David Foster Wallace
Kenyon Commencement Speech 2005
Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliche 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 what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
I’ve come across this speech several months ago online when searching for best speeches. David apparently was a master of English language.
When I googled his name “David Foster Wallace“, a sad thing struck me. “David Foster Wallace, Influential Writer, Dies at 46”. Reading through the obituary, I feel sorry for him. His father said that David had been taking medication for depression for 20 years. That means he had been depressed since 26 or maybe even younger.
He was being very heavily medicated,” he said. “He’d been in the hospital a couple of times over the summer and had undergone electro-convulsive therapy. Everything had been tried, and he just couldn’t stand it anymore.
№R5 