My Self-centered self (and Wallace's speech)

As I was reading "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace, I found myself making connections to the"natural, basic self-centeredness" (Wallace 233).  I had realized how I am a self-centered person myself.  As a result, I will attempt make this blog about how Wallace establishes these connections of self-centeredness (and occasionally write about how I am self-centered).

Wallace perhaps establishes the connections of "self-centeredness" by his use of hypothetical situations.  He uses examples such as "let's say it's an average day...and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out" (Wallace 234), and "the checkout line is incredibly long" (Wallace 235).  These examples help the audience make connections to their own lives.  Even I was reminded of how I had to wait in line to buy lunch in school.  I especially have selfish thoughts when I am starving, thinking only about getting the food and wishing all the people standing in front of me would get out of my way.  I had never realized that selfish thoughts as these part of a "natural, hard-wired default-setting" (Wallace 233) until I read "This is Water".

Wallace also suggests that we should be "able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day" (Wallace 237).  What he means by this statement is that people should focus more on their surroundings rather than inside their minds.  He isn't denouncing self-centered thought as a "sin" since he says "if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do" (Wallace 236).  He is rather encouraging us to try to resist being too "self-centered".  This would be an "unimaginably hard" task to do for most people, even myself, but we can at least try to do so (Wallace 238).