Monthly Archives: June 2016

Feeding Your Family is the Meaning of Life

In response to two recent post, “The Monotony of Work” and “Summary of David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Speech,” I received a perceptive comment from a reader. The commentor (C) is a well-paid software engineer who doesn’t look forward to thirty years of the same work. Continue reading Feeding Your Family is the Meaning of Life

Summary of Thomas Gray’s: “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”

Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is one of “the best-known and best-loved poems in the English.” For each of its stanzas, I provide [in brackets] a brief explanation of its meaning which may not be clear to a modern ear. Continue reading Summary of Thomas Gray’s: “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”

Summary of David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Speech at Kenyon College

Below is a summary of and commentary on David Foster Wallace‘s (1962 – 2008) famous commencement speech: “This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.” Its themes include solipsism, loneliness, monotony, education, and the importance of sympathy and conscious awareness. Continue reading Summary of David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Speech at Kenyon College