About a week before we came to South
Africa I rediscovered a film short interpretation of a David Foster Wallace’s
commencement speech from 2005 entitled “This is Water,” (link:https://vimeo.com/68855377).
The first two weeks of orientation provided for me endless intrigue in that I
was very abruptly introduced to new histories, dialogues, people, landscapes,
and cuisines. It was easy to get swept up in this intrigue and fall in love
with South Africa. It has (and continues) to feel like a home away from home
and I am incredibly grateful for that. Despite this newfound comfort here and
continued drive to experience even more of this beautiful place I have
sometimes found myself taking for granted or simply forgetting to give credence
to the many complexities of this place. Keeping David Foster Wallace’s speech
in mind has helped me to fight the generalizations that are easy to make about
those around me. His words focus more so on dealing with the monotony of adult
life/adult life in general but ring true in reference to the complexity of all
of those around me as well.
Wallace essentially advises the
graduating class to be aware of the perspective they take on the strangers they
confront daily. Since we are now all busy with internships, projects,
schoolwork, and the various other activities associated with living on your own
in a new country we are now constantly meeting new people and being put into
new situations where generalizations provide a simple solution to the problem
of having to process so much. It somehow becomes easier to assume that your cab
driver leads a life simpler than your own because he claims to be content with
his life as say, an immigrant in South Africa making a modest wage to send back
to his family. However, in assuming that the people here lead lives simpler
than our own we assume an inherent difference that denies these people the
complex inner lives we consider our friends and family back home to have. My
point in bringing this all up is mostly to encourage fellow coeducators to
enjoy the “water” while here in acknowledging the complex realities of this
vibrant place.
On Friday I had a cab driver
from the DRC who was a published author and activist in his home country, but
had no success with those professions in South Africa and had to turn to cab
driving to make ends meet. If I had taken that cab ride at face value and
ignored conversation with the man driving me thanks to the annoyance of being
in a hot cab for two hours I would have missed out on an incredible
intellectual conversation. While in line for coffee the other day I had a great
conversation with a woman about her struggles to raise money for her children’s
school and was given insight into the complexity of the South African school
system. Had I simply viewed waiting in line for coffee, as a minor annoyance to
get through and move on from I would have missed out on another equally
engaging conversation. Thus I continue to encourage my coeducators and myself
to, as David Foster Wallace puts cleanly, “have just a little critical
awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the
stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally
wrong and deluded.”
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