You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True understanding allows us to find meaning in any situation, even the chaotic ones.
David Foster Wallace emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and mindfulness. He suggests that by applying these skills, we can transform our perceptions of overwhelming circumstances into profound experiences filled with compassion and unity, highlighting the interconnectedness of all things in life.
Themes
ThinkingAttentionOptionsMeaningCompassionUnity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on mindfulness, one might quote this to inspire others to find meaning in their daily struggles.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes →Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
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It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
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Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
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Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
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Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
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