Let us commence:
“But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options.”
The above is from "This is Water," DFW's 2005 speech delivered at Kenyon College Commencement. I have to say that part of the reason I enjoy (well, sometimes they're hard to enjoy, per se) his works is that they never cease to remind me of why I write. As Virginia Woolf said, we, as writers, can "never forget Mrs. Brown"-- we can never forget the person-in-the-corner, the people we pass, the ones we perfunctorily interact with every day, because each one is living in his or her own novel as grand and expansive as our own. It's all about imagination and understanding. Thanks for the reminder, DFW.
