1 min read

What the hell is water?

What the hell is water?
Photo by Ahmed Hasan / Unsplash

There are a few things I return to over and over again.

David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement address to Kenyon college is one of them.

Two to three times a year, I queue up his full 22 minute address and remind myself of what type of water I'm swimming in.

Below is a shorter, 9-minute clip (if you're reading this on email, click the VIEW ONLINE -> button just below the title).

"If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable.

But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are 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 made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down."

This is all just water - but we get the benefit of choosing where and how we want to swim.

Enjoy,
J