This Is Water (Kenyon College Commencement Address)

David Foster Wallace's now-canonical May 21, 2005 commencement speech to Kenyon College, often called "This Is Water" after its opening parable: two young fish swim past an older one who asks "How's the water?" — to which one young fish later turns and says, "What the hell is water?" Wallace argues the real value of a liberal arts education is not knowledge but the freedom to choose what you pay attention to and how you construct meaning out of the unbearable, boring, frustrating ordinariness of adult life. Note: marginalia.org archive blocked direct fetching.