Every so often one becomes acquainted with a cultural figure so attractive and compelling that competing media consumption options quickly become banal and underwhelming. I recently became reacquainted with this experience after a friend shared their appreciation of writer David Foster Wallace with me. I did not pay it much attention initially and I do not remember what work of his was my first, but I do remember spending the next week watching every recorded interview he gave before his death in 2008.
Wallace, a fiction writer from the Midwest, came to broad prominence in the late 1990’s with his gargantuan novel Infinite Jest. Those who have read this work will appreciate the uniquely Canadian connection Wallace created in it as well as its bizarre interweaving of addiction, and tennis, and comedy. Famed British novelist Martin Amis is said to have only gotten through 200 pages of the 1000 page beast.
Wallace dabbled in non-fiction as well, commissioned by the likes of Harper’s Magazine and Rolling Stone to report on experiences ranging from the insanity of cruise ships to the Iowa State Fair and from the 9/11 attacks to John McCain’s 2000 campaign bus.
Wallace would end his own life by hanging in 2008 after a long and arduous struggle with mental illness. Reports indicate that he had been stabilized on an anti-depressant for some time before a dietary interaction led to his discontinuing the medication. Wallace struggled to find a centered bearing and stable ground beneath his feet. He underwent a series of electroconvulsive therapy sessions but his depression persisted. Just weeks before his suicide, he was restarted on the medication he discontinued. One cannot help but wonder what would have happened had this trial lasted just a few more weeks.
Beyond cultural commentary, Wallace’s short stories are the stuff of legend. They stranglehold the reader and seem to exist for the purposes of squeezing either tears, or fears, or laughter from the audience. In a sort of retrospective review of Wallace’s many works and interviews, the fixation he had on mental health and suicide are hard to ignore.
These themes permeate his writing in both direct and indirect ways. In Incarnations of Burned Children (one of the most emotionally gut-wrenching, and soul-twisting, and shocking short stories I have ever encountered), the links are indirect, but they are present. If you deem yourself brave enough to listen to Wallace tell this story, the audio can be quite devastating. In The Depressed Person, the themes become more crystalized. In Suicide as a sort of Present, Wallace twists the reader’s brain with his bare hands but the foundation even in this short story, as in much of his work, is familiar – it is ‘real-life stuff’ as Wallace characteristically called it.
After becoming more familiar with Wallace, I have come to realize that one of his most moving and most useful works was actually a commencement address delivered to Kenyon College graduates in 2005 titled This is Water. There are allusions to suicide and mental health throughout the address, but this is by no means the sole or central point. Helpfully, the address comes in a tidied-up and accessible essay format.
Wallace opens the address with a “parable-ish” little story: “Greetings parents and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
Wallace goes on to paint an all too familiar picture of a person working a standard issue 9-5 job and getting caught in traffic while flirting with the great task of grocery shopping on the way home. He forces us to question how we ourselves react in such situations and beautifully highlights what it means to be at your own wits end and fed up with the horrendous parts of everyday life. He asks us to tap into a rarely tapped- into reservoir, proclaiming that in rush hour traffic, or in the long line at the grocery store, that it is these moments that are most important because they allow us an opportunity to think beyond our own conscious experience.
The main theme conveyed by Wallace in the speech involves what he calls uncovering value in the “totally obvious”. His depiction of the torments of everyday life ground the audience, given how well acquainted we all are with “boredom, routine and petty frustration”. On the topic of insight, Wallace offers a lot throughout the address, never losing sight of the fact that the lesson he is attempting to impart is one we have learned a million times over. The trick, Wallace declares, is to do the hard work of bringing this obvious knowledge about life to the forefront of our mind more and more often.
Wallace provides a framework from which one can launch an assault on things like arrogance and what he terms our collective “default setting” - the almost hard-wired human ability to be completely and utterly self-centered.
He goes on: “If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.” Consider the plight of the other at the check out in the grocery store or in the tense moments in traffic, he begs.
Others have made the salient point that we find ourselves living through unique times. Information technology has placed enormous amounts of knowledge and centuries of ingenuity at our fingertips. Despite the ease with which we can become informed, this information vortex has made thinking clearly on important topics more difficult.
All too often, confirmation bias and anchoring are the personal tools we seem most comfortable relying on, both as individuals and as populations. If the goal is to build a viable and flourishing global civilization, there is a great case to be made that we have lost our way in both the smallness of day-to-day life, but also in our ability to solve the bigger social and political issues we face. If we are to realize the potential we seem capable of then solving the paradoxes of modern day information and technology, and their melding with human behavior, is a task that must be prioritized.
In This is Water, Wallace opens by reassuring the audience that he is not the wise older fish in the story. However, in typical fashion, by the end of the address, he forces the audience to take a side. In effect, he picks a fight on just that point. By all accounts he was indeed among the wise older fish.
Wallace’s suicide in 2008 halted a brilliant essayist, thinker, and social commentator in his prime but his written works and, perhaps even more enjoyable, his own narration of these works and their lessons, remain immortal. Culture is richer because of his contributions, and given the chaos of present-day politics, and indeed of everyday life, we would do well to reclaim and reflect on the many gifts he has left behind for us.