a gift of this insight! I hope that he is truly resting in peace.
Thank you for putting this up. Absolutely inspirational, it'd be a miracle if the world raises a mind with such focused insight into humanity and the same caliber of honesty and sincerity as David Foster Wallace.
David Foster was so inspirational. I love his speech, it's beautiful and is entirely different from the other commencement speeches. I adore the way he talks about how other people are going through trouble too, you are not the only one. I love this because I am that way, I normally think "wow! that was rude, did you see what she just did?" Now, I'll think of this speech when I have a moment like that. I cannot believe that such a great man killed himself. Rest in peace David.
I've been quite involved with this text during the past few months, and I surely had the feeling to "know" it. But now, when I listened to DFWs voice, I had the impression to be able to hear how much he suffered from imperfection - his own and that of the world - and I was so much touched that I literally got tears in my eyes. How much we all have to try harder!
Yes, the ability to perceive others as making informed decisions, (maybe not the way you would), they are just the same mental-machine as you. They just happened to be a different shape, and from a different place and that is what shaped their choices in life. Never forget that everyone... everyone... is just one... just like you.
I wish I could have told him how many people adored him. How many people were inspired by him. So many people kill themselves with the feeling that they are not loved, not thought of. The fact that so many people watched this speech shows that is not true. Everyone is worshipped by someone. Theres always someone that will miss you when you are gone. Someone that will notice the changes. Everyone needs to find that person. I think there would be a lot less suicide if everyone had "that person"
There is hope, though. That's what we get to choose. What to pay attention to. I think he said it in the talk. We choose, consciously. And when our brains are telling us ugly lies, we can choose to wait, to stay our hands, to remember that life is more than the misery. We can choose to live.
I wish I'd heard this earlier. Captures beautifully the importance of not enslaving yourself to your unconscious and the inevitable unhappiness that it causes
its just too much..that WE dont deserve this. i think thats where david foster was and always was. that this speech was a reflection of his enlightenment... of a time of peace in his life that he surpassed this pessimism. i think he lurked in it for years and couldnt defeat it. i think this speech IS indeed a lecture. a lesson he is trying to teach us... "dont be like me" is what hes trying to say. i also felt like you @excuse1584 i wanted to talk to him. let him truly know that he was not alone
I too have battled with clinical depression, and as a philosophy major, I know form first hand experience that thinking deeply about meaning and existence can lead to questioning suicide. I dont think depression is a prerequisite to consider suicide, but it can certainly go hand and hand. To be or not to be? that is the question that all self actualized humans must eventually tackle.
everyone who feels like they can relate to what david wallace is saying has all felt this way. like they were the center of the universe...right? and sometimes youre so upset about something that you think "why is this happening to ME?" so sad that you delve into your mind and, because we people think similar to wallace, begin to get pessimistic about the littlest things that erk us (like the people in the store, the big cars etc etc) that in this dark and confusing place we may think
To the fish and the water we drink, this is water. But, in regards to what David is talking about, the climate of human consciousness, this is our water, in grave need of learning from. What else the collective made up of, but the sum of its individuals, which means it begins with the individual that is you, not the world around you. The grand dilemma of a platitude to save and change the world, including God.
8:17 The really important kind of 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 little unsexy ways every day
... It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch. - Tim Keller The Reason For God
half the people who tuned in to part 1 didn't bother with part 2. Some folks don't have the mind to hear this message. That's the irony. Those absorbed in default mode can't get through to hear this message.
In the spirit of this speech I owe you some love because goddamn this brought a tear to my eye. As angst ridden as the experience may be for you, it breaks my heart to know I can never shake your hand, have you sign my copy of Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, have answer what would most definitely be yet another awkward question following what would be yet more hyperbolic praise. Mad mad love, man. You shared your gift, and I am grateful.
Beautiful speech. It is our human nature to give meaning to life, but the problem is that our universe is completely meaningless, and day in, day out, we get confronted with the grand canyon-sized gap between our meaning and reality. We strive for company, compassion, becoming one with other people, but in the end, even after surrounding ourselves with partners, friends and family, after destroying our ego, we are still alone with our thoughts.
I found out about this speech 2day and I must say, it really impresses me. It makes me abit scared of the future, but at the same time hopeful bcause I got a reality check. As u say, I get a little frustrated about the public, the applause, ofcourse. But also, in alot of parts of the speech I hear laughter. Sometimes loud, which I don't understand. There is nothing funny bout this speech and nothing funny bout the message. I'm sitting here with my mouth wide open, listening, with a serious face.
In the words of Doug Stanhope, "...life is like a movie: if you've sat through more than half of it and it sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the very end for you and make it all worthwhile. No one should blame you for walking out early." In the more concise words of Doug Stanhope, "Life is like animal porn. It's not for everyone." RIP DFW
He lived his life challenging popular assumptions; once he ridiculed the clichéd notion that ‘we are born alone, and we die alone’: “Who is born alone? We are all born out of another living being, our mother. And she is elated at our appearance! I feel certain that death brings us to another point of warm arrival.” -THE SALMON CAFE, Lucien Zell
Really this must be the most impressive and relevant speeches to give to liberal art students. The misguided applause at 1:50 regarding Wallace's sarcastic anecdote about the big vehicles in traffic is a perfect reprentation of how many educated people tend to come off as elitist and smug in their judgement over other people. They must have felt a little embarassed when David pointed out that he was demonstrating how NOT to think.
You're right that we all may find a new thing to be bored, crushed by (eg hover crafts and life together in carpooling). But, that doesnt mean we shouldnt be solving the problems as they come. Right now life is screwed up in some specific ways, and we can solve those specific issues. New problems will arise, but they will be solvable too.
Imagine you are on a high cliff and you lose your footing and begin to fall. Just beside you is a branch sticking out of the edge of the cliff. It is your only hope and seems more than strong enough. How can it save you? If you’re certain the branch can support you, but you don’t actually reach out and grab it, you are lost. If instead your mind is filled with doubts and uncertainty that the branch can hold you, but you reach out and grab it anyway, you will be saved. Why? ...
because you subconsciously believed that the branch may be able to hold you even though you may have consciously thought that it may not. In other words you find your true self in that moment of death.. It strides forward and it reaches out
they laugh because they know EXACTLY what he's talking about... being frustrated in traffic or on line in a supermarket. the fact that they're laughing shows that he's got their attention. there are many jokes the speaker makes that are appropriate to laugh at.
Baudrillard once said- "everything in America has a laugh track to it. Except the news". Here we hear it too. They laugh at him and their own fate. Why? Because it's so, so far away from the Simulacrum of the American Society. And he laughs along with them. "It's funny 'cause it's true". A speech like this could either breed a morose, dead atmosphere full of depression, or laugh. At least, Americans are ready to laugh at their own fate, and that's something.
I think you may be missing the point that man always has been and always will be faced this same, core dilemma and challenge. If it wasn't cars that were in our way, it would be hovercraft. If we all carpooled, we'd be annoyed at others showing up late or making us late.
I really like him, definitely smart and inspired. Aside from him, I just want to say that once you are rooted into Christ, He takes care of the depression. You have hope.....in Him. Depression = without hope. Again, I am not focusing on David. He was a real genius. He would have been (if he already isn't) on of the greats
Curiously enough, I consider both of you to be right. Wallace has that kind of attitude in some of his work. He states something almost tragic. And he states it seriously. But we are so accustomed to such things being mentioned as irony and/or sarcasm that we automatically laugh.
@hushesthepuppies I don't think that's what he meant. I think he means to try to be the best version of yourself and to open your mind to new perspectives. And not just for a moment, but all the time, if you can.
I totally understand his suicide because he suffered from depression - especially if the people in his life didn't listen to what he said here, "The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad, petty little unsexy ways every day." Seriously depressed people have an illness that needs serious treatment. Please be aware and care for others and also yourself.
He suffered from depression and once his medication was causing problems (side effects and such) he got off of it and then the depression came back and after other treatments he had to go back on the medication and his depression just got worse and before his death he had severe depression so that was probably the cause.
Of course it's my subjective view. I don't wish to try to convince other people about this view, or try to prove it. Of course, I can give arguments, but in the end everyone has to figure out reality on his or her own. And I posted that view because I think that this gap between meaning and reality, is the cause of suffering and depression. Being aware of this all, as Wallace points out, could possibly lead to a certain control in our subconscious efforts of giving meaning to reality, I think.
BraveNewLife1, Do you know whether or not it would be legal to weave certain parts of this into a documentary film? (Who has, if anyone, the "rights" to it?) Thanks so much for the help.
"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so… because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’ can understand the jump." - INFINITE JEST
Don't you think it's interesting that he's saying that we get to decide how were going to see things, but he, like most people has difficulties doing this.
Re: his depression, I don't know what his personal life was like & don't mean to place any blame on anyone in his life. Clinical depression is one of the worst treated illnesses in the USA. If you are seriously depressed, it is next to impossible to find or even reach out for the help you need when you need it, especially if you feel you have to do it all alone. It's shameful some abnornal brain chemical levels are still such a stigma in today's society - all the more reason to heed his words!
and you sir are the personality type that bends to exactly what he says. By being completely self centered. But this is ok, because i do think that the reason you are like that and hate this is because you are afraid of change, afraid of changing how you think, by taking that plunge of "Maybe this person has a reason to be the way He/She is", You can completely change your outlook of life.
Well that's certainly a nice way to think about it. I'm not sure I agree, but it's still nice. You're obviously better at Wallace's way of thinking than me. Maybe I should ignore my assumptions and try to give the kids more credit.
I don't think it takes away from the message, but I was mildly amused by the fact that the uploader of this video selected specific statements for us to focus on and represent in text. But it's ok, I FREELY CHOSE to agree that they were important. :P
You're missing the point. His capital T truth is based in perception, which, at it's core, is all about the perceiver. Your perception of the grocery store says more about you than it does about the store.
I think the laughter was prompted by a sense of identification with these admittedly petty and judgemental thoughts of which we're all guilty from time to time. They knew that it was how not to think. It seemed more an acknowledgment of their own guilt, and amusement at the fact that they share these exact feelings with the speaker, than anything else.
I'm not sure if thats true. I'm not advising suicide, but it is an interesting concept when faced with the absurdity of life. I just dont know if we can ever give it a moral value, it is such a personal concept.
This is a funny and awesome speech, but it misses the point: that the boring, crushing parts of adult life are signs of how the world is screwed up. for example: Having a nice attitude while we all sit, 1 person per car, in never ending traffic misses the point that life is better together (car pool) vs our solitary bubbles that keep us lonely and bored, and that the choice to get a job in the city probably wasnt worth the few thousand extra dollars vs the 1000s of lost hours of life.
but what if my automatic default setting is to enjoy such petty banality at the store. To bathe in it's absurdity...wow, i think i might actually be a great person
I consider myself to be a fan of DFW, but I found this speech, in its strained attempt to deconstruct what he obviously considers to be the solipsistic mental prison of modern existence, a kind of (typcially post-modern) logical fallacy, in which his own inner psychological prison is depicted, his demons parading as if across the wall of Plato's cave. A great-ish and tragic figure, but it seems to me that he was missing some Nietzsche in his arsenal.
Sorry but the universe being completely meaningless isn't a set reality, it's just your subjective view of it. Just curious, I'm honestly not trying to jump down your throat with this question, but did you get that impression from his speech? Did I seriously miss out on something? Honest question.
It's sad that he choose to take his own life. It makes me wonder why someone as intelligent as DFW would consciously take such drastic actions. Makes you wonder if your crazy for not killing yourself. After all if some as in-tuned as DFW was taken by suicide what hope is there for the rest of us.
I think he already had it in his mind to preach Jesus to us without listening to what Wallace was saying. Ironically, Smith has such a sure view and judges others that would have a sure view of anything that isn't Jesus. What a coincidence an English speaker is Christian and not, say, Hindu!
Okay...that's not what I got from his speech at all. Do you really believe that it's one or the other? That you have to either accept the universe as meaningless or you end up suffering or depressed?
