Response to Wallace

This was easily my favorite blog assignment that I have read so far this quarter, and I say that out of sincere interest and not ass-kissing for being sick Monday and missing class.  From the very beginning Wallace is engaging with his illustrative story about the fish and water, then leads into using that required commencement component to help illustrate the 'norms' of life and how they change us as individuals.  Instead he focuses on talking to these graduates about "teaching you how to think".  He diffuses the situation by directly addressing the insult that this is typically seen as, and now with a sense of camaraderie he launches into a speech about becoming well-adjusted and viewing things as they ought to be seen and not as we see them and explains his point of view in a readily digestible format. 

For me, I loved page seven.  Leading from his early narrative about religion (I am an Atheist for all intents and purposes), he finally revealed worship. 

"This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well adjusted.  You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.  You get to decide what to worship."

 Wallace's perspective on worship made complete sense to me, I had never thought to break it down as he had and rationalize it in that way, but I lack any argument with his positioning.  The issue with mankind as an individual is keeping this truth ever present instead of slipping into auto pilot where we become the center of our environment.  He even went so far as to call out that this worship is a subtle thing, slipping further into our being day by day, and therefore we need to be selective about what thoughts we allow to cross our consciousness. Life really is an an educational process that we don't lay the final mark with any of the letters of the alphabet, but with how we live life through or ability to be well-adjusted and open to the possibilities instead of closed off and self-centered.