I found myself fully engrossed by Wallace’s speech. I see something so profound in this message of awareness. We spend so much times on ourselves that it’s surprising we can’t take that awareness and apply to other people. Sometimes only seeing surface level things that we construct on how we feel and thing, which is a thing we clearly don’t do for ourselves. It’s a universal truth, something everyone has been on both ends of.

What works best for Foster Wallace here is his deconstruction of college commencement speeches. Those type of uplifting speeches are the same surface level approach we have to people, like the ones mentioned by DFW in his grocery market long line metaphor. he takes everything we know about about these types of speeches and completely destroys them, while also giving his own uplifting and insightful speech, just in a completely different way that is wholly unique to his style that hasn’t been seen before. He’s saying brutal truths and destroying all the glee of entering the real world, but because he leaves it as a choice to think and change your perspective, I see it as uplifting. He took the mundanity of life and turned into an essential lesson that makes this education worth it.

I think Wallace sees college as this time to free yourself of self absorption and see the lives of other people. College is an environment that is all about independence and new surroundings. It’s a place where mindesets are shaped. DFW hopes that this experience college will mold your mindset of the world the right direction.

The whole speech comes from Wallace and being self aware enough of himself and self aware of his surroundings. He acknowledges his own self absorption and how we’re all prone to it. At the same time, his self awareness made him see things in a different way and comment on his egoism that we all possess.