What Is Water?

Most of the time when I am assigned to read, it’s nothing more to me than just some words on a page. Although when I read David Wallace’s speech “This Is Water,’’ his words meant much more to me than that of an ordinary read. The piece withholds a pessimistic tone in which reflects to the meaning of his speech. Humans focus on nothing but themselves which Wallace refers to as our “natural, default-setting,” (Wallace 233). Our ever so lasting, self-centered cycles tend to crush us as beings and hold back our individual freedom. Personally when I grasped to what he was saying, I didn’t believe it one bit. How could my everyday cycles be destroying me? I simply dread to go to school, I follow school with driving to dance in rush hour traffic which makes me late, I come home and eat, I finish up my unnecessary amount of homework, I finally go to sleep, and I repeat day by day. How was this killing me. It took one line to flip the switch in my head... “to give yourself a choice allows you to look at things differently,” (Wallace 236). I sat back in my kitchen sit, giving out on my posture in complete shock. The way I was looking at my day was selfish shown by my overuse of the word “I”. Looking at my day from only the perspective of myself was trapping me inside my own head. The people in rush hour traffic with me were probably just as irritated yet it was their fault I was getting to dance late. I dread to go to school because it is is “miserable” and “pointless” yet, millions of kids don’t have the opportunity of education. Your daily cycle doesn’t have to be a cycle if you’re “aware to give yourself a choice,” (Wallace 236). Choose to look at your surrounding neighbors in which they should determine how you approach and think about things. Freedom comes with the intent to “truly caring about other people and to sacrifice for them,” (Wallace 237). If only the fish knew what water was.