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by NaOH·5y ago·view on hn ↗
The point of his speech is that you need to be willing to always look at a situation from outside your current perspective, and be willing to continue growing, learning, and upgrading your current beliefs and viewpoints in order to be able to reassess and potentially solve your problems, goals, life and ambitions.

The point of the speech from my readings/listenings are not what you've described above. To me, for all the pithy quote-worthy snippets in this talk, the most important line is the explicit suggestion in the second half of this sentence (emphasis added):

>The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

For all the worthwhile ideas Wallace puts forth in this speech, I've long thought this the most valuable and unrecognized one.

Want to know what your water looks like? Truly care for others.

There's no atheism; we all worship. Then worship such that you benefit others.

Think your world is too much routine and drudgery? Just try to understand what those around you are enduring.

Believe you're educated and know how to think? Try doing it on behalf of others.

The mind is a terrible master, so get outside those walls and try to understand the mind of someone else.

"That is real freedom."

1 comments
I think that if you generally practice getting outside of your self-centered default setting, and practice looking at situations from an outside perspective, you almost immediately start practicing viewing situations from other people's point of view.

I think that very quickly leads to the realization that a foundational aspect of life is how we all care for one another, and how you can do so as well.

I think DFW recognizes this, and hopes that the people listening to this speech ultimately come to this same conclusion on their own, amongst many other that such a mindset can reveal over time.

And I think that bleeds through his works, this one included.

Lastly, I agree with you, that that sentence holds an important truth. The heart of all moral philosophy is about the question of what we owe each other. It is a genuinely valuable disposition to keep in mind.