What the Hell Is Water

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 Think 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?