Summary Of This Is Water David Foster Wallace

In his speech This is Water David Foster Wallace during a commencement ceremony begins discussing the purpose of education, not only to become intellectually educated but to learn how to think. He introduces a metaphor of two fishes that after being asked how the water was, they wondered what water is, being water all the actual and commonly dismissed reality that surrounds us. Thus, it has led us to create a natural default setting that has caused individuals to become centralized in their individual/personal needs only, and that our needs are sometimes put over more relevant matters to fulfill our necessities first. He states that knowing how to think is to be capable to decide what things we pay attention to and what we learn from experience.