Home / Kenyon College / 2005
№ 2005.004 — Kenyon College — Commencement address
David Foster Wallace
Field: letters
Wallace argues that the most obvious realities are the hardest to perceive, and that humans operate from a hard-wired, self-centered default-setting that makes each person experience themselves as the center of the universe. He reframes the liberal-arts cliché of 'learning how to think' as gaining conscious control over what one pays attention to and how one constructs meaning from experience. He warns that failing to exercise this choice leaves people unconscious and trapped in their own minds amid the boredom and routine of adult life.
Key moments
- 01 The parable of the fish who don't notice the water
- 02 The hard-wired 'default-setting' of human self-centeredness
- 03 Reinterpreting liberal-arts education as learning to control attention and meaning
- 04 The unglamorous realities of adult life: boredom, routine, and frustration
Transcript
The full transcript is hosted by the original publisher. Commencement Archive links to the source rather than republishing copyrighted text.
Read the full transcript at source →Provenance
Imported from NPR commencement archive; cross-referenced with Open Commencement DB
NPR archive last updated in 2015; destination availability has not been exhaustively rechecked | Open Commencement DB transcript; not independently verified against the original recording