Learning How To Think
“The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.[…] learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”
Kenyon Commencement Address by David Foster Wallace on May 21, 2005
The entire essay is well worth reading, espousing as it does an alternate approach to viewing and thinking about life that—call it zen or call it whatever label you like—is far more likely to lead to happiness and well-adjustedness than the current hypercommercialism that seems to fill out the special-of-the-day on most menus.
More’s the pity that Mr. Wallace himself seemed incapable of benefitting from this philosophy to a degree sufficient to prevent his own suicide yesterday.