Comments on: inventing the pain of others: david foster wallace’s kenyon college commencement speech

By: shelley

shelley — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:03:36 +0000

Yes. Scott that was what I got from DFW’s message too. It inspired me more than depressed me. Finding true freedom in helping and loving others.

By: adswithoutproducts

adswithoutproducts — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:22:55 +0000

Yes, and I’m free to appreciate yet disagree with DFW 101. Think up, son…

By: vlasschi

vlasschi — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 06:11:04 +0000

“The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “oh how banal!.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama.”
-E Unibus Pluram

I quote this because you are overusing the word banal. Also, sentimentality and re-affirming simple truisms and peeling them away from irony are in some sense DFW 101. Read up, son.

By: Stefan

Stefan — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 08:20:56 +0000

I’m somewhat confused. If DFW’s point was to use banality to reflect a banal truth, it appears as if he’s succeeded, especially since it’s a one sentence, mindful suggestion which definitely is of some use. Especially considering that DFW wanted to approach the situation in as micro-systemic fashion as possible.

Not that I think the point is wrong at all, it is fascinating to read considering that I am not as educated. I also wonder if DFW was frightened to give the speech.

By: zugibaribua

zugibaribua — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:27:24 +0000

Interesting post.
My only ‘encounter’ with Wallace, if you can call it one, is the bulk-some, humongous edition of Infinite Jest i have lying next to my bed, imposing and burdensome yet pleading for a good reading.
Shall i give it a go?
Excerpt Reader – http://the-excerpt-reader.blogspot.com/

By: David

David — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:07:45 +0000

Banal it very well may be. In the speech, DFW made it obvious that he was acutely self-aware of the clichés but I can’t help but agree with him that human truths often end up sounding very unsexy and bathetic. Yet, somehow, there is a very small and simple beauty in that. The idea that the greatest minds all arrive at this tiny, tender thought that unconditional compassion makes the world go round is arresting, if not heartbreaking.

Alas, maybe I’m just a closeted romantic who’s a sucker for treacle.

By: Henry Swanson

Henry Swanson — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:57:37 +0000

Hello. I just listened to it today, and found Wallace to be.. a bit more complex and more full of (/potential) contradictions, now that I’ve come to this page and read the responses of ‘others’.

In many ways, that is the central problem or ‘mindless default setting’, isn’t it? That something / someone called “The Self” actually exists – and therefore the “Other” also seems to. Seems to..

Jumping ahead, perhaps we might need to be fully aware that the only real ‘water’ of which all fish are totally unware, is the fictional water of “Self” itself..

That is to say, I’ve had the hunch that the “Self” does not really exist / only exists in the same way a mirage ‘exists’ – for some time now.. that it’s some kind of self-generating, sustaining & self-bootstrapping illusion, an Emergent process.. and that Awareness – especially as philosopher and educator J. Krishnamurti describes it – is the key to waking up out of its matrix (except of course, there’s nobody that wakes up, if you know what I mean..

Anyhow some light snax for calm thought between pushing one’s angry trolly down isles full of latte sipping liberal arts students and paying teh bill$
Henry Swanson

By: Kid In The Front Row

Kid In The Front Row — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:01:50 +0000

I think you misinterpreted the speech.

By: adswithoutproducts

adswithoutproducts — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:52:12 +0000

Well, that’s the ultimate take-away, but it’d be a pretty banal one if that were the centerpiece of the talk. I think what’s more interesting, as I discuss, is the thought-process that informs the choice of compassion and mindfulness, or to put it another way, what exactly the mind is full of, in this case, when it’s compassionate.

By: David

David — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:49:56 +0000

You may like to call it novelistic fantasizing or “strange probabilistic casuistry” but in the context of the rest of the speech, this tactic DFW offers us ends up being a very pratical sort of existentialism.

“The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t…. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness”

You offer some great insights here, but take a few steps back and give the speech a second read. I’d argue the take away is compassion and mindfulness, not necessarily cute, little mind tricks of melodramatic self-delusion.