Firstly, I will start with a strong recommendation… YOU NEED TO WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE!!!
The video is a commencement speech by author David Foster Wallace at a college graduation ceremony in 2005. It is one of the most powerful speeches I have heard, so before you read on, listen for yourself.
The following is a summary of the key ideas David Foster Wallace discusses, with some breakdowns from myself to hopefully help with your understanding.
Conscious Thinking (and the alternative)
Conscious Thinking is the choice of what to think about. Sounds simple enough, but I can assure you, in the rush of modern society, this is unbelievably hard to do.
We are all habitual, routine driven people, and with that comes the alternative, unconscious thinking, and now we are at the mercy of our ‘natural default setting’.
There is a quote by author Robin Sharma which says; ‘the mind is an excellent servant, but a terrible master’. What this means is, don’t be unconscious – don’t allow your mind to dictate your thoughts, instead you lead the dance.
What is your natural default setting?
If we as a society are honest with ourselves, then most of our ‘natural default settings’ can be summed up by the following sentence:
‘I am the absolute center of everything.’
I know that is certainly my ‘natural default setting’. Any context I am in, my first thoughts are along the lines of;
- How am I feeling?
- What will or can I get out of this situation?
- How may this situation impact me (positive or negative)?
Now let’s workshop this by using an example adolescents can relate to, such as; being made to go to a family dinner as opposed to hanging out with friends:
- Most would be angry and frustrated at the decision made by parents. And at the dinner they would not only be bored, but probably bitter.
- There is usually an ‘all or nothing’ thought process that occurs; ‘this dinner was not my first choice, therefore there is no possible way I could enjoy it, it’s just going to be boring.’
- And finally there is usually a catastrophized thought on how this situation will impact them, potentially something about how there social status is going to be seen because they are not with friends.
Now, there is nothing wrong with feeling this way (be honest with yourself, you’ve been there), as mentioned above I believe all of society believes they are ‘the absolute center of everything’.
But if this is your natural default setting, and you are always unconsciously thinking rather than consciously thinking, then you are allowing your mind to be the master and not the servant. When this occurs you are going to fall into the routine of; anger and frustration whenever you are made to do something you don’t want (this happens more than anyone desires), followed by a fixed mindset that says ‘nothing good can happen from this’, and finally, you will become a slave to what you worship – if you feel that your social status is linked to an occurrence like this, then you will forever worship attention and recognition, and ultimately… social status.
What do your worship?
There is no such thing as atheism, everyone worships something:
- If you worship money, then you will never feel you have enough
- Worship your own body image, then you will always see yourself as ugly
- Worship power, then you will end up feeling weak and afraid – and you will need more power over others to numb you to your own fear.
- Worship intellect, and you will always feel stupid, a fraud, always a feeling of being found out. This is called ‘imposter phenomenon’.
The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil, but rather that they are unconscious (default settings). The kind of worship that you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
The ‘real world’ will not stop you. The ‘real world’ values; power, money, looks etc. Therefore, you must stop yourself.
How do you think?
You may have heard the phrase before, ‘teaching you how to think’, but if you are like me you were probably left scratching your head, kind of like when someone says; I am going to teach you how to breath, your response would be, huh?
David Foster Wallace describes learning ‘how to think’ as;
‘Learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and choose how you construct meaning from experience.’
By taking control over how you think, you begin to build your own perception of the world and it’s goings on, you will be able to decide what has meaning and purpose to you and what doesn’t. Most importantly, you will have the awareness to see something horrible, as meaningful and powerful.
Some day’s you won’t want to do it and as mentioned above, that’s ok. But most days, if you are aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently. The ability to look differently, not only opens yourself up to different versions of your reality, but it may also open you up to the reality of those around you.
Perception
One occurrence can mean two very different things to two people based on their beliefs and how they construct meaning from experience.
But where do our beliefs and our interpretation of experiences come from? Are they hard wired and ingrained in us?
Or has it got to do with our awareness? Whether or not we are consciously or unconsciously thinking when we are met with a certain experience?
In the speech David Foster Wallace uses the following term ‘Blind Certainty’, going on to say that it is ‘a close mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know they are locked up’.
What he is saying is that, if you are unconsciously thinking then you are putting constraints on yourself, on the experiences you have, the lessons you could learn, and the opportunities you could have.
If you are always seeing an experience as negative then you are limiting yourself to a life of disappointment, anger and frustration. If you are always looking at experiences and thinking; ‘what can I get out of this?’, then you are missing opportunities to provide value to those around you, to sacrifice for them in mundane and unsexy way.
He goes on to say that the key to not becoming imprisoned by your own mind is being ‘critically aware of what you are automatically sure of.’ So if you are certain that an experience is going to be bad or that it is all about you, then you need to challenge that thought.
Choose freedom
Freedom is attention and awareness, it is the discipline to be able to be conscious over and over, so that you know ‘how to think’ – otherwise you will imprison yourself, and submit to a life of what could have been.
Freedom is the key to understanding ‘what is real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over; this is water, this is water.’
What David Foster Wallace is saying with the above quote is; you will miss the obvious, what is right in front of you, if you are not conscious in the way you see and interpret experiences, if you default to unconscious thinking then you will be left scratching your head, asking yourself; ‘what the hell is water?’.
