Akira The Don, David Foster Wallace - What The Hell Is Water? (This Is WATERWAVE) lyrics

Greetings, thanks and congratulations
To Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005

There are these two young fish swimming along
And they happen to meet an older
Fish swimming the other way
Who nods at them and says
"Morning, boys how’s the water?"
And the two young fish swim on for a bit
And then eventually one of them looks
Over at the other and goes
"What the hell is water?"

What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?

This is a standard requirement
Of US commencement speeches
The deployment of didactic
Little parable-ish stories
The story thing turns out to
Be one of the better
Less bullshitty conventions of the genre
But if you’re worried that I plan to
Present myself here as the wise
Older fish explaining what water is
To you younger fish please don’t be
I am not the wise old fish
The point of the fish story is
Merely that the most obvious
Important realities are often the
Ones that Are hardest to see and talk about
Stated as an English sentence, of course
This is just a banal platitude
But the fact is that in the day
To day trenches of adult existence
Banal platitudes can have a
Life or death importance
Or so I wish to suggest to you
On this dry and lovely morning

What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?

Of course the main requirement of
Speeches like this is that
I’m supposed to talk about your
Liberal arts education’s meaning
To try to explain why the degree you are
About to receive has actual human value
Instead of just a material payoff
So let’s talk about the single most pervasive
Cliché in the commencement speech genre
Which is that a liberal arts
Education is not so much
About filling you up with knowledge
As it is about, quote:
"Teaching you how to think" think

If you’re like me as a student
You’ve never liked hearing this
And you tend to feel a bit insulted
By the claim that you needed anybody
To teach you how to think
Since the fact that you even got
Admitted to a college this
Good seems like proof that you
Already know how to think think (faded)
Think (faded)

But I’m going to posit to you
That the liberal arts cliché
Turns out not to be insulting at all
Because the really significant education
In thinking that we’re
Supposed to get in a place like this
Isn’t really about the capacity to think
But rather about the choice of
What to think about
If your total freedom of choice
Regarding what to think
About seems too obvious to
Waste time discussing
I’d ask you to think about fish and water
And to bracket for just a few minutes
Your scepticism about the value
Of the totally obvious
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?
What the hell is water?