Identity In David Foster Wallace's This Is Water

In and out. Air flows into our lungs and is released back into the atmosphere. We cannot see this essential force that enables us to live through every day, this force that we unconsciously rely on in every moment of our existence. Unseen and unthought of, it exists around and within us; like the water fish gracefully glide through. However, air is not the only force around and within an individual. Intangible perpetual characteristics are embedded into our identities and become more distinct and dominant as we grow into adults. In David Foster Wallace’s speech, “This is Water”, he directly states that it is through education we are able to identify our deeply embedded characteristics, faults, and desires. Through education, we gain “just

That is what I always pictured. However, there are several downfalls that the picture is not wide enough to reveal. For one, the independent person is typically pictured alone. However, it can be said that the person is not truly alone; she is very likely, surrounded by loneliness. After a while one can be addicted to the concept: you are capable of doing things yourself, there is no need for help. This mantra is permanently printed in bold letters in my mind every time a new challenge presents itself. Avoiding help from another who simply wishes to be friendly, falsely communicates to him that I specifically do not want his help. I barely thought of it this way, because in my mind I just did not want any help. The intention was not to prove to others that I was self-reliant but to convince myself that I was.
Admitting I needed assistance with something that I could not do was slightly difficult. Each failure or moment of complete confusion, no matter how little, felt as if I was admitting another defeat to the world. So the pressure to be perfect always weighed heavily. But the only person who was criticizing my every mistake was myself. Every natural flaw I had was viewed with my own critical eye. I thought that if I truly wanted to be independent I would have to walk on