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Ryan Collins
English 101
September 18, 2015
Mr. Padgett
The Egotistical Society of Today
Upon reading This is Water David Foster Wallace lets the reader know that our default
setting revolves around the idea of self importance and how this impacts the roles of our daily
lives. Within the commencement speech This is Water Wallace expresses that in order to live
life to the fullest we must not live life in a black and white manner that sees only one perspective
or the other. We must observe life through a different perspective and realize the world we live in
does not revolve around our self-centeredness. Our default setting makes us glance at life
through an egotistic perspective. We must develop an awareness to our surroundings and realize
we remain insignificant compared to the amount of people on this planet. We must begin to
understand the harsh realities of life and realize not every situation ends like a fairytale bedtime
story. The act of living cannot revolve around the aspect that we must always put ourselves first
because if so we are never able to truly understand and appreciate the life we live. Our default
setting and the presence of our egotistical society leads to the blindness we have towards our
self-centeredness.
We are lead to believe through our default setting and the rules of society that we must
always put ourselves at the utmost importance. Especially through the influence of our
technology such as twitter which consists of constant self-centered remarks being made. David
Foster Wallace in This is Water gives us an example of how even the default setting effects
him. Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically

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sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the
absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence
(Wallace XII). In the literal meaning of this phrase it makes sense because in our life and in
every moment that we have experienced we occur at the center of its outcome. The role of the
media in todays society only adds to the self-centeredness caused by our default setting. We can
see examples in the big cities such as Boston, Los Angeles, and New York where the driving
remains atrocious. Anyone stuck in traffic in any of these cities, has seen self-centeredness at its
worst in our society today. Within Wallaces message he portrays everyone as having this default
setting with the same egotistical attitude towards the situation. This remains the problem I have
with his message being portrayed to the audience because of the instances when our default
setting does not apply to everyone throughout everyday life. Although I do not agree with the
aspect that everyone remains bound to the same default setting I do agree with Wallaces
argument. If one is able to adjust their default setting, then one is well adjusted and more open
to the way life works. For one to become well adjusted in todays society means to have a
positive perspective on everyday frustrating situations. People who can adjust their natural
default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted, which I suggest to you is
not an accidental term (Wallace XIII). Wallace offers this advice to the students in my belief
because commencement speeches today revolve around the same message of go out and
conquer the world nothing can stop you now. Any logical person knows this is an empty
platitude merely stated to please the crowd. Wallace eludes to the example of going into the
grocery store as well as being stuck in traffic to show the simple everyday tasks that make life
miserable sometimes. I agree with his logic to the degree that we should not be feeding the minds

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of the youth with the notion one can become whatever one wants without struggle. Everything in
this world takes time and effort to obtain and molds people into who they are today.
Self-constraint, an overarching theme illustrated throughout the speech shows how one is
able to control what and how one thinks about certain everyday aspects of life. Learning how to
think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think
(Wallace XIII). Wallace follows this thought by stating, being conscious and aware enough to
choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience
(Wallace XIII) which in simpler words states the aspect of learning comes through experience.
Take for example learning Algebra in school one does not just simply hear a lecture about
algebra and immediately understand all the concepts, this takes you experience of battling
through the homework in order to fully learn the concept of algebra. Wallace asks and begs the
students throughout the speech to think in a more intellectual and challenging way. We hear the
example of being in the grocery store late at night after a long hard day of work and every person
feels entitled to have an easy shopping experience. Ive worked really hard all day and Im
starved and tired and I cant even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid goddamn people (Wallace XV). Wallace begs the question that maybe the old lady walking slowly
throughout the aisles just had her husband of forty years die because of cancer. I begin to agree
with this idea of thinking outside the box because it makes us more conscious to the
understanding of life in a deeper meaning beyond the physical level. The world does not revolve
around our tiny and insignificant life. We are apart of something greater, something more
powerful than anything physical, but we have our default setting constantly dragging us back to
the unimportant and egotistical matters of life.

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