Wisdom from a man of sorrow

Every year America sees a leaf storm of commencement addresses. Perhaps, over a decade, one or two will make it onto the national radar.

Recently, a commencement address delivered by the Wonder Boy of American Letters — David Foster Wallace — has been the buzz. Wallace gave the speech to the graduates of Kenyon College back in 2005. It was published in book form earlier this year under the title "This Is Water."

Wallace spent his life warring with clinical depression, a battle he'd eventually lose. But no gloom clouds his address to the Kenyon grads. His comments are filled with wisdom and an honest affection for humanity.

This year, as many Utah high schoolers prepare to walk to the podium to claim their "sheepskin," speakers will again struggle to say something original to them. Quoting something original is less daunting.

We reproduce a few thoughts from Wallace's famous remarks here for those in caps and gowns to ponder.

"Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe," the author of "Infinite Jest" told the graduates at Kenyon. "It is our default setting, hardwired into our boards at birth."

According to Wallace, the value of an education is to get people out of this "default setting" and help them see other possibilities.

"If you've really learned to think," he says, "you will know you have options."

You can decide how to worship, for instance.

"Everybody worships," Wallace explains. "The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing to worship some sort of god or spiritual type thing ... is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."

If you worship money, you'll never have enough.

Worship physical beauty and you'll always feel unattractive.

Worship power and you'll always feel weak.

"You get the idea," Wallace says.

"The really important kind of freedom," he goes on, "involves attention and awareness and discipline and effort and being truly able to care about other people and sacrifice for them."

Learn to use your freedom of choice wisely, he counsels. Choose to worship something worth worshipping.

See options beyond your "default setting" of self-interest.

Learning that, he says, is the real value of an education.

We say, well said.