Compare and Contrast: This is Water and Nobel Lecture

The speeches This is Water and the Nobel Lecture are very different in their desired audience and their entire message. These speeches also have a similar goal in teaching you how to value thing that we take for granted such as our freedom of thought and even the language we speak. In This Is Water the speech starts off in a negative light explaining how we were meant to think and that it is human to be selfish and think that we are the center of everything. The speech then strays toward how we should see the world and how that everyone around us is probably feeling the same way and some have it way worse than us. The audience that this speech is targeting is you and was created to make us think that even though being self centered is a human default we can change how we think to have a completely new outlook on life. In the Nobel Lecture the central message is how language is a vital component of life and culture. The message is directed to the population or society as a whole. The speech teaches us how language is a link to our past and a bridge to the future. This teaches us as a society that we should just save language just for the sake of it but to learn how language is our culture and how it is our past. There is much to take away from both these speeches but one thing they have in common is that they teach us how to be a better individual. Before I read the Nobel Lecture I never understood how important language is and how I and mostly everyone I know take it for granted. This Is Water relates to me alot because I often catch myself thinking of people in my way and not how their lives might be more difficult than mine. This speech has taught me not to judge and to put myself into other peoples shoes. Both of these speeches are a great tool in making me think about myself, others and how to not take something as commonly used as language for granted.