Freedom from the Rats
5/3/23
In David Foster Wallace (DFW)’s 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, he gave the graduates something to ponder which is perhaps more important than anything they learned from any textbook. He discussed what a real education is about anyway. Learning how to think. His speech went to the heart of what life is really made up of – the small, mundane moments. The commute to work, the trip to the grocery store, waiting in lines. Foster thinks these are the battle lines of real life. Here, he suggests, is where the real work of choosing how to think, will come into play.
“Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and Long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop.”
The greatest freedom we possess is the power to CHOOSE how to think. What does learning how to think mean? It means controlling your thoughts by being conscious and aware enough to actively choose what you pay attention to and how you will construct meaning from that experience. Why is this so important? DFW gives you an example of standing in line:
“You can choose to look differently at this fat, dead eyed, over made-up lady who just screamed at her kids in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who is dying of bone cancer."
Another example is us getting angry at just being cut off in traffic. According to Wallace, perhaps the driver is:
“A father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him and he is trying to get his kid to a hospital.”
The question is who do we want to be in our driving commute? Do we want to spend our days in anger, lashing out, or do we want to maybe consider a kinder, more peaceful journey to work and back?
None of this is easy. It takes hard work to constantly be aware of what we are thinking but DFW laments:
But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer hell type situation as not only meaningful, but SACRED, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
Despite the fact we are hardwired to naturally bend toward self-centeredness; the universe is, of course, much bigger than ourselves. However, we can adjust this setting to be more focused on others. The freedom of attention, awareness, and discipline of thought is the greatest but least talked about freedom of all and according to DFW:
“Being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over and in a myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, default setting, the rat race….
I love the idea of intentionally bringing my thoughts to a place where my actions will help to make this place just a little better. What’s cool about this is you don’t need to buy it on Amazon or look a certain way to attain it. No, freedom is well, free.
Will we use it?