I... I think you entirely missed the point of the commencement speech.
The point of his speech is NOT that the world is hard, and difficult, and in order to combat, survive and thrive in that environment you need to reshape your viewpoint so as to see the world in an easier light, or amend yourself to better accept your situation.
The point of his speech is that from childhood through college, the average American life changes dramatically every few years. New experiences, new schools, new friends. But after college, most of us begin to develop routines. Many of us specialize. We do so in a way that is unfamiliar to us before that age, as it is only after college that life has the potential to stay stable for many years in a row, and thereby allow many of us to begin building routines, foundations, and patterns that can last a lifetime.
Routines of habit also go hand in hand with building routines of thought. In school, high school, college, you are constantly bombarded with new ideas and experiences. But 10 years into the workforce, depending on how you chose to live your life, you may find that this happens less frequently. That you've automated some parts of your life mentally. That you've fossilized some aspects of your thinking, in order to focus on other aspects and goals of your life.
And DFW is pointing out that this is both extremely common, and dangerous.
> "The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive"
What he's saying is that if you adopt any specific ideology as fixed, then the persistent problems you will encounter in your life will be precisely the ones your current ideology is unable to fix. (Almost tautologically, because otherwise, you would have fixed them already.)
The point of the speech is not that you have to change your viewpoint in order to make yourself amenable to the outside world.
The point of his speech is that you need to be willing to always look at a situation from outside your current perspective, and be willing to continue growing, learning, and upgrading your current beliefs and viewpoints in order to be able to reassess and potentially solve your problems, goals, life and ambitions.
His 'fear' is that many of the students will think that their learning part of their life is complete, because they have graduated college.
DFW is trying to instill in them that college did not finish their requirements to learn. College merely taught them how to learn, in the hope that they would continue learning for the rest of their lives.
That is literally the opposite of stoicism.
DFW is literally saying that if someone adopts a completely fixed and stoic mindset, they might as well kill themselves. Because it is only by getting over one's routines, and consciously choosing to look at one's own problems from new perspectives, and then employing their collegiately taught skills of learning that one finds new approaches and philosophies and perspectives and SOLUTIONS to their problems. And it is by doing that, that one can ultimately find a fulfilling and successful life. Failing to do that, getting permanently stuck in mental rut, will lead to missing out on so much of what makes life positive, successful and happy, that he compares such people to the walking dead.
The point of his speech is that you need to be willing to always look at a situation from outside your current perspective, and be willing to continue growing, learning, and upgrading your current beliefs and viewpoints in order to be able to reassess and potentially solve your problems, goals, life and ambitions.
The point of the speech from my readings/listenings are not what you've described above. To me, for all the pithy quote-worthy snippets in this talk, the most important line is the explicit suggestion in the second half of this sentence (emphasis added):
>The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
For all the worthwhile ideas Wallace puts forth in this speech, I've long thought this the most valuable and unrecognized one.
Want to know what your water looks like? Truly care for others.
There's no atheism; we all worship. Then worship such that you benefit others.
Think your world is too much routine and drudgery? Just try to understand what those around you are enduring.
Believe you're educated and know how to think? Try doing it on behalf of others.
The mind is a terrible master, so get outside those walls and try to understand the mind of someone else.
I think that if you generally practice getting outside of your self-centered default setting, and practice looking at situations from an outside perspective, you almost immediately start practicing viewing situations from other people's point of view.
I think that very quickly leads to the realization that a foundational aspect of life is how we all care for one another, and how you can do so as well.
I think DFW recognizes this, and hopes that the people listening to this speech ultimately come to this same conclusion on their own, amongst many other that such a mindset can reveal over time.
And I think that bleeds through his works, this one included.
Lastly, I agree with you, that that sentence holds an important truth. The heart of all moral philosophy is about the question of what we owe each other. It is a genuinely valuable disposition to keep in mind.
The point of his speech is NOT that the world is hard, and difficult, and in order to combat, survive and thrive in that environment you need to reshape your viewpoint so as to see the world in an easier light, or amend yourself to better accept your situation.
The point of his speech is that from childhood through college, the average American life changes dramatically every few years. New experiences, new schools, new friends. But after college, most of us begin to develop routines. Many of us specialize. We do so in a way that is unfamiliar to us before that age, as it is only after college that life has the potential to stay stable for many years in a row, and thereby allow many of us to begin building routines, foundations, and patterns that can last a lifetime.
Routines of habit also go hand in hand with building routines of thought. In school, high school, college, you are constantly bombarded with new ideas and experiences. But 10 years into the workforce, depending on how you chose to live your life, you may find that this happens less frequently. That you've automated some parts of your life mentally. That you've fossilized some aspects of your thinking, in order to focus on other aspects and goals of your life.
And DFW is pointing out that this is both extremely common, and dangerous.
> "The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive"
What he's saying is that if you adopt any specific ideology as fixed, then the persistent problems you will encounter in your life will be precisely the ones your current ideology is unable to fix. (Almost tautologically, because otherwise, you would have fixed them already.)
The point of the speech is not that you have to change your viewpoint in order to make yourself amenable to the outside world.
The point of his speech is that you need to be willing to always look at a situation from outside your current perspective, and be willing to continue growing, learning, and upgrading your current beliefs and viewpoints in order to be able to reassess and potentially solve your problems, goals, life and ambitions.
His 'fear' is that many of the students will think that their learning part of their life is complete, because they have graduated college.
DFW is trying to instill in them that college did not finish their requirements to learn. College merely taught them how to learn, in the hope that they would continue learning for the rest of their lives.
That is literally the opposite of stoicism.
DFW is literally saying that if someone adopts a completely fixed and stoic mindset, they might as well kill themselves. Because it is only by getting over one's routines, and consciously choosing to look at one's own problems from new perspectives, and then employing their collegiately taught skills of learning that one finds new approaches and philosophies and perspectives and SOLUTIONS to their problems. And it is by doing that, that one can ultimately find a fulfilling and successful life. Failing to do that, getting permanently stuck in mental rut, will lead to missing out on so much of what makes life positive, successful and happy, that he compares such people to the walking dead.
Which would be the stoic viewpoint.