Analysis Of David Foster Wallace's Address To Kenyon College

During his address to Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace claims that humans can experience the world in two different ways. First, they can live their lives as unconscious worshippers of self, only operating on their "natural default settings". (Wallace, "David Foster Wallace, in His Own Words") On the other hand, they can live consciously and purposefully, attempting to understand that they are not, in fact, at the center of the universe. While these distinctions between perceptions arguably exist, Wallace is wrong to argue that the human "default setting" is natural. (Wallace)
Wallace introduces this argument with the insight that "the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about" (Wallace). He relates this problem to two young fish, who do not know what water is despite its being a fundamental and essential part of aquatic life. (Wallace) By choosing to be conscious and attentive to those fundamental realities, he argues, people can give meaning to the "boredom, routine and petty
The art teacher wants students to draw neater lines. The basketball coach wants players to dribble and shoot better. Parents want their children to have better grades. Advertisements and research studies say that everyone can – and should! – eat better, look slimmer, exercise more, etc. Of course, people should strive to be better and to do better. However, is it effective to systematically promote perfection, critiquing, and judgment? Is it "natural" to collectively believe that nothing is ever perfect and that what we have to offer is never enough? Consequently, when we think that someone looks "stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed" or "how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are" (Wallace), these thoughts are simply the echoes of what we have spent our lives watching, hearing and