David Foster Wallace This Is Water Summary

In “This Is Water”, David Foster Wallace discusses his own definition of freedom, which involves choosing to be aware of and to care for the people who surround you. One of the necessities to be free is to choose how you think. Personally, I found the words of David Foster Wallace to be reminiscent of my own life, and specifically of experiences in my past.
Wallace began the speech, “This Is Water”, with an anecdote about a few fish. Two younger fish are swimming and they happen to cross paths with an older fish, who asks them how the water is. The younger fish continue to swim along until they come to a halt and ask themselves, “What the hell is water?” (Wallace 132). The essence of this story is that often times, the most obvious and important realities are the

most difficult to see and discuss.

People are often subjects to a mechanical lifestyle, which can drag them along. They wake up, eat, work, sleep, and repeat. When driving to work one day, we may be cut off by someone. It is within our default setting to find annoyance with that person. Although, Wallace proposes that circumstances such as that are inevitable. They are a factor of adult life, and although that might not be inspiring, there is a way to combat those situations. That one way, as proposed by Wallace, is the notion of choice. In the speech, Wallace asserts, “The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to try to see it” (Wallace 134). We have the ability to choose how we think and perceive things. If we are aware enough, we can thus think differently about the people around us and take their lives into our realm. Maybe the person who cut us off is taking their sick child to the hospital. It may be unlikely, but it isn’t impossible. As Wallace says, “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and

awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day” (Wallace 134). It is easy and natural to think about ourselves first. However, by putting others above ourselves and choosing the way we think, we have the ability to experience true freedom.
The words of Wallace reminisced with me personally, as I often find myself to be in situations relating to those in the speech. For instance, I remember when I was younger, I used to loathe riding the London Underground (the Tube). More often than not, it was sweaty, congested, and crowded. I despised squeezing into the little space there was on the train. Additionally, I seemed to grow an annoyance for the people around me. I thought that they were ruining my journey and that they didn’t deserve to be on the Tube. I thought that I should have a seat and that I should have as much room as I wanted. Obviously, this was just an instance of myself thinking selfishly. This mindset, albeit easy, didn’t get me very far. It brought neither joy nor reassurance. Instead, this mindset made me frantic; it made me look for the worst in those around me. Despite being surrounded by multiple sweaty and tired people, I was the only one keeping myself from being free. If I were to think about the people around me as opposed to myself, I would have enjoyed those crowded tube rides much more. Maybe the woman who was in front of me, wearing all black, was going home from a miserable funeral. The chances are slim, but they’re not impossible. If I were to choose how I thought, as Wallace speaks of, then I would have been free. I wouldn’t have seen things so negatively, but rather, more positively. We can choose how we think, and thus, we can choose whether or not we wish to be free. It is easy to think about ourselves, but it is free when we put others first.