# This is Water by David Foster Wallace (Full Transcript and Audio) - Farnam Street Synced: [[2023_11_30]] 6:03 AM Last Highlighted: [[2023_09_27]] Tags: [[Advice]] [[Personal Growth]] [[Psychology]]  ## Highlights [[2023_09_26]] [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hb8kpyddsh1ya55st06mw505) > that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about “the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.” [[2023_09_27]] [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hb9zmzh4nejncx7npk7zfb7g) > Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It’s the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities [[2023_09_27]] [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hb9zd28409hn1s4303pjw79j) > It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: