Wh At The Hell Is Water Analysis

According to David Foster Wallace, our default setting is the way we perceive the world and our attitude towards our everyday life. The definition of default setting by Wallace is our self-centeredness perspective that we are born with from childhood all throughout death. As he said, “There is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of.” Wallace speaks of our default setting as a negative way of looking at the world and how we shouldn't look at it like that even though it is deep within our conscious and humans involuntarily use that kind of philosophy to live with throughout their lives. He also speaks of altering that hardwired type of thought and separating from it so we may be able to perceive and examine events …show more content…
He calls them “young fish.”As the story goes, the young fish meet an older fish and the older fish tells them “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” As the young fish continue swimming one of them says “Wh at the hell is water?” The reason for this short story is as he stated: “The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” Throughout his speech, Wallace shares his wisdom with the graduates about how they are able to escape from their default settings and find meaning in the most simple things in life. How the choices they make will have a negative or positive impact on them. And foremost, how thinking about others is important. I personally don't think Wallace is trying to turn their expectations on their head or follows our expectations. The point of his speech is to give them the awareness that they have a choice. A choice in everything in their lives. He’s not trying to persuade them but give them the option to choose what they want to believe in. Whether in what he said or in what they personally believe