Two young fish are swimming along. They happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish laugh and keep swimming on. Eventually, one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
This is a parable shared by David Foster Wallace in the 2005 commencement at Kenyon College. Like Wallace, I am not a wise old fish who will spend hours trying to explain the water you cannot see. However, this summer’s travels spanned over 11,000 miles from Seattle to Paris to Tokyo. Allow me to share a few of my perceptions of how water – that is, the world around us and our experiences – can influence our behavior as we swim along and how we can go about noticing these effects.
Like the fish in the story, we are blinded to see the regularity of the world we live in. The fish accept the thickness of water, be it a current, a still pool, the open ocean, or a tank. We accept the challenges and advantages of our daily lives regularly. It isn’t until a fish has aged and experienced a setting outside their water that they are able to recognize the possibility of existing somewhere different.
Bottom feeders are fish that have stayed in the murky depths so long they’ve adapted to live comfortably down there, while flying fish have become comfortable ascending out of the wake. Neither fish experiences the other world, so they cannot say that one is better or worse. This traps them in their current habits. Luckily, people aren’t fish.
Ginza Art Aquarium
A lesser-known exhibit, Wakin goldfish in an ornate ceramic bowl
People talk about stepping outside your comfort zone, thinking outside the box, and trying new things all of the time. However, what we are familiar with is what becomes comfortable, and what is new is what is uncomfortable. Something new can be as small as writing with a pen instead of a pencil, or as large as studying abroad in a foreign country.
Many American students spend the first 22 years of their lives devoted to their academics in some regard. Be it fighting tirelessly for perfect scores, intense training for a sport they hope will get them recognition, or the social barriers that the education system creates for us, school feels like a complete experience.
We adapt our skills to survive in that environment – a terrible sleep schedule to make up for studying or sacrificing our social life to keep up good grades, and we become familiar with the process. Until you experience what it is like outside of that experience, above the wake, in the silt and sand at the bottom, salt water or fresh water, there is no way for that student to decide which they prefer.
It is no wonder that many people after college proceed on to more schooling, with no other directive; school is all the water they’ve seen. Studying abroad, internships, and other adventures enable students to recognize the water they call comfortable from the outside. An intern in Paris experiences the stone architecture and decorum in the streets, witnesses history in museums, and tastes the freshness of a morning croissant. This is not their water at all! Nor would a Parisian swim the same in Tokyo. Between the humidity, the expanse of cityscape, the cooking styles, and the work mentality, the two experiences are oceans apart.
Ginza Art Aquarium
Many goldfish visually distorted through the flowing water in the Waterfall Tank Exhibit
Struggles and challenges are also not universal. The current may pull stronger in one area of water, or the temperature may be hotter. There is no limit to the variables that can affect how someone perceives their water. The biggest wave to a lake fish may be no more than a Tuesday morning for an ocean fish, just as the hardest exam may be another worksheet to a different student.
However, once you look back at your familiar environment from afar, you are not only able to recognize what challenges and advantages that space provides, but an opportunity to see your own strengths and how you handle different environments.
Take a moment to reflect on your tank of water. Do you swim in an isolated tide pool or thrash against waves because that is all you’ve known? How many other kinds of water have you seen? Is this the hardest environment you’ve lived in? What do you do well, regardless of where you are?
Change can be scary, but until you see the water on the other side, you will not know if you prefer swimming circles in the well-lit ceramic bowl or the overflowing waterfall in shades of purple and blue. Even better, maybe it’s water that I haven’t seen yet, either, where you’ll decide where to make a splash.