I have to admit that at the start "This is Water" was amusing and relatable, as it went on I felt as if I was just being preached to. As he starts to describe the grocery store and that to an open-minded person it would be a "sacred" event, I felt as if I was being brought back to my elementary lessons of caring and compassion. I also don't agree with Wallace's stance on worship. My belief in God is not due to some "default setting" My default setting was to not even worry about religion. For a long while I didn't believe in anything and I was fine with that. So I felt that his stance was a little too presumptuous.
I also feel as if he has a sort of pessimist view on our "default setting" to be self centered. I do agree that people tend to be somewhat self-centered in everyday life. However I don't think that it is so bad that we are oblivious to other people's feelings. Wallace declares that because our feelings are so immediate and urgent that they are the only feelings that should matter. I believe that is not true, in my opinion the average person is sympathetic to others feelings and beliefs.
I do however agree with Wallace's concept of "real freedom". I also believe that he is speaking about equality, instead of freedom. He says that to have real freedom we must make sacrifices and be alert and disciplined. This is true when speaking of equality, and I believe in equality. Being aware of what is happening in our community and having the discipline to fight social injustices and stand up for what is right.
I agree with your view on the subject. People tend to focus on what's going on in their own world instead of looking around and being aware of what's going on around us. There are much more important topics to be stressing about instead of bitching of having to sit and wait for a while in San Marcos traffic after the train has passed by. People should make time to take a deep breath and calm down, because somewhere in the world there is someone with a conflict at hand that's actually worth stressing about, unlike us having to sit a little while for in traffic waiting for the train to pass while comfortably sitting down with AC in our cars on full blast.
ReplyDeleteI agree with nearly everything you said pretty much in the first two paragraphs. I do believe that DFW belief on worship is completely wrong. He says it is everyone default setting to worship something, that we will always be trying to grasp that thing, but that's not true in my opinion. My reason for not believing that is that my "Default Settings" he says we all share will probably be completely different than that of a boy born in Africa or a girl born in Russia. Now when he is speaking to a bunch of white collar Americans these beliefs may actually work, but I think he needs to think more about the whole world and not solely about America
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