Sunday, April 24, 2011

This is Water / This is Water - David Foster Wallace (Sat 21 May 2005)

Transition - water - Jerrabomberra Creek / Canberra - Sat 12 Mar 2005 (picasa)

David Foster Wallace's (w) 2005 Kenyon College Commencement Address (Sat 21 May 2005) begins with this "neat" parable ...
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?"
He eloborates in the midst of the long and inspiring Address ...
[..] The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about....The fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance. [..]
and conlcudes with ...
The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

This is water.

This is water.
The above photo is the photo that seemed to start my obsession of photographing water in earnest. No need to explain any more than this. Just thought this was a nice way to tie it all together, for me at least.

No comments:

Post a Comment