The Crazy Four Fish

Four guys, one project. David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short story writer, as well as a professor of English and creative writing. We read his unusual commencement speech called "This is water" and we were mesmerized by that because it talks about a lot of realities that everybody lives but nobody pays attention to. Furthermore we're going to have a turning point in our lives and Wallace seems to be the perfect guide to change our worldview. Our project: retracing this speech step by step. Every week we're going to post a part of it and each of us will express their opinion about the "week-theme". Our goal: involving as many people as we can in this crazy project of opening our minds to new horizons. In each post we'll start from the "week-theme", but then we want to connect it to personal interests.

[thegoodvybe]

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

WEEK-THEME: seeing things just in my way.

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

Week 7 […] The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home,and it’s going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way?

[m-l-rio]

Boredom is different nowadays. It’s about super-saturation, distraction, restlessness. I am often bored but it’s not for lack of options: a thousand TV channels, the bounty of Netflix, countless net radio stations, innumerable unlistened-to albums, unwatched DVDs and unread books, the maze-like archive of YouTube. Today’s boredom is not hungry, a response to deprivation; it is a loss of cultural appetite, in response to the surfeit of claims on your attention and time.

Simon Reynolds, Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past (via m-l-rio)

[thepersonalquotes]

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

SORRY GUYS

Sorry if we leave out this blog for a while, but we had some school stuff to do. Don't worry, we're coming back tomorrow with a new week-theme!!

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

WEEK-THEME: "day in,day out". Boredom and frustration of routine.

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

Week 6 That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in, day out” really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

“The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained" -Bilal Nasir Khan

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

• Life can get you down so I just numb the way it feels Or drown it with a drink and out of date prescription pills And all the ones that love me, they just left me on the shelf, no farewell So before I save someone else, I've got to save myself And before I blame someone else, I've got to save myself And before I love someone else, I've got to love myself •

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

"I think I'll miss you forever like the stars miss the sun in the morning skies. Late is better than never even if you're gone I'm gonna drive, drive I've got that summertime, summertime sadness"

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

Life, for all its anguish, is ours, Miss Ives. It belongs to no other.

Penny Dreadful

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

this is one of Neil's best work, so take a moment to enjoy it!

[deeplifequotes]

You are so much more than what you are going through.

John Tew (via deeplifequotes)

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

this is one of my best slam poem ever. these words are so special they almost make me cry every single time!

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

“Don’t you show me what I got to live for, don’t make me want this again, please don’t make me fight. I’m tired, and no, I don’t want it to be better! Better is only a father’s presence. Don’t wash off the scabs, don’t fix the brokenness that is all that I know. “

[wallaceenglishproject-blog]

“I sat in this hole for thousands of years, thinking of nothing but redemption, of reclaiming my good name. I thought of nobody, no cause, other than my own. The only thing that matters in the end is the mission -- protecting those who would not and cannot protect themselves --the humans. None of us is bigger than that. And we will not let our fears, our self-absorption prevent us from seeing it through. Not anymore. When they say my name, perhaps I won't just be the one who let the serpent in. Perhaps I will be known as one of the many  who gave heaven a second chance. “