Idag för exakt tio år sedan höll författaren David Foster Wallace ett tal till avgångsklassen på Kenyon College. Det kom att bli enda gången då Foster Wallace offentligt avslöjade något om den triumf och den tragedi det innebar att vara Davis Foster Wallace. Talet heter “This is water”
Om intellektet säger han:
It is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.
Om falska ideal och äkta frihet säger han:
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
Och om lärande:
The real value of a real education 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.’
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime.
Hela talet går att höra på Brain Pickings webbplats
Jag har skrivit om David Foster Wallace några gånger förut:
Väldigt bra inspiration för ungdomar, ett sånt tal skulle alla få höra 🙂
Ja, ibland tycker jag att vi pratar för lite allvar och för mycket fluff! 🙂