Storyteller Turned Philosopher: David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”

By June Seong '19

This is Water

By David Foster Wallace

137 pp. Little, Brown and Company. $10.25

As the school semester enters its thicket, I find myself often questioning the value of my education. Apart from questioning the value of miscellaneous information I am asked to know, my real questions are about value of learning.  What is learning? Should it be limited to the classroom? Alongside my slew of questions runs a corrugated path of minute observations that attempts to place value on this education. I am left with a hunger for a single answer. In this pursuit, I realize that my peers and those educated around me are also confronted with this same search. Rather than realizing the value of our education, the real goal is to actualize its value in our day to day lives. After all,  what is the value of a realization of one’s purpose if the purpose is not put into action?

At Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace gave his commencement speech, “This is Water.” In it he addresses the vast multitude of the educated in society. In attempting to define the value of education, he speaks of the “banality” of adult existence. Questioning the connection between knowledge and acclimating to the “banalities” of adult life is, as Wallace defines it, what defines our consciousness; “how to keep from going through your comfortable...adult life dead, unconscious....and to your natural default-setting of being...imperially alone, day in and day out” (3). In this sense, education means survival as a conscious being in a banal world. In gaining an education, you obtain the ability to “adjust”- to be critical of your own vastly deluded assumptions and to chose a conscious, engaged life.

This connection between aloneness and the value of an education that Wallace makes is especially poignant to me. In the morbidity of my own corporeal self-centeredness, I realize that an education takes me out of my “skull sized kingdom.” (7) I am able to transcend my own limits through knowledge. I find myself here and there turning to “This is Water” for consolation. Consolations in the face of my ego, that tells me I am either superior or mediocre. 

Noises Off, St. Mark’s Fall Play About a Play Within a Play- What?

by Lauren Menjivar '18

There is one event that everyone looks forward to attending right before Thanksgiving break where some of St. Mark's most talented students showcase their incredible acting skills in a wonderful production in our very own Black Box Theater. That’s right everyone – the fall play is just around the corner!!

In the past month, actors Kaela Dunne ‘18, Rachel Hwang ‘18, Matthew Gates ‘19, Angela Li’ 19, Reevie Fenstermacher ‘19, Anu Akibu ‘20, Ilia Rebechar ‘20, and Riley Scott ‘21)their director, Mr. Kent, and the stage crew have been working diligently on the latest fall production, Noises Off. This play is different from the past ones because it is a PLAY WITHIN A PLAY.

Each actor is playing a character who is another actor in the inside play, Nothing On. For example, actor Kaela Dunne is playing character A who, in the play, plays character B. Actors play actors- sounds intriguing doesn’t it?

While conversing with Kaela, I got some insights on the new play. Kaela hinted, “Be sure to look out for the set – it is very unique and different than anything St. Mark’s theater has used in the past. I don't want to give away too much though!” She also mentioned that “the show is lively, funny and dramatic as ever. Mr. Kent believes that it is the toughest show we've done at St. Mark's, but the challenge will be worth it.”

Be sure to come out and support the students for this highly-anticipated play between November 15th-17th. Look out for an email from Mr. Kent in mid-November to reserve a seat at the Black Box The