Thoughts on Water*

Always, I love fish. 

Recently, I heard a story about some fish and I didn't get it immediately. So, I decided to find the source and read the context. What I found was deeply meaningful to me.

The story was this:

"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?"" - David Foster Wallace

The eventual point (for me) of this story was that the most important thing about "learning how to think" or an education of any sort, is to learn how to experience the events around you from a broader perspective instead of your own myopic understanding. He argues that the control that we have is to exercise choice over how to construct meaning from those experiences that we have. Part of me loved this, because it reminded me of another favorite context of mine in which arguments about control over our responses to other people's actions is emphasized.

"You and I cannot control the intentions or behavior of other people. However, we do determine how we will act. Please remember that you and I are agents endowed with moral agency, and we can choose not to be offended." - David A. Bednar

I love the practicality of Wallace, in which he bluntly speaks of the boring, mundane parts of adult life, filled with other busy, crowded, frustrating encounters with other adults in the trenches. The idea that we get into trouble when we are operating on our "automatic unconscious belief that [we] are the center of the world and that [our] immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities" is something I feel is so true. There is so much more patience that I feel and love that I feel when I can make up an alternative story about how the other person's personal stage and circumstances are looking. The point is not that my story is true, but it makes it easier for me to react in a compassionate way if I can think of what their world might look like instead of focusing on my own. The ability to choose is so empowering.

Furthermore, Wallace makes an argument about faith. I always find it fascinating when something I know to be true makes it into popular culture. For example the claim that, "In the day to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism," is so true, because in this world of success driven by money and power and vanity, the choice is only in what we worship. I know nothing about Wallace's religious feelings, however, from a practical standpoint, he claims "An outstanding reason for choosing God is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough." He goes on to say "Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings." In a way, I want to thank him for a very practical and applicable description of the natural man. 

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord..." - King Benjamin (Mosiah 3:19 Book of Mormon). 

Our default, "natural," settings leave us empty. 

Wallace goes on to say that this freedom of choosing that is not talked about from a  somewhat worldly-driven-success point of view is the really important kind. It's unlearning the idea that we are the center of the universe. Fighting against my default setting that unconsciously claims that I am right because all of my feelings and thoughts are conveyed to me directly. It's so much harder to see the other perspective that comes to me sometimes second-hand and sometimes not at all.

"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. That is real freedom. That is being taught how to think. It is about the real value of a real education, which has nothing to do with grades or degrees and everything to do with simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: 

This is water. This is water."

And I love this idea. I love that it's the present overwhelming details of life that are all around us, that we take for granted even though they may be the most important. I love that this makes sense with how I experience my life. I believe in an omniscient loving God. Access to freedom comes from a worship in a God that will not leave me empty, but will fill me with love for others and teach me the alternate perspective in life. I believe we are all one family and although these things are true, they are hard to remember because sometimes they are water. 

Someday I hope to be an older wiser fish.

*read the whole address here: http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words