This is Water

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 2009

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Essay Analysis

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Determinism Versus Free Will

Determinism contents that all behavior can be predicted through environmental or biological causes. Free will holds that people choose their behavior and are not constrained by the causal effects of history. In “This Is Water,” Wallace postulates a middle ground between the two theories. He starts by identifying the self-centeredness that acts as a “default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth” (3). Wallace refers to the deterministic element of life using an analogy to electronics; if humans were a computer or TV, then their unmodified thinking automatically refers them to personal needs and urges. But Wallace does not leave it as an absolute because some individuals can be labeled “well adjusted.” He explores “how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect,” and what it takes “to exercise some control over how and what you think” (4).

The problem with falling back into an ego-driven worldview is it “tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice” (8). This is the unconscious, deterministic path, and it is a viable route. In fact, the world will reward it, but it will leave one miserable. Wallace invokes free will through attention, stating, “It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred” (8). Choosing the push-pull struggle of default thinking versus well-adjusted mindset is one of the key motifs in “This Is Water.” Learning how to think and escape the default mode’s gravity is not easy; it takes constant vigilance, but it is the only alternative to “the rat race” (9). Wallace appeals to education, awareness, and “more than luck” in the speech because the scales are perennially in favor of deterministic forces. He offers a mantra, “this is water,” as a reminder that free will and hope still play a powerful role in deciding fate.

The Water

At the start of the speech, Wallace says, “if you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don’t be” (1). Despite the philosophies interwoven throughout the speech, he never adopts a didactic tone. He explains the fish parable shortly after: “The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about” (1). But that still doesn’t explain what the water in the story is because it is not a traditional trope but something closer to a meta-trope.

Meta is a Greek prefix meaning “after,” “along with,” “changed,” or “beyond.” When something is referred to as meta, it is usually meant to evoke self-awareness or describe a self-referential angle the medium adopts. Therefore, water isn’t a representative symbol standing in for a bank of meanings or an image category. Wallace uses it as an umbrella term for all the personal, idiosyncratic realities one encounters day to day. In his own words, water is the “real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time” (9). The absurdity of the joke isn’t that fish are talking, it is the relatability to the younger fish who do not realize they are surrounded by water, the substance keeping them alive. There are many different kinds of water—the symbol embodies any number of things—but, when prompted to consider their water, everyone can identify an aspect of life they are overlooking and not paying enough attention or gratitude.

Blind Certainty

“Blind certainty” is introduced as a concept following the atheist versus the religious man parable. This motif is summed up as “a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up” (3). This certainty is closely tied to the theme of mindfulness because it opposes awareness. The self-investigation necessary for humility, discovery, and transformation is curtailed by self-righteous conviction. Many belief systems cultivate self-righteous conviction to help their adherents feel safe; these systems capitalize on fear of the unknown. Entrenched beliefs, whether atheist or religious, often accompany arrogance because superiority is established by labeling one opinion good and another bad. Wallace admits that he must remind himself “[t]o be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about [himself] and [his] certainties” (3). He further states that things he was absolutely sure of were “totally wrong and deluded” and that he “learned this the hard way” (3), just as he anticipates his audience will too. This self-effacement contributes to the speech’s confessional tone, which places Wallace on the same plane as his audience rather than above them. This rhetorical strategy is intended to disarm his own commanding position so that his message is delivered without any hints of the attitude it warns against.