This is Water

2016-04-29 this-is-water v01

Die Graduation Speech von David Foster Wallace an die Studenten der Kenyon University habe ich vor Jahren gelesen und seitdem ist sie fest in meinem Kopf verankert. Vielleicht auch aufgrund des tragischen Umstands, dass Wallace drei Jahre nach der Rede Selbstmord begangen hat.

Der Titel „This is Water“ bezieht sich auf den Zustand, dass wir viele Dinge nicht mehr zur Kenntnis nehmen oder als selbstverständlich erachten, so wie ein Fisch das Wasser vermutlich nicht beachtet. Dabei bezieht er sich in erster Linie auf den Umgang der Menschen miteinander und darauf wie Eindrücke von uns – oftmals automatisch negativ -interpretiert und bewertet werden.

If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options.

Dazu gibt er mehrere Beispiele.

But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.

Es kommt auf die Betrachtungsweise an. Geht man davon aus, dass die Welt schlecht ist, wird man an vielen Stellen Bestätigung dafür finden. Geht man vom Gegenteil aus, die Welt sei gut, wird man auch dort bei vielen Gelegenheiten bestätigt.

(…) the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people’s two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience.

Diese differenzierte Betrachtungsweise ist nicht offensichtlich und in unserer Zeit oftmals sogar unüblich.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

So bleibt es eine Aufgabe im Rahmen der Bildung und Erziehung jedes Menschen, solche Gedanken zu berücksichtigen und auf das eigene Leben anzuwenden.

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.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

Aufgrund der Popularität von Wallace’s Rede gibt es viele interessante Ressourcen, die sich mit dem Inhalt beschäftigen:

Bildquelle: Hans via Pixabay