I wrote this for Letters for Literature, and this speech is really incredible, so I thought I would use this as my blog.
(Here’s the link, if you want to listen to it.)
November 9, 2018
Dear Mr. David Foster Wallace,
How could you? In This is Water, you open our minds to breaking the boundaries of our brains, of shifting perspective of life and the little inconsistencies we find in our everyday routines-you speak of hope. This 2005 public speech at Kenyon University would later go on to be one of your most influential pieces, a speech that would leave all generations open mouthed and in awe of their own existence. And yet, police found you hanging from the rafters in your home not three years later. You hung yourself on September 12, 2008, you killed your ideals when you killed yourself and that, Mr. Wallace, makes you a hypocrite.
This is Water is a piece that reflects on human self-perseverance through seeing life’s negative attributes as a gift to each of us. You suggest within it a self-discipline, a mind-over-matter way of seeing the world. It is a piece meant to remind us of the “water” all around us, of our lives that are more beautiful than we now can comprehend, and of the self-awareness we all should have towards our external experiences and through our communications with others. And I knew as I listened in my bed and cried to this piece, that you must be a forever lonely man, having thoughts such as these. It is a very daunting task to chase intellect and nearly worship it, you said it yourself, so how could you let this same idea ruin you?
After hearing this speech, I noticed my shoes fit different. I watched my words fall from my mouth and found myself able to touch them with my fingers, to feel the power each syllable had once spoken into the air. I imagined my life and walked with open hands into it, palms outstretched and ready to gratefully tackle any obstacle. Shortly after practicing this lifestyle, I learned too of your death. Of your major-depressive disorder and the electroshock therapy. Of your struggles and your internal pain, though I had initially pictured you as this impenetrable force, a man with a more resilient mind than anyone I had the privilege to listen to before.
Mr. Wallace, I will forever be in awe of you, but you are a hypocrite, you are a liar. You cheated me, giving me false hope where even you couldn’t find any. You said once that “writing is what it means to be a f****** human being”, that writing has the potential to make the writer and reader “less alone inside.” Still, there was a hole in you-the writing wasn’t enough, the people you touched with your spirit through poetry, essays, and speeches was not enough for you. The hole was your heart and head aching in a constant and never-ending battle, depressive episodes racking through your bones and choking these sentimental, humble phrases from your mouth. You let your brain eat you from the inside out, and I don’t know if I can forgive you for it.
What did you worship, Mr. Wallace? Was it intellect, as I first imagined, that drove you? Perhaps not, as you did say it was incredibly useless to do so, but I still have notions that you said this knowing you would always return to look for more intellect, that you secret did in fact worship knowledge and knowingly let it break you into little pieces, running to a finish line that never existed.
As you said, “The one thing that is Capital T- true, is that you decide how you’re going to see it.” You were talking about life when you let these words tumble from your mouth. Maybe you were more selfish than I knew, only talking of your own life, but Mr. Wallace, when you said this, I considered my life and the lives of my friends, of my family, of strangers I would meet in the next. It was universal, and your words hit home. As a fish in water, as my seventeen-year-old self, I was hooked to this quote, and it still carries me through days. But, Mr. Wallace, can it even hold the weight it once did in my mind after discovering that you never fully invested into the idea yourself? You had chances, you have choices, and though your words were brilliant, I have trouble coming to terms with your death and simultaneously believing in them. I can barely believe in you anymore.
Mr. Wallace, I hope you found peace through your decision, but I also hope you know that because of your decision, I do not believe peace is something I will have for a very long time.
Best wishes, wherever you are,
Katherine Dian Westbrook
