I am in love with This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living A Compassionate Life. This is seriously one of the most life changing things I have ever read. My book copy of this is filled with marginalia. No joke. Every single line of this speech is amazing, and inspiring, and altering. Wallace’s speech really sends your life into a full tilt. I could read this speech every day, for the rest of my life, and I would never get sick of it. It would affect me the same way every time, no doubt about it.

Firstly, Wallace delivers his speech in a laid back manner. He is giving a speech to graduating college students, and he’s being real casual about it. I want him there for my college graduation. I want him to be there and basically call out the human race. He includes many anecdotes, all of which aid his points in his speech. And the initial one, the opening lines, is a slap to the face. Read, and maybe I’ll elaborate why:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

Think. It’s pretty easy. I’ll come back to this later, perhaps. Throughout his entire speech, Wallace is dissing humans, and how self-centered, arrogant, and close minded we are. And the sad truth of the matter is that it’s true. But he does it in a comedic fashion so it’s okay. No feelings hurt. We are very much the creatures he writes/talks about. We are all focuses primarily on ourselves, and pay little to no attention to others and everything around us. He explores this theory in depth, telling us why we do it, and how detrimental it is for ourselves. He often references our “default setting” (ho we fall back on basic traits) and how we pay little attention to how we become the people that we are. He says that we ignore our experiences, and how they shape us. So true. So heartbreaking. He details that we are all controlled by arrogance, and that our worship controls us.

On atheism, Wallace has a unique (awesome) take on it which is very true when you truly consider it. We all worship something, so thusly, there is no such things as atheism. And because we worship something, or someone, we come to believe that we will never be adequate enough in that area of living. Worship beauty? You’ll always be ugly. Worship money? You’ll always be poor. You get the gist? His take on it so complex, and beautiful that it’s hard to find fault in his reasoning.

On freedom, he goes in depth on what it means to be free. It ties in a lot with the main theme of the speech: “Learning how to think.” He thinks that “learning how to think really means:

“Learning how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.

Freedom is more than what you think, and Wallace proves that. He wants us to be the:

Lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation.

That last part of that quote is about how we are all self-centered and arrogant. True fact. There is no way that we can deny. Deep down, our “default setting” makes us arrogant. We’re all guilty of it, when you think about it as you read.

A lot of what he writes is backed with concrete reasoning and personal feelings and perfect anecdotes. His language is lyrical, drawing you in and making you believe his statements with a whole heart. Although his language can involve morbid thoughts, or explicit language, it’s amazing. He draws you in from his first anecdote, and holds you until his last witty remark. He throws facts about yourself in your face with whiplashing speed, and doesn’t even say sorry. Only, “It’s the truth.” And it always is. There is so much more in this short speech that Wallace says about human life and human condition that it is too hard to try and get it all down in a quickly written review. I’m sorry for that. Do yourself a favor and read this book/speech. I’m pretty sure you can get an online version to read, it’s that popular. You will leave this reading a changed man or woman. It puts life into perspective. I personally have not been the same since my first reading of it. Really, I urge you to read this. I cannot stress this enough. But remember:

“This is water.”

And, as Wallace concludes:

I wish you way more than luck.

Thanks for acting like you’re paying attention.

All quotes pulled from the novel, and included bonus content.

Endnote: I gently urge you to listen to an audio version of this speech as well. I did this several times (once while writing this) and it is an entirely different experience from reading. Do it. I promise you won't regret it.