1. In his speech, This is Water, DFW made three concise points that shaped the way his speech was delivered. His first claim was about how people view situations and scenarios differently, and how most of us miss what is directly in front of us. In his first paragraph, he talked about a story of three fish, two were younger and one was old and wise, and the old wise fish asked them how the water was. The fish were so confused, they didn;t know what water was, and DFW was able to relate that back and say how we are like the fish and tend to not even realize or appreciate what is directly in front of us (1). His second claim was about the power of what you pay attention to. He went on and on about how you can be frustrated with a ton of things going on during your day, and how you could complain about the squeaky cart in the grocery store or the cars on the road. While you could focus on the negatives, DFW made it his mission to teach us “that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it” (5). He explained how you could go through life and everyday just being negative and only focusing on yourself, or you could try to see it from another perspective and not get so angry at the vars because maybe they are in a rish to get to the hospital or maybe they’re having a rough day visiting someone sick. The point that he was trying to make is that it is up to you to decide how you see the world. 

The third claim was that you have to do your best to change the default setting. The default setting is being negative and seeing the worst in things around you. DFW explained that changing your default setting “is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think (6). Instead of going through life doing the bare minimum and unhappily, you can reset yourself to not worship money or power, but instead worship something different because those things will constantly make you feel as if you never have enough and you’re never satisfied. 

  1. I do agree with his main arguments because you truly never do know what other people are going through. It would also be a very miserable life if you only looked at the bad things and complained about everything. 
  2. I don’t believe that he’s hinting on empathy at all, it’s definitely something else. DFW spends the entirety of his speech talking about how you can view the world, and how everyone sees it differently. I think that he was hinting on kindness and compassion instead of empathy, because he wasn’t telling the audience to feel the emotions of others around you, and with empathy you can only give it to a small number of people, so having empathy for everyone in the grocery store or on the road is not logical. However, having compassion and being kind doesn’t have a limit on how many people you can focus on, so that is what he was hinting on. 
  3. “The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death” (6). I agree with his statement about life before death because he was preaching about how you get to choose how you see the world and how you think about things. If you don’t live the way you want to live, then what is the point, and how can you say you lived life on your own terms and had your own thoughts? 
  4. DFW’s main points collide with Bloom’s points because they challenge the societal norms of today. Bloom was challenging empathy, which today is a popular word that everyone knows and every kid at school learns about. DFW was talking about how you can change the default setting of only thinking about yourself, and it connects to Bloom’s because they both are unconventional ideas that people either really resonate with or really don’t agree with at all.