Joe Mita
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2015–2022
22:44 · 1.8M views · May 5, 2013
David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, about the default settings of the mind, choosing what to pay attention to, and what we end up worshipping.
HN people point lost, lonely or burned-out readers to it as a short, humane piece of perspective on how to live.
6 comments from Hacker News
As someone far younger than you, yet at times infinitely jaded, through what have >0% odds of being at least related circumstance: If you haven’t come across DFWs This is Water, I’d highly recommend you give it a sincere listen: this video What is your goal? Have to make hay while the sun shines, if you perform so we’ll see if you can find another opportunity to realize that gap you’re in? If that’s not fruitful, try and try again and at the end of the day, find resolve in knowing you’re doing what you can and, while you have that going wrt opportunities, give your thoughts and time to things around you that do inspire you and provide some degree of fulfillment. As someone in the field as a moderately tenured, and currently unemployed, “software engineer”: it is hard to unplug but god is it so necessary for being present and being able to see what else is going on you can nurture&enjoy. I’m a bit scared, given the macro picture rn, about being unemployed. But, at the end of the day, we are all in this ocean of chaos with 86400 seconds to allocate everyday however we choose. Bit of a lengthy rant, but feels good to capture some thoughts I’ve been having honestly, and hope you are most excellent!!! At least it’s almost the weekend haha.
Thanks to your exceptional focus and determination you've arrived early at what is widely called Midlife Crisis. The aphorism your story brings to my mind is "Don't just do something, sit there!". Not sure what will help you but I highly recommend a 23 minute investment in David Foster Wallace's "This is Water": this video
I’m immediately reminded of the denouement of “This is Water”: this video . It’s become/ perhaps always has been a little trite or on the nose, but it’s also not wrong. 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. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already-it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. 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. They're the kind of worship 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. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel o
There's a truism: life is what you make of it. The longer version, which might get you thinking a little more than the aphorism, is in the famous graduation speech by David Foster Wallace: "This is Water" [0] (you can also read a transcript [1]). [0] this video [1] [LINK]
Nobody has mentioned "This is water" from a commencement speech [1] at a college yet, so let me do that. [1] this video