This article is part of a series of blog posts entitled, “What’s Xenium Reading?” To find out more about this series, click here. This week’s post features Allison Julander, Marketing Assistant at Xenium.
I first learned of David Foster Wallace via a friend of mine who several years ago accomplished the awe-inspiring feat of finishing the most well-known of DFW’s writings, Infinite Jest, in just ten weeks. Intrigued by what my friend had to say about it, I chose to start smaller with This Is Water, and I’ve since also read two of his essay collections.
One of my favorite things about David Foster Wallace is his ability to communicate meaningful, eye-opening, brilliant observations about the world in an entirely accessible, down-to-earth manner—laced with humor and self-awareness all throughout. This is Water is no exception, and, in my opinion, the most perfect initial foray into DFW’s works for any reader.
This is Water is a transcript of a graduation speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College, a small liberal arts university in Ohio, in 2005. In the speech, he stresses the importance of acting and thinking with compassion throughout our day-to-day lives.
He begins by discussing belief templates and choice, and how everyone—truly, everyone—lives under the single most basic, fundamental assumption we all share: that the world revolves around each of us. This statement sounds childish and silly, and the crowd at the graduation ceremony can be heard chuckling at this pronouncement when DFW utters it in the audio recording of the speech, but he determinedly goes on to illuminate how basic and true this is, that how even our literal perception of the world—so limited to what we can see with our own eyes—reinforces this. There’s an inherent arrogance in everyone, and it’s an uncomfortable and unappealing truth we choose to avoid talking about or paying much attention to.
DFW’s primary point is that we should pay attention, both to the fact that automatic, hardwired, selfish assumptions about the world exist within us all, as well as the fact that we have an opportunity to think and live according to a different assumption. The alternative he illuminates is choosing to do the work of noticing more of what’s going on outside our own minds, of empathizing, of constantly, constantly, constantly reminding ourselves of the reality of other people’s experiences, struggles, and perspectives—lives just as full and real as our own.
What I appreciate so much about this speech is how universal the message is. It truly begs to be applied to every area of life, both personal and professional. Attempting to better understand another’s experience and perspective is such a big-picture, empathetic, non-self-centered way of thinking and imagining. I believe that striving to keep such a message in mind allows for better understanding and respect of other people and more easily allows us to recognize that we frequently are only given a snapshot of someone’s true self when we witness just a few of their individual actions and/or words. I think it goes without saying that applying this perspective and approach in a professional setting could have myriad positive effects, whether with coworkers, supervisors, clients, or potential clients—which is so especially key for someone in a marketing role, such as myself.
However, as I try to unlock new ways of applying this philosophy in my own life, I find that, similar to the constant discipline DFW emphasizes in the practice of such an approach to the world, I frequently find myself running back to this piece in need of clarity, encouragement, or to simply remind myself of the importance and priority this way of thinking holds:
“There are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…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, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”
–David Foster Wallace, This is Water