"Awareness" - A commentary on J.F Wallace's "this is water"

J.F Wallace delivered a commencement speech to the graduating class of 2005 at Kenyon College. In his speech, he introduces some thoughtful perspectives on compassion in life from his essay "this is water."
 
I believe that all hard working people in the world experience the frustration and annoyance that prods daily adult-life routines. As David Wallace satirically describes, these agonizing idiosyncrasies about the situations and the people in life paralyze man's thought process and contort his sometimes unaware experience of life into a depressing drama. People, whose minds are constantly badgered with a "why must I have to do this again" kind of attitude, incur the consequence of a narrow-minded perspective about others. The monotony of a thoughtless and vague experience of life causes severe boredom in life and the lack of empathy for others. Just focusing on all the pessimistic aspects of life will eventually incline anyone towards ignorance of  the self and the world around them; Wallace creatively portrays this idea in his speech by the gold fish that were absolutely oblivious of  their everyday aquatic life. Personally, I find his metaphoric link between the "this is water" statement and the obvious parts of life quite insightful. In essence, it's the everyday obvious realities that test people's perceptions. Once the difficult sensations of day to day life's drone boredom and nagging frustration seep into the human unconscious, the catalyst, ignorance, transforms the human into a walking unconsciousness, a zombie, absolutely insensitive to others and unaware of the choices present in his/her life. However, the ability to make a choice, a free decision after thoughtful consideration, is the mysticism of the regular week day that enables man to break the bonds of monotony with spontaneity. For instance, I drive sixty miles everyday to school and back home, and I know - as most other people who also drive daily - the frustration of driving behind cars that drive ridiculously slowly and pace at long distances behind other cars in rush hour traffic. The experience generates agonizing frustration for drivers sitting in a car for at least two hours a day. Although, David Wallace proposes that with the power of compassion and choice, I don't have to react in my "default settings." I can change my perception on the way I experience the sometimes-monotonous moments of my life. I can be aware about the world, situations, and people around me. I may choose to understand that the notoriously slow and distancing driver in front of me in morning traffic might have been in a terrible car accident and now driving petrifies him. As free-minded people, we don't have to submit to utilitarian routines and a meager sense of existing, but rather we can choose to live a life animated with the vim of choice.

Image source:  http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/goldfish-in-aquarium-19653587?st=d823f28 
Image URL: http://a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2013/05/thisiswater.jpg