Talking Big Ideas.
“What the hell is water?”
~ David Foster Wallace
Twenty years ago today, David Foster Wallace delivered one of my all-time favorite speeches.
This is Water is an ideal case study in effective public speaking. I’ve embedded the audio and included the full transcript on our website so you can read along as you listen to Wallace deliver it. Please do take 25 minutes this week to read and listen closely.
I’m not going to focus on why This Is Water feels even more relevant today with our algorithmic feeds and hyper-addictive glowing rectangles we all constantly scroll. Nor will I dwell on the loss of Wallace, no longer here to help us navigate our modern world.
Instead, I’ll highlight a few core principles we teach our clients that he exemplifies.
#1. One Big Idea
Have one big idea that gets hammered home.
Wallace’s big idea: Real freedom comes from choosing where to place your attention and how to see the world. Everything else flows from this. We don’t control all the demands of daily life, but we do control how we pay attention to them. And how we frame them. These are the choices, made day in and day out, that shape the meaning of our lives.
Every part of his speech reinforces this big idea.
#2. One Core Proverb
Distill the big idea into a repeatable proverb.
Many of the best speakers in history did this. And so do the best speakers today. Proverbs are wisdom distilled to its essence. Simple, clear, memorable. They stick in their audience’s minds.
Wallace packs his big idea into a three-word proverb he repeats: “This is water.”
#3. Audience Focused
Tailor every talk to the specific audience.
Wallace meets his audience where they are: graduating, uncertain, stepping into real life. He speaks in an authentic and honest way, not as a wise old fish giving a lecture, but as a fellow traveler who deeply sees them and wants to help.
#4. Vivid Details
Most abstractions are quickly forgotten. But vivid details stick because they’re easy to understand, remember, and share. Wallace paints his scenes so clearly that you feel like you’re there:
[Y]ou 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 through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn’t fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic….
For my entire adult life, every time I get a cart with a wobbly wheel, Wallace reappears in my mind.
#5. Solid Structure
Wallace is wildly original, but This Is Water still follows a clear structure: a classic Persuasive Narrative.
Audience Hook:
“There are these two young fish swimming along…” Wallace respects the hallowed ground of the opening moment. He dives right into a catchy story.
Shared Vision:
We can live a fulfilling and intentional life. We can cultivate our awareness and freedom.
Problem:
Our default setting is radical self-centeredness and blind certainty.
Solution:
We can choose what to think about, where to place our attention, and how to frame our experiences.
Call to Action:
“You have to keep reminding yourself over and over: ‘This is water.’ ‘This is water.’”
#6. Illustrative Stories and Analogies
“The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre.”
A good rule for public speaking that Wallace honors: Spend most of your presentation bringing your ideas to life with stories, analogies, and compelling illustrations.
The fish unaware of water, the guys in the Alaskan wilderness, the grocery line, the traffic, the tired cashier, the loud shopper, the rude SUV driver, and the lady screaming at her kids all show how easy it is for us to lack awareness.
He also uses several analogies: the default setting of ego, worship as inevitable, false idols that consume us, and truth as conscious awareness. His core proverb, This is water, is a clear metaphor.
#7. A Powerful Ending
Every ending has one job: Drive home your central idea. Wallace returns to his opening parable and hits us repeatedly with his proverb:
[T]he real value of a real education . . . 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.”
Here’s the full transcript and audio, delivered to Kenyon College on 21 May 2005.
