I really enjoyed reading Wallace’s speech.
Everything he said made total sense. I especially liked the section where he
mentions nearly unlikely reasons for people cutting him off on the freeway or
an unhappy experience at grocery store but not impossible like he said. It made
me really think about all the unhappy experiences I have had at different
places and then blamed others for my unhappiness. I know for me, that I want
things to happen a certain way because that’s just how I want it and when I don’t
get it, I blame others.
Near the beginning of his speech, he spoke about
thinking that the world revolved around us. Everything happened in our life
because we were involved in some sort of way. “We rarely talk about this sort
of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but
it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting,
hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience
you've had that you were not at the absolute center of” (Wallace). It’s so true that we all think that world
revolves around us to some extent. It’s just in my nature; the idea that we are
the center of our universe is engrained in our brains. Wallace was so correct
when he said that
David Foster Wallace’s idea that life consists
of fundamental choices that lie entirely with the human person and allow them
to engage is complete credible in my opinion. If you let life control you then
that’s exactly what you’re doing. You can be the one who decides what affects
you and to what extent. I totally agree with him when he said, “if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice,
you can choose to look differently” (Wallace). He’s saying don’t let one
point of view be the only one you choose to look through. Consider everything
when making a decision.
I
would like to engage in this choice whenever I could. I never really took a
look at my thought process like that in depth. Wallace’s commencement speech
really opened up my eyes to the idea that there isn’t always a bad connotation
on everything. It’s good to give people the benefit of the doubt; which is
something that I should definitely do much more often to become a much happier
person. I can be more open to other’s opinion and not take everything so
personally.
I
think that the audience clapped when David Foster Wallace was pretty much
insulting them because they agreed with what he was saying. They didn’t really
realize that they were being made fun of at the exact moment but they agreed
with him to an extent. People clap during a speech when they strongly agree
with whatever the speaker has just said. Sometimes people clap just because
other people in the audience are clapping though they didn’t fully understand
what was just said but clap anyway.
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