David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water"

Podcast: Hotel Bar Sessions · Leigh M. Johnson, Jennifer Kling, Bob Vallier

Opublikowano: 2026-10-02

For the final "deep dive" of Season 16, the HBS co-hosts have selected an unusual text to ground our conversation, namely, a commencement speech by novelist David Foster Wallace entitled "This is Water" (delivered at Kenyon College in 2005). In it, Wallace provides a uncannily accurate (if disheartening) description of the mundaneness of everyday "adult" life, then uses it as a springboard to issue his call for each of us to resist the exact manner of thoughtlessness it inspires. We have a choice, Wallace argues. We could, rather, train our attention and imagination on the specific people with whom we share a...