Daniel Krumland

Arturo Navarez
E316K 34640

In his commencement speech, David Wallace addresses a graduating class on the value
and purpose of being able to control how and what one thinks. According to Wallace, this
concept consists of breaking free from one’s “default setting or ‘lens of self’”. Wallace iterates
that with the ability to choose what you think, the numbing daily routine of the working college
graduate loses it’s negative grip on your perspective of the world. A powerful conclusion arises
with this assumption; the ability to consciously choose not to identify with the voice in our heads
points to a realization that we are not the voices in our heads, but the awareness which has been
conditioned to pay attention to it.
This idea, and the dysfunction and distortion of reality which rises from the all-too-
common oversight of it, and in turn the importance of realizing it, is easily observed through
history and culture. Think of the United States; at one time a majority of the population thought
the institution of slavery was a perfectly acceptable lifestyle for the holders and the slaves. The
viewpoint was that slaves were essentially inferior to “regular” humans, because they were a
different color, a perspective which does not provide a logical connection between the color of
skin and the resultant claim of inferiority. The reason which helped people to realize the fallacy
in the institution was the awareness that color does not constitute superiority or inferiority.
The way in which the complacency of imprisoned slaves manifests analogues to the way
which we readily and unconsciously identify with those little voices in our heads. What was said
to be the crutch of keeping slaves in their condition? Their ignorance of their condition; a slave
aware of his condition could not remain so, or at least was headed in a similar direction. The
crutch of keeping ourselves so vigorously identified with the voices in our heads is our
unawareness that we identify with them, and our unawareness that there is a choice to be made in
regards to identification with this voice. If one can choose or choose not to identify with this
“monologue”, then surely we are not the monologue itself, but we are the awareness which
decides to listen to, ignore, or change what it’s saying.
 Further evidence of this peculiar conditioning which humans unconsciously subject
themselves to remains. Look at the topic of gender roles. Why do a majority of women shave
their legs and underarms, and wear lipstick and other make-up? Chances are slim that one can
conjure a genuinely practical response to this question, yet millions of women in this country
conform to this unconscious and illogical rationalization that in order to be a proper woman,
shaved legs, shaved underarms, etc., are necessary. I would imagine that the thought processes of
a woman go as such, “I need to put on lipstick (or any other cosmetic alteration), so I will look
pretty.” Nowhere in this train of thought is their a reason as to why lipstick makes one prettier.
The oversight of this complete gap in rationalization is exactly the “unconsciousness” that
Wallace refers to, and the awareness of this gap and dismissal of the “logic” it constructs are
fundamentally liberating. “This is real freedom.” (Wallace).
The significance of this liberation cannot be understated. Could anyone argue that it was
of little significance that physical slaves were freed? Just because our own enslavement by our
very own minds does not involve whips and shackles does not lessen the damage and suffering it
generates. The liberation of slaves was a result of the liberation from the mind, so the latter’s
importance to the progress of the human race, and perhaps even the planet in its entirety,
resounds with obvious and profound relevance. Just as each one of us has a personal preference
for music, food, literature, topics of academia, we each have a personal preference of how we
view the rest of the world; with these subjects, one realizes that other preferences are certainly
not “wrong”, and that everyone is entitled to their own view of things. Similarly, when one feels
that he or she is entitled to a shorter checkout line, or the absence of traffic, he or she tends to
forget that everyone else is entitled to the same luxuries. With the awareness that you are not
alone in experiencing a traffic jam or a crowded grocery store, the sympathy which most of us so
fervently have for just ourselves becomes extended to everyone around us. Does anyone
remember the old saying, “Sharing is caring”? When one shares the intense emotions which are
reserved for his or herself with everyone else, one finds that they no longer set aside others needs
and feelings, and one actually cares about these other people, as one would his or herself.
With this realization that we are capable of choosing how and what we think comes a
future filled with possibilities. It’s very plausible that our race could stop killing each other all
the time; this may be a farfetched suggestion, but denying it would be the same unconscious
blind certainty which keeps us from knowing its accuracy. All we can do is realize and remember
that our “lens of self” is a lens, and is an interpretation of what is really there to be seen, or, using
Wallace’s terms, is an interpretation of the water which we all swim in together.