"This Is Water" by David Foster Wallace | S4 EP121

The most life changing truths are usually the ones hiding in plain sight, like water to a fish. We pick up David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” and use it to name the default setting so many of us live inside: autopilot thinking, reflexive self centeredness, and the quiet belief that our view is the only view that really matters.

We connect Wallace’s ideas to everyday mindset struggles: why you feel stuck, why you keep replaying the same reactions, and why confirmation bias can make your world feel smaller over time. We also talk about the fantasy that we can read people’s minds, how that wrecks empathy, and what it looks like to practice real attention and awareness instead. The goal isn’t moral perfection or some big religious answer, it’s learning to choose meaning on purpose and to care about other people with discipline rather than vibes.

If you’ve ever had a “something is off” moment and started digging into psychology, self help, or identity discovery, this conversation will feel familiar. We even tie it back to relationship growth, including relationship anarchy, kink friendly communities, and the broader work of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable so you can try new frameworks without losing yourself.

If this hits, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s stuck on autopilot, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s the “water” you’re swimming in right now?

Source link - https://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html

1/6/26

1/6/26

Transcript

Welcome And The ASMR Sip

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Welcome back, everybody. This is another episode of Around the Kinky Campfire. This is your host, the supple. Ooh, I like that word. The supple H H Julius Marquise, or just Julius, if you're feeling less formal. Once again, I have another great topic here for you guys. And everybody in Bertain. You people, my hamsters, I have another episode here for you. But before we get started, once again, the day is ASMR two seconds. It's just gonna keep getting shorter, shorter, shorter. So I'm a drink from before, and of course, the YouTube doesn't like when you drink on camera. So it is an adult beverage that is berry flavored. Let's just go with that. Alright, once again, not sponsored, the berry monkey. If you know what that is, 9.5. Okay, so we're gonna start the ASMR seconds in three, two, one. Oh, too much air. Still tasty though. Not sponsored, but tasty. We would take a sponsor. We are information whores right here. Me included. Uh, and I'll take that sponsorship. Okay, so let's get into this. Once again, I have a topic here for y'all. To help you, me, and everybody else get their heads out of their asses. Because this is based off a book reading, um, dialogue, whatever it is, from my uh uh David Foster Wallace. It's called This Is Water. I'll put the uh article that I'm uh reading this from about the it's like a review of the book, a synopsis of the book. Put that in the description, hopefully. The uh new episodes of the podcast will be on Newton Easter on Thursdays, and uh the YouTube video episodes will hopefully be on Fridays, if I upload it correctly. All this is with an asterisk. Hopefully, we uh do all that. Okay, so I'm gonna explain this meme, and then hopefully I'll remember to put it in the video. But if you ever see any two fish in the fish bowl that are talking to another fish, and the two fish say, or the one fish says, Morning boys, how's the water? And the other two fish look at each other and be like, What the hell is water? Alright, so when I saw that meme, that hit me um very very hard. Uh, because I was like, huh, what is water? Because once you're in something, as like a fish, you don't realize what's going on around you. You're literally in water, but some people are know that they're in the water, and they um make a comment about their their water situation or their environment, and everybody else is just going through the motions and not thinking about why they're doing it or how they got there. Mm-mm, yummy. Um, and what they can do to improve their situation. It's very interesting to me. So, this is why the meme hit well, uh hit hard, and then also I'm like, oh, there's a whole book behind this whole entire thing. Let me give you a little bit of history. This is Water, some thoughts delivered on a significant uh occasion about living a compassionate life. Okay, so that's the full title of the book. It was based off an essay by David Foster Wallace in uh May 21, uh 2005, where he gave a commencement speech uh to uh Kenyon College. Um Kenyon College, I was gonna say Kenyon University, no, Kenyon College. Gave a commencement speech, so it's almost 20 years old now. Um it was stretched to a book uh format in 2009, and then Time Magazine ranked This Is Water Must of the best commencement speeches ever delivered. Um okay, so little cliff note here, little cliff note, little editor's note, uh host note to all y'all. I have not read the book, but I uh read uh watch podcasts about it and um read this article that was like a synopsis of it, but I will get to the book. If you want me to get to the book and uh reply to the book, review the book, react to the book, let me know in the comments below if you're watching on YouTube, and then um actually Spotify has comments now too. So let me know about that, and then uh definitely hit me up on Instagram and send me an email. Let me know what you think. Alright, especially if you've heard this, heard of this book before. Okay. Uh main points of the book. Uh most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Everybody heard this m uh uh everybody. Most people have heard of this movie called The Matrix. Okay. Uh if you don't know about The Matrix, uh robots have taken over the world. AI has infected us, which will be happening in like five years or so. Less than five years, actually, 2030. Good lord, time's flying by. It's like halfway. Well, March is pretty much over by the time you guys are hearing this. Uh, anyways, the robots have taken over and people are enslaved and used as energy to power the robots. There's only so much humanity can do. There's like a little bit of humanity left. Um, Neo, played by Keanu Reefs, uh, is woken from the Matrix and has been prophesized to save the world like Jesus. Okay, that's basically the synopsis of the story. I would argue a lot of people are still in the matrix. They're doing shit just because, and they don't have answers as to why they're doing the shit. At least from my point of view, because I ask people sometimes, and they're like, I don't know, I'm just Sam. I'm like, you lucky bastards. I hate you all. I always felt that something was wrong until I started doing some research for myself and I realized, oh, I don't know, I'm kinky. Oh, I don't know, I'm polyamorous. Oh, I don't know, I'm demisexual or asexual. That's a thing that I didn't realize was a thing until I got to be an adult. And all the time when I was a child, something felt off. So I started asking questions. And then the first step of it was a psychology class, psych psych 101 that I took when I was in college, and that opened my eyes to self-fulfilling prophecies, uh, confirmation bias, all that shit. And I learned that there's a whole section in Barnes and Nobles called self-help. I was like, holy crap! So I at that point I hit the roller coaster, I've been going downhill ever since then. Fucking crazy. Because there's hell, all this knowledge out there that uh people like me need to learn and read about and try, and a lot of people can just do life, and it's like, what the fuck? Okay, y'all people are crazy. And for me, that was my this is water moment because I realized that uh I'm not like normal people. I know it sounds very narcissistic, but it's uh very aware to me, very aware to me, very obvious to me that I think differently, and of course a lot of people think this way, but it's just so many facts, and it's not really like oh me versus them type of deal. No, it's like okay, I think a different way, so we must adapt. Try different shit, see if it works out. Getting closer, closer every year to all the different things. And I come across a book like this, and I'm like this, oh, there's other people that feel this way too. I feel seen. So that's why this whole uh experience, I'll say experience, this is water experience, um, hit so hard to me. Uh, let's see here. A huge percentage of the stuff uh I tend to be automatically certain of, it turns out, is totally wrong and diluted. Yeah, so that's what uh David said, and I feel the same way. Yep, everybody's living in their own little subjective world and not realizing that people have other experiences, and it's like, oh yeah, I just spit all over my microphone. Oh, oh yeah, I'm not the only one that thinks this way, and also people have different experiences. Shit happens. Okay, everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe and the most important in important person in existence. Yeah. Well, it revolves around Julius, but that is wrong. Okay, we rarely talk about this sort of natural basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us deep down. Um, if y'all haven't realized that yet, I am I am so sorry for you, but that is 100% a thing, and uh yeah, that is definitely one of those this is water moments where you realize, oh, the world doesn't revolve around me. And it's like, oh, other people think the same way too. Okay, let me show a little bit more empathy and um uh compassion for people because everybody's they're the main character in their own movie. Uh that's another thing I had to learn, a phrase that I learned recently. Uh everybody's main character. I don't know if y'all are on the social medias, you should be. One of them is Campfire Kingsters. Can't fire with a K. And main character energy is a uh memeable uh word, term, whatever that people have. Uh man, people are self-centered and it's kind of ridiculous. Uh goodness. All right. There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of, which is actually true. If you think back about your memories, it is from a first-person experience. Most of the time. Unless you can have the out-of-body experience. But I know for me, most of my memories are first first-person view. If y'all didn't know that, um, pretty sure you've had something similar. Uh yeah. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but you own are immediate and real. Wait, I'll tell you what, that's some um absolute truths there. That David pointed out. Uh, if y'all didn't know this, there's no such thing as a psychic or a mind reader. Uh, so people have to tell you what they're thinking and how they're feeling. There's no real way. I mean, you can read their body language, nonverbals are a thing, but there's no real way to know what somebody is thinking or feeling without them telling you. Okay? In general, that's 99% true. I will bet money on that. Okay? So I know we like to think we can read people's minds and know what they're thinking, or be able to change how they feel or act or whatever, but that's not really a thing. Pointed out here in a book. Alright, it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural hardwired default setting. That is escaping the matrix, taking that stupid tube out of your goddamn mouth, and getting flushed in the sewers. And hopefully somebody crane grabs you from their spaceship. Spaceship? Shipship. Hover ship! Yeah, that's a thing. They grab you from their hover ship. Good lord. Okay, yeah, gross. The self-centeredness is just ugh. Hate that I thought that way, but I've awoken now. I know better. Still hard to fight sometimes, but I like you slip in and out of it. The thing that is the thing that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations, yes. Is actually who I am in his way. What? Okay. It is actually I who am in his way. In your own way? That was weird. Uh let's see here. Give yourself a choice. You can choose to look differently. That's another thing, too, is people don't realize they have a choice. Like, oh, I suck at this. How about you try getting better? Most of the shit that people say that like I'm not good at is a skill they haven't learned. They didn't realize they needed to learn, or they haven't tried to get better at. And it's like, yeah, you can get better. You're not gonna be perfect because there's no such thing as perfect, but you can always get better if you actually try. It's a choice you have. You literally have a supercomputer in your pocket. You can look shit up and try different things. There are other people, once again, that have gone through the shit that you have. What are we doing? Uh it just depends on what you want to consider or try or research, not considering possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. You have other options. It is within your power to experience a hell-type situation or heaven-like situation, and you can change it. It's 100% possible. The only thing that's capital T true is that you get to decide how you're going to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. I mean, it's it's right there. It's really right there. That's it. That's it. You get to decide this. Confirmation bias is a thing. If you decide the thing, and then it will happen as the thing. Okay. Okay, uh, he argues that there's no such thing as atheism. Only choice we get is what to worship. Never feel you have enough, and we all know this stuff already. There's no such thing as atheism. Uh let's see. There are unconscious default settings. Yes, yes, yes. Um, the kind of worship you slip into, uh, getting more selective about what you see and how you measure value without being aware that's what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Goodness. Yeah. Yep, that's how it is. Uh, let's see. What the world of men hums along on fear and contempt and frustration and craving the worship of self. Yeah, we gotta break free of this stuff. Okay? That's how it is. Gotta break free of this stuff. Um, there's nothing to it but do it. I said it before and I'll say it again. We gotta we gotta wake up from um what we're going through. This is one of those uh episodes where it's like, well duh. Uh probably gonna be a shorter one because not a whole lot to say here. There's just so much doing of the thing that we gotta do. And uh that's just how it is, uh, camsters. Okay. Alright, let me finish up here. Real freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and effort and being able to truly care about each other and to sacrifice for those things. Uh, none of this is about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death. Simple awareness, awareness awareness, to keep reminding ourselves over and over that this is actually water. So, I kind of wanted to talk about this because it kind of wraps up what I've been talking about throughout this whole entire time I've been doing the podcast. Is you have to really, really, truly be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I keep saying it over and over again, sometimes jokingly, sometimes serious. But it's like once again, here it is. This is water, another book about getting your head out of your ass, trying new things. I want to do that so so much, uh, and help people get get it out of their own way. Um, it's my this this topic is kind of my confirmation bias that other people are thinking the same way. And yeah, this is so good. I recently, oh actually like a month or two ago now, by the time this episode comes out, taught a class on relationship anarchy. I will put that class on the YouTubes, uh, chop it up in the smaller videos and put the whole class on there if you want to go ahead and watch that. Uh, but that is me trying something different and putting information out there for people. The class was on relationship anarchy, and y'all know I've talked about it before because I am a practitioner of relationship anarchy, the whole philosophic, philosophy of relationship anarchy, and everything that goes into it. And hopefully, y'all will learn something and also try stuff. There's a bunch of tenets, like nine of them for relationship anarchy. Try them all, at least one or two, and see how it works for you. And hopefully, when you watch the class or look it up yourself, that you'll uh have something that will help you to grow and you've learned from and uh try it out. Okay, so a little bit shorter episode this time because I feel like there's not too much to go into depth about depth, depth about this is water, hey, water bun. And uh hopefully you get nice and deep. Uh 20,000 leagues under the sea. Um, as far as that's concerned, and go check the book out. I will read the book and react to it if y'all want me to. Let me know in the Instagrams. Y'all hear it at the beginning and the end of this podcast with all the social medias and stuff, or send me an email in the Yahoo's. But that's all for now. This is the uh superb, superbly, superfluously, um, splendid H H Julius Barquis, or uh just Julius, if you're feeling less fancy. Once again, I will put the link for this bel uh this uh article reaction in the description below. And go ahead and check out the new episodes on Thursdays, the new Eastern and video episodes on Fridays, hopefully, with an asterisk next to there. But uh, that's all for now. Catch us next time. Hello.