This Is Water by David Foster Wallace Full Speech

Why HN readers recommended it

HN people point lost, lonely or burned-out readers to it as a short, humane piece of perspective on how to live.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Joe Mita

Topic

attention and meaning in life

Format

talk

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

5

HN mentions in dataset

6

Recommendation years in dataset

2015–2022

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Thanks to your exceptional focus and determination you've arrived early at what is widely called Midlife Crisis. The aphorism your story brings to my mind is "Don't just do something, sit there!". Not sure what will help you but I highly recommend a 23 minute …

• As someone far younger than you, yet at times infinitely jaded, through what have >0% odds of being at least related circumstance: If you haven’t come across DFWs This is Water, I’d highly recommend you give it a sincere listen: [VIDEO] What is your goal? …

• Nobody has mentioned "This is water" from a commencement speech [1] at a college yet, so let me do that. [1] [VIDEO]