After listening and reading “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace I was left with a variety of emotions. When I was reading the transcript of the speech the first thing that stood out to me was the fact that he didn’t bullshit anything he was saying, he didn’t beat around the bush. He said “speeches like this is that I’m supposed to talk about your liberal arts education’s meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff” (Wallace). This statement he provided set the tone for the whole entire speech for me, it allowed me to see what I was expected to experience later on in his speech. Another interesting story that stood out to me during this essay was the story he told about someone who is religious and someone who was atheist. This interested me because he went into detail about the atheist who tried the whole religious thing but didn’t believe it even after a major scary event.Wallace stated “And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. “Well then you must believe now,” he says, “After all, here you are, alive.” The atheist just rolls his eyes. “No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp” (Wallace). This relates to me because growing up all the kids and families around me were religious and mine really wasn’t. We tried it. It just wasn’t for us but this doesn’t mean I didn’t believe it? This is related to what we did in english class because we take different perspectives and incorporate them into one idea.
The major topic that Wallace kept bringing up is the value of your Liberal arts degree and the idea of college. I agree with what he is saying, I do agree with the fact that there are grey areas within this controversy. Wallace said “And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out” (Wallace). On the other hand, I don’t agree with this statement because this all really depends on what you do and how you go about it. This is all up to you.
