[sgillen]

“This is water” has to be one of my favorite short essays/speeches of all time.

If you haven’t read it/seen it before so yourself a favor and go through it, it doesn’t take very long.

Seriously wish I could get these ideas into everyone’s head.

[throwawaymath]

That was excellent, thank you for the recommendation.

To save others a trip to the search engine: http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf

[jackstraw14]

Not everyone is ready for a philosophical smack in the head. I'm glad it was preserved beyond the commencement speech, because I can't imagine sitting there listening to this on graduation day and taking much away from it besides "don't forget to think." This is the kind of stuff that you have to find at the right time in your life.

[tudelo]

FWIW, I have seen people use the image related to this piece (seen through a google search...) in the most annoying way to discredit peoples views on a subject because "they are a fish in the water."

I have not known the source of this garbage, so I hope it's a simplification of the actual source, but I will listen carefully :)

[nicklaf]

We don't know who first said, "We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a fish", but we're pretty sure it wasn't David Foster Wallace. [1]

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/23/water-fish/

[gaurgo]

Seriously, excellent suggestion. Thank you.

I'm in the middle of making the switch towards maximizing positive outcomes for others, having realized that I have enough for myself. The author paints a description of self-awareness here that I'll be sure to return to every now and again.

[lintroller]

I'm really glad you took the time to highlight this speech as worth my time. It's short enough to be a "quick" read and deep enough that I'll be chewing on the message for some time.

[adamiscool8]

I've read this three times now, yet I still don't see the profundity. It seems like a lot of obvious "how" -- of course your framing changes your outlook -- but no "why".

I can imagine everyone in traffic, or in the grocery store has a perfectly legitimate reason for why they're acting whatever bothersome way they're acting. But how does that help me accomplish my goal any more efficiently?

[throwawaymath]

The irony here is that you're asking how to use an essay about avoiding self-absorption in order to accomplish your goals more efficiently. It's not about your goal when you're in a grocery store, it's about the fact that you can't focus on anything other than your goal.

The idea is not that there's a profound insight hidden in there. In fact, the essay repeats several times that there's no trite lesson or platitude to walk away with, and that the basic idea is already obvious - the world doesn't revolve around any given person. What's not obvious is exerting the mental effort to consider that fact when you feel like you're the only person who has any self-awareness in a crowded grocery store.

On a more practical level, if you're looking for a lesson then this is close to it - you get in your own way, intellectually speaking, by defaulting to the easy path of discounting the myriad reasons for other peoples' behavior while rationalizing your own. We tend not to think about the things that are so obvious they're dreadfully mundane, but because of that we close ourselves off to insights that could be very helpful but for the fact that we're locked into our first-person perspective.

More succinctly: if you find yourself thinking that you're surrounded by people who lack self-awareness, you might be lacking some of it yourself.

[dolzenko]

Found it through this thread and it's great indeed. Worth keeping in mind author did commit suicide before his 50s though :/

[anacleto]

Ordered it. Thank you.

[anacleto]

Thank you for that comment. It was one of the greatest things I have ever read.