This is water

Last updated: 2019/10/12

David Foster Wallance spoke about the value of an college education during the commencement speech. Personally, I admired David Foster Wallance and this speech is a brilliant, life-affirming, positive, insightful, and humble speech. David talked about default setting, how to think, never had enough, worship and many more. These are valuable insight and it needs to be propogated in this age in which desire is being fed, everyone is highly ‘educated’, information is overwhelming, and people are devided.

Here is the speech:

Greetings thanks and congratulation with Kenyon College graudating class of 2005. There are these two young fishes swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nod them and say “morning boys, how is the water”. And two young fishes swim on for a bit, and eventually one of them look over the other and goes “What the hell is water”. This is a standard requirement of US commencement speech: the deployment of deductive little parable story. The story thing turns out to be one of better less bullshit of the genre. But if you worry that I’m presenting myself as the wise older fish explaining what the water is to you is younger fish, please don’t be. I’m NOT the wise fish. The point of the fish story is that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as English sentence, of course, is just banal platitude. But the fact is that in day to day treacherous adult existence, banal platitute has life or death importance, so as I suggest to you on the dry and lovely morning. Of course the main requirement of speech like this is that I’m suppose to talk about the liberal art education MEANING, to try to explain why the degree that you are about to receive has actual human value, instead of just material payoff. So let’s talk about the single most pervasive cliche in the commencement speech genre, which is that the liberal art is not so much about filling you up with knowledge, as it is about quote “teaching you how to think”. If you like me as a student, you never like to hear this, and you tend to feel a little bit assaulted by the claim that anybody needs to teach you how to think. Since the fact that you even got admitted to this college this good seems like you’ve proved already you know how to think. But I’m gonna pause it to you that the liberal art cliche turns out not to be insulting at all. Because the real significant education in thinking that we are supposed to get in a place like this isn’t about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about. If your total choice of what to think about seems obvious to waste time discussing. I’d ask you to think about the fish and water, and to bracket it just a minute, you skepticism about the value of the totally obvious. Here is a little deductive story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in a remote Alaskan wilderness. One of guy is religious. The anther is an atheist. And the two were arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after the forth bear. And the atheist said, “look, it is not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in god. It’s not like I haven’t experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month, I got caught away in that camp terrible blizzard, and totally lost couldn’t see a thing. And it was fifty below. So I tried it. I fell on my knee and prayed “oh God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, that I’m going to die if you dont help me.” and Now in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist and saw puzzled, “well then, you must believe now” he says, “after all, here you are, alive.” The atheist just rolls his eyes, “No man, that was couple (something) come wondering by and show me the way back to the camp.” It is easy to run the story through a kind of standard liberal art analysis. The exact same experience can mean totally two different things to different people, given those people two different belief template and two different ways of constructing meanings from experience. Because we praise tolerance and diversity of beliefs. No where in our liberal art analysis do we want to claim that one guy’s interpretation is true, and the other guy is false or bad, which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where this individual belief and template come from, meaning where they come from inside the two guys, as if the person’s most basic orientation towards the world, and the meaning of his experience was somehow hardwired, like height or shoe size, or automatically absorb from the culture like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal intentional choice. plus there is a matter of arrogance. the non-religious guy so totally certain in his dismissal of possibility the passing ascument has anything to do with pray for help. True, there is certainly plenty of religious people who seem arrogantly certain of their own interpretations too. They are probably more repulsive than atheist, at least the most devious. But the religious dogma problem is exactly the same story as on believer Blind certainty. A close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even how he’s locked up. The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really suppose to mean: to be just a little less arrogant. To be just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because of huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I’ve predicted you graduate will too. Here is just an example of a total wrongness of something that i tend to be automatically sure of. Everything in my own immediate experiences support my deep believe that I’m the absolute center of the universe, the vivid, and most important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural basic self centerness, because it is socially repulsive. But it is pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hardwired into our board at born. Think about it. There is no experience you would have had that you are not the absolute of the center of. The world as you experience it, is there in front of you, behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, your monitor and so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to communicate with you somehow, but your own is so immediate, urgent, real. Please don’t worry that I’m gonna getting ready to lecture you about compassion or directness or other so call virtue. This is not a matter of virtue. It is matter of choosing to do the work of somehow altering of getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see, to interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting in this way is often described as being well adjusted, which I suggest it to you is not an accidental term. Given the triumphum academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adujusting of our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellent. This question gets very tricky. Probably, the most dangerous thing about getting an academic education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over intellectulize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head, instead of simply pay attend of what is going on what’s right in front of me, paying attention to what’s going on inside me. As I’m sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypontize by the constant monologue inside your own head, maybe happening right now. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come to gradually to understand that the liberal art cliche about teaching me how to think is actually short hand for a deeper and more serious idea: learning how to think is really means learning how to exerciese some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware of enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise the choice over your adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliche about the “mind being an excellent servant, but a terrible master”. This like many cliche, it is so lame and un-excited on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth, it is not a least bit coincidental that adult committed suicide with firearm would also shoot themself in, the head. they shoot the terrible master. the truth is the most of these suicide were actually dead long before they pulled the trigger. And I submit that this was the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal art education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, propersous, respectable adult life dead, uncouscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone - day in and day out. That might sound hyperbobly, highly abstract non-sense. Let’s get concret. The plain fact is that your graduate seniors do not yet have any clue of day-in, day-out, really means. There happens to be whole large part of adult American life that nobody talks about in a commerce speach. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frastrution. The parent of the older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about. By way of example, let’s say it is an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed and all you want to is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next eday and do it all again. But then you remmeber there’s no food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of your challenging job. And so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s the time of day when all the other people with job also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously flourescently lit and infused with soul-killing muzzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be. But you can’t just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, etc, etc, cutting stuff out, ‘cause this is long ceremony. And eventually, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren’t enough checkout-out lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can’t take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the regiester, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of the any of us there at a prestigious college. But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line front and you pay for your food and get told to “have a nice night” in a voice that is absolutely voice of death. and then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out throught the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic. Everyone here has done this of course. but it hasnt yet part of gratuate actual life routine, day after week after month after year, but it will be. and many more drillry annoying seemingly meaningless routines besides. but that is not the point. the point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. because of traffic jam and crowded ails, long checkout lines give me time to think. if i dont make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m going to piss, miserable, everytime i have to go shop. because my natural default setting is certainty that situation like these is really all about me. It’s about my hungry, my fatigue, and my desire of just get home. and it is gonna seem all the world and anybody esle is on my way. and who are those people on my way. and look at how repulsive most of them are amd how stupid and coward and deadeye and non human they seems at the checkout line. or how annoy and rude that it is that people are loudly on cellphone in the middle of the lines. and look at how deeply personally unfair this is. or of course i’m in a more socially liberal art form of my default setting, i can spend time in the end of day traffic being discuss about huge stupid lane blocking SUV and hammers need well pickup truck burning their wasteful 40 gallons a tanks a gas. and I can dwell on the patriatic bumper stickers always seem on the biggest most digustly selfish vhilches, driven by the uglist, most aggresive drivers.. (applaused by the crowd). see, this is an example of how not to think. and i can think about how our children’s children will despise us for wasting fuels and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled stupid and disgusting all of us are. and how modern comsumers society’s just sucks. and so on and so forth. you get the idea. if i choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. it is the automatic way that i experience the boring, frastruting, crowded parts of adult life. when i’m operating on the automatic unconscious blink that i’m the center of the world. and my immediate needs, feelings determines the world’s priority. the thing is, of course, there is totally different ways to think about these kinds of situation. in this traffic, all these vilches stop idly in the way, it is not impossible that some of these people in SUV has been horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that thearapists desovle to order them to get a huge SUV so that they can feel safe to drive. the hammer that just cut me off maybe driven by a father whose little child sick in a seat next to him. and he is trying to get this kid to the hospital. and he is in a way to a bigger, more legitimate hurry than i’m. it is actually i who is in his way. or i can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in supermarket checkout line is just as bored, frustrated as i am. and some of these people probably have much harder and more tedious and painful life than i do. again, please dont think i’m giving you moral advise, or that i’m saying that you suppose to think this way. and anyone just expect you to automatically do it. because it is hard. it takes will and effect. and if you were like me, someday, you won’t be able to do it. or you just flat out dont want to. but most days, if you’re aware enought to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat deadeyes over made up lady who just screams at her kid at the checkout line. maybe she is not usualy like this, maybe she has been up three straight nights holding hand of her hunsband, who is dying of bone cancer. or maybe this very lady low wage clerk at the motor vichle department who just yesterday made your spouse resovles a horrible infuriating red tape problem through some small act of buracratic kindness. none of these is likely, it is also not impossible. it just depends what you consider. if you automatically sure that you know what reality is, including what is really important, if you want to operate on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that are annoying and miserable. if you really learn how to think, how to pay attention, then you would know you have other options. actually be within your power to experience a crowded, how, slow, consumer hell type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that light stars, loved, follewship, mysterical oneness of all things deep down. not that the mysterical stuff neccessarily true. THe only thing that’s capital T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it. This is as i submit is the freedom of real education, of learning how to be well adjusted. you get to consciously decide what has meaning what doesn’t. you get to decide what to worship. because here is something else wierd but true: on a day to day trenchous adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. there is no such thing as not worshiping. everybody worships. the only choice we get is what to worship. in a compelling reason for maybe being some sort of god, spiritual type things for worship. the adjucy or a la. be a ya wei or mother godness, four noble truth or some inviolable set of ethical principles. pretty much anything else you worship will, eat, you, alive. if you worship money and things, you there you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. never feel you have enough. it is the truth. worship you own body, beauty, or sexual allord, then you will always feel ugly. and when the time and age start showing, you will die millions time before they finally plant you. on one level, we’re all know stuff already. it is been codified as myth, proverbs, cliches, epicgrams, parables. the skeleton of every great stories. the whole trick is keeping truth up front in the daily consciousness. Worship power, will you end up feeling weak and you will need ever more power to numb you. Worship you intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, fraud, always on the verge of being found out. The insidious thing about hese forms of worship is nto that hey’re evil or sinful. it’s that the’re unconscious. they are default settings. they’re kind of worship you just graudally, slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value withou ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing. and the so call real world will not discourage you from operating the default setting. because so call real world of man, money, power comes merrily along with fear and anger and frastruaion and craving and the worship itself. our own present culture is harnessing these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. the freedom all to be lord by our own tiny scol size kindoms, alone at the center of all creation. this kind of freedom has much to be recommended. but of course, there are all different kind of freedom. the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of wanting, achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline. and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifece for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedome. That is being eduated, 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 infinte thing. knowing these things probably won’t sound fun and greezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is suppose to sound. what it is, as for as i can, is the capital Truth with whole lot of rhetorical stripped away. you are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please dont just dismiss it as some finger wagging doctor lord serpment. none of these stuff is really about moralty or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: “This is water.” “This is water”.. it is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in adult world day in and day out, which means yet another great cliche turns out to be truth: your education is really is the job of a lifetime.

Chinese Translation 中文翻译

在大学的一个毕业演讲里，大卫·华莱士讲教育的价值。 个人很欣赏大卫。这个演讲是非常的聪明，热爱生活，深刻，和谦虚的。大卫讲了初始设定,怎么思考,永远不满足,崇拜金钱等等。这些有深刻的价值。在这个充斥欲望，每个人都是受高等教育，信息巨大的年代里，每个人都是对立的年代里面， 这个演讲需要被传播下去。

一下是他的演讲：

大家好。谢谢邀请。祝贺你们2005肯尼亚大学的毕业生。曾经，有两个年轻的鱼在游水。它们遇到了一个年长的鱼从对面游来，向它们点头问道：“早上好，小男孩们，水怎么样呢？”两个年轻的鱼继续游了一段时间，然后看着对方，问道“水是啥玩意儿。” 像这样的故事是毕业演讲常见的内容：小小的寓言故事。这个故事的含义实际上是一个没那么废话的类型。不过，如果你担心我打算把自己包装成那个年长充满智慧的鱼，解释给你们什么是“水”的话，请不需要担心。我不是那个年长充满智慧的鱼。这个鱼的故事的含义是非常明显的：最为重要的现实，是最难看见和描叙的。当然，这个含义用英文来表达就变成无聊的说教。但是实际上，在每一天变化莫测的大人生活里，无聊的说教有着生死重要性。这是我今天在这个干燥的早上，想要表达给你们的。当然，毕业演讲主要的要求是我讲你们文学教育的意义，解释给你们为什么你们即将收到的学位有着人类价值，而不只是物质上面的回报。所以，我们讨论下，在毕业演讲里最为陈旧的一句古话：文学教育不是给你们灌输知识，而是“教你们如何去思考”。如果你们像学生时代的我，你一定不喜欢听到这样的话。你会感到一点受到抨击，听到说你需要有人叫你怎么思考。既然你已经能考上这么好的学校，好像已经能证明说你们知道怎么思考。我想要你们停一停这么想。实际上，这个关于文学教育的老话是有它的道理的。因为，真正有价值的教育，在像这样好的学院，并不是关于思考能力，而是关于选择什么去思考。如果选择什么去思考看似很明显，不值得去讲。我想请求你们想想鱼和水的故事，仔细想想一分钟，你对明显东西价值的怀疑。接下来我讲一个小故事。曾经，有两个人坐在一个遥远阿拉斯加酒吧里面。一个人信仰宗教，另一个人不信教。两个人在喝四杯酒的时候，激烈的讨论着上帝的存在。不信教的人说道，“听我说，不是我没有理由不去相信上帝的存在。不是我没有实验过你们宗教祈祷上帝那套。上一个月，我被困在营地暴雪里面。我完全迷失，看不到任何东西。于是，我就跪了下来，祈祷上帝，‘上帝啊，如果有上帝的话，我迷失在暴雪中，如果你不帮助话，我会死的’”，在酒吧里，信教的人疑问地看着不信教的人说道，“那你一定要相信了，毕竟，你现在好好的活着”。不信教的人翻了个白眼，说道“不不不，有两只狗刚好经过带着我走出来了”。用常见的文学方式去解析这个故事是非常简单的。同样的经历可以意味着两个完全不一样的东西，对于两个人有着不一样的信仰和不一样从经历里搭建意义的方式。因为我们称赞包容和信仰多元化，我们文学教育分析不会说其中一个人的理解方式是对的而另一个人的理解方式是错的。这分析没什么问题，但是，分析缺少探讨个人的信仰和模版从哪里来的，意思就是说从哪里两个人里面来。仿佛说，一个人的基本对外界的反应，他经历的意义，是被设定了，就像身高和穿鞋的号码，或者是文化给的。就好像说，我们如何定义意义不是个人有意的选择。加上，无信仰的人傲慢的缘故。他完全确定不考虑，那两条刚刚路过有和上帝有关联的可能性。对，有很多信仰宗教也是很傲慢地确认自己的理解方式。他们，至少那些很虔诚的，很可能对不一样理解方式更为反感。但是，宗教信条的问题和信仰人盲目的确定性是一样的。一个封闭的思想产生了一个监狱，而关在里面的人还不知道自己被关起来。我觉得，意思就是说，“教我怎么思考的”应该是说：变得一点点没那么傲慢。仅仅需要有一点自我意识和对自己的确定性的怀疑。因为绝大部分我觉得确定的东西，经常最后发现完全是错的。我是付出很大的代价才学习到这一点。我预测你们也会付出很大的代价。让我举一个“我自动地认为是对的东西，结果发现是错的”的例子。我所有经历的每个细节，让我确认我是宇宙的中心。我是那个耀眼，和最为重要的人。我们很少讲这种自然的自我中心，因为这是很让人反感。但是，基本上每个人都是这样自我中心。这是我们的初始设定。在我们出生的时候，初始设定已经刻印到我们身上的。你们想一想。你们的每一个经历，你们都是绝对在中心。你体验的世界，是在你们前面，是在你们的后面，在你们的左边或者右边，在你们的电视机里面，在你的显示屏里面。别人的想法和情绪需要通过交流传递给你，但是你的想法和情绪，是最为直接，紧迫，和真实。请不要担心我要教你们怎么有同情心，坦率，和美德。我不是在讲美德。我讲得是，选择通过训练自己来摆脱自己的初始设定，深深的自我为中心的初始设定，去用“自我”镜头去理解所有的东西。那些能够调整自己的初始设定的人，经常被人称赞为理智的人。我想要说这不是一个巧合。在这个成功的学术学院里面，一个很明显的问题是，有多少锻炼自己从而调整自己的初始设定需要真正的知识和智慧。这个问题很复杂。至少对我来说，受教育所带来最为危险的事情是，很可能是，让我自动理性思考东西，让我迷失在自己头脑中抽象的争论。我觉得你们应该现在知道，如果被自己脑袋中的对话困住，你们就很难保持警惕和有意识。毕业后20年里，我开始慢慢地理解文科教育的古话说，“教我怎么去思考”，实际上指的是，“学会如何练习着控制思考什么，和控制怎么思考”。意思就是说，变得足够有意识和清醒，让你能选择注意什么，和从经历里搭建价值。因为，如果在大人的世界里，你不能够有这样的选择，你会完全完蛋的。想想那句古话说“头脑是非常好的仆人，但是它是个很糟糕的主人”。表面上，着句古话和很多古话一样的无聊，但是实际上，这个在讲非常重要和严肃的真理。那些自杀的大人都是用枪对着脑袋，这一点并不是一个巧合。实际上，那些自杀的人，在开枪之前，很早已经死掉了。这个是你们文学教育真实存在的意义：在经历你们舒服繁华和受尊重的大人生活的每一天里，如何不让自己死掉，没有意识，成为自己脑袋的奴隶，和成为自己初始设定的奴隶。这点也许听起来是抽象的概念。让我举一个具体的例子。事实是，你们这些毕业生还不知道什么是真正朝九晚五的生活。这是美国大人生活很大一部分的时间，而没有人在毕业演讲里面提到。朝九晚五的生活是无聊，常规化，和琐碎的生活小事。作为父母，会知道我在讲什么。让我给个例子。就说在一个普通的大人生活，你早上起来，去你那个很有挑战性的白领工作。下班后，你有点压力，你只想回家，吃一顿好的晚餐，然后休息一个小时，早点去睡觉。因为，第二天，你还得起来做同样的事情。然后你想到，由于挑战性的工作，你还没有时间去购物。所以，现在你坐上你的车，开车着去超市。现在是下班时间，路上的交通特别拥堵。所以，去超市要话的时间比平时多很多。当你终于到的时候，因为是去超市购物的时间，超市特别地拥堵。超市的灯光极为丑陋，放着让人抓狂的商业音乐。这个超市是你完全不想呆的地方。但是，你不能立刻买好东西就离开。你要在这个复杂的超市里面找到你想买的东西，你要拖着那个会发出尖锐噪音的购物推车，穿过其他疲劳和急急忙忙的人。等等，等等。我就不再说了，因为这个一个毕业典礼。最后，你终于拿到你所有那些食材，但是，排队等收银台的队伍的长度是难以想象，傻逼，和让人生气那样的长。当然，你没有办法对那个收银员的女生发泄你的情绪。她的工作无聊和没有任何意义的程度，是超过在这个有声望的大学里面所有人的想象。回到之前说的故事，你终于排到前面，付了钱，然后你听到死气沉沉的一句“祝你晚上过的愉快”。然后，你要提着那个使人心里发毛，不结实的塑料袋，推着那个很垃圾的购物推车到停车场。然后你不得不开车经过那个都是大车堵车的路上。在场的每个人当然都有做过这样的事情。但是，这并不是你们每一天的生活，一天后是这样，一个月是这样，一年后也是这样，但是，你们以后的生活就会这样。你们会经历烦恼和没有意义的常规程序。但是，这并不是重点。重点是，像这样烦碎的事情正是选择怎么思考发挥作用的时刻。因为，堵车和拥挤的走廊给我时间去思考。如果，我不能够有意识地决定怎么去思考，注意力放在哪里，每次我去买东西的时候，我会很生气，很痛苦。因为，我的初始设定是很确认我现在的处境是完全关于我的。我肚子饿，我很累，我想要回家。我会感觉那些人都在阻碍我。那些阻碍我的人，看看他们是多么让人反感。看看他们多么的笨，多么的胆小，多么的死气沉沉，多么的不像人。我或许会感到，那些人很讨厌，很没有礼貌，他们在排队付钱的时候，很大声的讲电话。看看上天对我多么的不公平。如果我的初始设定是文学教育的，我可能会花时间在开车回家的时候，抱怨那些愚蠢的大车。他们的大卡车挡住了车道，浪费很多汽油。我想着那些爱国贴纸贴在最大而且自私的车。那些车主是最丑陋和暴躁的人。我会想我们的下一代会鄙视我们花那么多的汽油，同时很可能在破坏我们的气候。还有我会想，现代消费之上的社会多么的垃圾。等等之类的。你应该知道重点了。如果，我是这样想的,没什么问题。我们中很多人是这样的。但是，这样思考是非常简单的，是自动的，并没有选择。这是我的初始设定。这是先天性的。我自动的经历那些非常无聊，心烦，拥挤的大人生活。当我在那个自动没有意思的模式下，我是世界的中心。我当下的需求和感觉决定着世界的最重要的事情。当然实际上，你可以有不一样的方式来思考那些生活的琐碎。在堵车的时候，那些挡在你前面的大车，并不是完全不可能那些车主曾经经历过悲惨的交通事故。现在的他们对开车有着特别的恐惧，导致说，他们的心理医生强制要求他们开个大的车，让他们放心开车。那个开车插队的车主，有可能是一个父亲。他的儿子坐在旁边病情严重，他急忙的想要送孩子到医院。他有着比我更为重要的任务，实际上我是挡着他的路了。或者，我可以强制自己去考虑那些在超市工作的人，他们的工作比我无聊多了，比我生活更心烦。再次强调下，我并不是在给你们道德上面的建议，也不是在讲你们应该那样想。我不是指望你们自动的那样想。因为这样想是非常难得。这个需要意志和努力。如果你像我，某一天，你就没办法做到了，或者你就不愿意那样做了。但是，在绝大部分的时间里面，如果你有足够的意识给自己一个选择，你可以选择用不一样的态度去看着那个肥胖死鱼眼带着浓浓化妆的妇女，在排队付钱的地方，带着尖锐的声音骂着她的孩子。也许平时她不是这样的，也许因为她在医院握着躺在病床上虚弱老公的手，她已经有三天没有睡好觉了。也许，她是那个在政府部门工作，拿着微薄的工资，就在昨天出于好心，给你的配偶解决了一个公关问题。这些情况不是很可能，但是，也不是不可能。这只是取决于你想什么。如果，你自动地确认你知道什么是真实的现实，包括什么是最为重要的，如果你在初始设定下运行，那么你，就像我一样，不会去考虑那些烦恼和痛苦的可能性。如果，你真正的学到怎么去思考，怎么去集中精神，那么你就会知道，在你能力范围里面，你可以有选择去经历那个，拥挤，缓慢，消费者地狱的情况。你可以选择把这个经历当作有意义，和神圣，同样的力量使得星星亮起来，爱情，友情，和万物为一的神秘。只有一个东西是大大的事实：是你来决定如何去看待一件事。这是，我是想要说的，真实教育所带来的自由，学习如何调整好自己，你可以有意识的去决定什么是有意义的，什么是没有意义的。你可以决定你去崇拜什么。因为，有一个奇怪但是是对的东西：在每一天的大人生活里面，并没有什么所谓的无神论。不去崇拜什么东西是不存在的。每个人都崇拜某些东西，出于某些原因。可能是崇拜某些上帝，某些宗教的神，圣母，佛教的四谛，或者一些不能够违反的道德准则。除了这些，基本上所有其他崇拜的东西，都会活生生的吃掉你。如果你崇拜金钱和物质，如果那是你获取人生真正的意义，那么你永远无法满足。这是事实。当你崇拜身材，美貌和性感，那你将一直感到丑陋。当时间到的时候，你将会死了一百万次，才能解脱。在某种程度，我们都知道这个道理了。这个道理已经移植在了，神话故事，谚语，古话，寓言里面了。每个伟大的故事里面都有。但是，窍门是让这个道理保持在每一天意识前面。崇拜权力，你会变得感到弱小，你需要更多的权力来麻痹自己。崇拜智慧，看起来很聪明，你会感到很笨，感觉自己是个骗子，总是担心被人发现。最为阴险的点不是这些崇拜是邪恶或者罪恶的。最为阴险的是那些是没有意识的。它们是初始设定。这些崇拜是你慢慢每一天陷入的，越来越选择性的去看待事情，和给事情定价值，同时完全没有意识到这是你在做的。那些所谓的现实不会阻拦你在初始设定下运行。因为那些所谓的现实中的人，金钱，权力，自然的伴随这害怕，生气，泄气，贪婪和崇拜本身。我们美国现有的文化，利用这些势力从而产生了巨大的财富和舒适的生活，和个人的自由。我们在自己小小的王国里面，孤单的万物中心的自由。这样的自由非常值得受欢迎。当然，世间还有很多其他的自由种类。最为珍贵的自由，是你们不会在这个充满欲望，获得成就，和显摆的世界里面，能够听到的。最为重要的自由包含着注意力，意识，和纪律。成为真正发自内心的关心其他人，可以每一天为了他们在小小的方面不断地牺牲自己。这个是自由。这个是受过教育的人。这个是知道怎么去思考。另一个模式是，没有意识的初始设定，和永无休止的竞争。时常有着得到和失去一些无限大东西的痛苦感觉。知道这些很可能听起来不像毕业典礼本来应该要的那么有趣和鼓舞人心。在我目前看来，这个道理，是大大的事实，除掉很多文学修辞手法。你们当然有可以随便怎么想的自由。但是，请不要只是把它当作一个老师的说教。这真的不是在讲道德，宗教，或者信条。这是大大的事实是关于活着。这是关于真实教育的真实价值。真实的教育基本上和知识没有一点关系，而只是关于简单的意识问题。意识到那个真实，重要，隐秘，一直存在的东西，我们要不断的提醒我们自己：这是水，这是水，这是水。这点有着无法想象的难度。在每一天的大人生活里，保持着清醒和活着的态度。另一个古话结果也是对的：你的教育是一生的事业。