This Is Water by David Foster Wallace: The Idea of Life Before Death

“The capital-T Truth is about life before death.” This excerpt from David Wallace’s This is Water is a commanding thought which forces readers to assess their own lives and how they in many ways have become a victim to time. It forces readers like myself to be present. The easiest way to begin describing this process is to explain what it means to not be present, which according to Wallace, is our “default setting,” meaning that this is the state we have become most accustomed to living in.

Because of this I, like many others, am constantly becoming a victim to time as it pushed me to the past and pulls me to the future, constantly distracting from what’s going on right in front of our faces.

Too many times do we find ourselves living in the past where we are constantly wondering what could have been or what you should have done differently. If your like me you look too far into the future, what could be, what will be, and what might be, a constant loop of unanswered questions.

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Although thinking about your past and your future is normal and in many cases expected, it can tend to become unhealthy when our lives start to become controlled by thoughts and emotions attached to old memories and events that haven’t and may not ever happen. Because of this, which has become increasingly relevant in today’s society, it has become extremely rare to see somebody truly living in the present.

Along with our ever present memories and worries for the future, our habits and routine have become a major part of our struggle with self awareness and our “default setting.” Our habits especially can become harmful as they become part of our daily life very quickly, sometimes without us even realizing it. As we know from other worldly vices, just because something becomes normal to us doesn’t mean it is necessarily good for our well-being or for those around us. Time is the habit that we have all fallen victim to and it is time for us to realize this and break the cycle. Time is simply a human concept. The time on your watch or the clock on your wall means nothing. Truly, time is just what we use to organize our day and to document history, but that’s it. Other than that time is somewhat of an illusion. Yes, the past did happen and hopefully the future will, but right now at this moment the only true reference point we have is our existence right now. Physically you can’t feel the past or the future, but you can feel what’s right in front of you.

This is the whole concept which Wallace discusses, live your life in the moment, in what you can feel, hear and touch right now. That is the only true way to ever live a full life before death. Otherwise, we will constantly be stuck concerning ourselves with times passing and impending arrival and its affects which completely stops us from enjoying our presence right now.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we have all been victims to time at least once in our lives, probably many more if we are being completely honest, because it has become our “default setting” and an accepted norm in our fast-paced world. If we continue to allow ourselves to be victims of the past and servants to the future we will constantly carry with us a sense of uneasiness and anxiety, an affect which can already be seen prominently in today’s highly strung society. Although it may be hard, even I realize this, we have to learn to commit. Wherever we are, commit to being there completely and remind yourself to take advantage of the time we have now for as David Wallace said, it’s “about life before death.”