The Speech I Wish I’d Heard When I Was 21

Do you remember your commencement speech? When I graduated from university our speaker was Dick Pound. While I mean no disrespect to this man, the speech was not awesome nor was it memorable. This one however is. “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace starts off with a story: two young fish are swimming by an older fish who nods at them and says “Good morning boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit until one on them looks at the other and says, “What the hell is water?” It is a cute parable about how the most obvious and important realities are often the hardest to see and the most difficult to talk about. Well, here is someone talking about it…and it’s awesome!