THIS IS WATER by David Foster Wallace

The speech has got to be the most prescient commencement speech in the dawn of our current Algorithmic Age. David vs. Goliath, quite literally, as STEM are defeating not only our minds but even our institutions. I was reading only a few weeks ago that the liberal arts college of Western Virginia University (the state's flagship) is being decimated. Liberals arts wanes.

Neal Stephenson once said, alluding to Ginsberg's Howl, "I saw the greatest minds of my generation writing spam filters for Google." A spam filter is a pretty innocuous thing, sure, but now these great minds have turned their attention to our own and they want to capture it, and thus our minds, and have us "destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked." Enterprise is to be made.

The speech communicates a belief that a liberal arts education's goal is to provide to control your attention in a world that's constantly trying to capture it. It's perhaps a mercy that he never lived to see the true monster lurking just around the corner. This is Water isn't a speech but a banzai.

This one is rather personal and rings…..True. I was in a rehabilitation center for several months. The first day I was allowed to leave I was asked by one of the other patients. What was I going to do today? I responded I’m going to find the meaning of life. Went to my local downtown library found this tiny book, was if the healing process begins when one differentiates the lies from the truth. Personal or otherwise. It was my first truth, I told, without any intention of lying.

My first video. You're too hot 🔥. Sorry for saying that first. But it's distracting, especially when it's as realistic to me as Wallace.

This is your first best look. This hair length (same as big books I love first video)

I just listened to this speech and it felt viscerally honest in a kind of unsettling manner. Really appreciate your discussion.

I had no idea he had these many published works! I only heard of IJ, a collection of essays and The Pale King (unfinished). I've been trying to complete IJ and failed thrice already (your IJ discussion is so beautiful btw) but I keep persisting. A reason for that is somewhere in this speech. I think there's a meaningful message in IJ (for me) which is getting lost in his stylistic choices but if I do complete it, the book will stay with me for a long time just like this speech will.

I do not agree that he was showing off or copying Pynchon (as many critics say). I believe he meant every word when he wrote about New Sincere. I want to complete IJ and The Pale King to read his perspective on entertainment vs banality in everyday life.

Gone too soon. I hope he found peace.

(As you mentioned in your IJ video, this is no apologia for his behavior in his personal life - in this case, I am able to separate the works from the artist)

I subscribed because I was afraid I might not find you again! Thanks for your thoughtful video!

I really appreciate that you shattered my first impression of you based on your appearance as someone who is not a deeply philosophical reader. And wow! You are a genuinely thoughtful scholar! Great survey of DFW’s work! You are very well spoken, and clearly well-rounded too!

Wow, I didn’t know they had made it into a hard cover. Now I have to get it. I think that speech has an unbelievable amount of truth shining through, just stunning. Coincidence, I happened to quote it at the end of my intro video to my Dante series, the part where he says that “we all worship, we just get to choose what to worship”. I am finishing Infinite Jest in these days. What an amazing, brilliant writer.

I love this speech, I have listened to it many times over the years. Found that same copy of the text at a goodwill for a buck-fifty, score DFW. score...

What lNTRP rating are you in tennis?

You, man are my new god after showing that you- like me- possess all DFW's books! A friend of mine introduced me to DFW 's work with "consider the lobster". Amazing. When david killed himself, this friend of mine was totally shocked because by reading his books, without knowing anything of his biography she said "a man who writes like this, he'll never commit suicide". I was expecting that, instead. For me he was right the type of human being that would have killed himself. I always read the biography of a writer before reading her/his books.

Hitchens would have a lot to say about DFW's atheist comment. And I'd have to agree with the former. Having said that, I love DFW. He's had quite an influence on my work. On a different note, let's not forget that DFW willingly embellished his essays to make them more interesting, as mentioned in his biography.

Nice vid. Wouldn't it be interesting to see footage of DFW playing tennis? I think he was a grinder