I had some pithy (or not depending on whether you usually find my thoughts pithy) things to say tonight but alas it’s almost 6pm here and I have a bit of a last minute urgent thing at work and a client very soon. So instead of my deep thoughts, I thought I’d share a wonderful video I watched while exercising last week. There was a short version that’s animated and fun to watch. It’s taken from a graduation speech David Foster Wallace gave:
and if you really like it and want to listen to the full original speech it’s 22 minutes and you can watch it here:
I would watch but all of Montreal is under a boil water advisory and this video may have me craving water. I have to time the water at a rolling boil for over a minute so that I can use it to brush my teeth. And then there’s coffee…somebody asked Van Houtte’s who replied, “No, you can’t use cooled boiled water to make coffee, you need to use Spring Water.” All of the Starbucks in Montreal will not be serving filtered coffee until the advisory is lifted. I know I took for granted the fact that you turned the tap on and hot water ran out but after seeing the stuff that came out of a tap in suburban Montreal, I’m not really interested in even opening the tap. Yes, I will be grateful when the advisory is over.
So, I will curb my verbosity and say, thank you for posting this. Maybe when I have my water back, I’ll watch it. For now…
Karen,
I just recently started following your blog and I want to thank you so much for sharing this. It is wonderful and I can’t wait to share it with others. Just what I needed at the end of a very busy and demanding day!
Lynn
Oh my goodness! I live that speech. I used to teach senior English, and I loved seeing the kids react to this speech, especially the end: “This is water. This is water.” As soon as I saw your title, I got goosebumps. Thanks for reminding me of where I was a year ago almost to the day when I got to watch young men and women – ready to embark on their own lives – react to such a poignant speech about what we choose to be aware of.
so glad you liked it too! 🙂