This Is Water – This Is A True Education

Everyone who reads my blog or listens to me talk knows I value education. Yes, admittedly I err on the side of promoting self-education and its variations because I feel such options are not positioned often enough as viable alternatives to higher education. But education is the thing and however one attains it in ways that work for them is fine by me. And that includes more traditional higher education paths.

But college-educated people need some reality checks and this video is one such reality check and brilliant life lesson. The video uses an audio excerpt of a 2005 college commencement speech by David Foster Wallace delivered before the graduates of Kenyon College. It’s been made into an inspiring and thoughtful 9-minute video. The video uses the location of a supermarket to make its point. Wallace explains in an inspiring manner two distinctly different ways of looking at situations, reminding us all of the power of a positive mindset and why looking at things differently might be the signs of a truly well-educated person.

“That is real freedom,” Wallace says. “That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Please check out the video. You’ll be happy you did.