Religious Autobiography Of This Is Water By David Foster Wallace

Religious Autobiography For a lot of families Sunday is the most important day of the week, mine included. At least it was the most important day of the week when I was younger. When I was in elementary school, my family had a Sunday ritual: my mom would cook breakfast, we would go to 10:30 mass and then go to my great-grandmother’s nursing home with my extended family. As I got older and my great-grandmother passed away, we started to go to church less and less, only going to mass about two times a month. As my brother started growing up, our attendance declined even more as my parents often traveled out of town for his basketball, baseball, and football tournaments, making it hard to be present at Sunday mass. For the past couple of years, we have only been going on holidays. With my grandparents being very religious, they do not approve of how little my immediate family and I go to church. My extended family on my mom’s side affiliates
The reason why I am explaining this story is because the speech felt as if it was directed toward me and my mindset. I’m not going to explain the entire speech because that would be a little off topic. However, in the beginning of the speech, Wallace says, “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?’” The meaning I got from this is: Fish are living in water and yet they have no idea what water is. I made a connection because everyday I live in the work of God, yet, never feel his presence. Reading this, I realized the simple things are the hardest to explain. I now have a new mindset and finally realized I need to stop waiting to feel the presence of God. I do not need proof God is there, I just have to