This Is Water
E308228
This Is Water is a widely acclaimed commencement speech by David Foster Wallace that reflects on awareness, empathy, and the challenges of adult life.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| This Is Water canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2894428 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: This Is Water Context triple: [David Foster Wallace, notableWork, This Is Water]
-
A.
Spirit on the Water
"Spirit on the Water" is a reflective, blues-inflected song by Bob Dylan from his 2006 album *Modern Times*, noted for its laid-back groove and lyrical blend of romance, humor, and spiritual allusion.
-
B.
The Beautiful Struggle
The Beautiful Struggle is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s coming-of-age memoir about growing up in Baltimore amid violence, hip-hop culture, and his father’s Black nationalist ideals.
-
C.
Don’t Go Near the Water
Don’t Go Near the Water is a 1957 American romantic comedy film set in the U.S. Navy during World War II, known for its humorous take on military public relations and wartime romance.
-
D.
The Light We Carry
The Light We Carry is a 2022 nonfiction book by Michelle Obama that offers personal reflections and practical wisdom on resilience, hope, and navigating uncertainty.
-
E.
Black Water
Black Water is the grim historical nickname for the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, infamous for its brutal treatment of Indian freedom fighters during British colonial rule.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: This Is Water Target entity description: This Is Water is a widely acclaimed commencement speech by David Foster Wallace that reflects on awareness, empathy, and the challenges of adult life.
-
A.
Spirit on the Water
"Spirit on the Water" is a reflective, blues-inflected song by Bob Dylan from his 2006 album *Modern Times*, noted for its laid-back groove and lyrical blend of romance, humor, and spiritual allusion.
-
B.
The Beautiful Struggle
The Beautiful Struggle is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s coming-of-age memoir about growing up in Baltimore amid violence, hip-hop culture, and his father’s Black nationalist ideals.
-
C.
Don’t Go Near the Water
Don’t Go Near the Water is a 1957 American romantic comedy film set in the U.S. Navy during World War II, known for its humorous take on military public relations and wartime romance.
-
D.
The Light We Carry
The Light We Carry is a 2022 nonfiction book by Michelle Obama that offers personal reflections and practical wisdom on resilience, hope, and navigating uncertainty.
-
E.
Black Water
Black Water is the grim historical nickname for the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, infamous for its brutal treatment of Indian freedom fighters during British colonial rule.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
commencement speech
ⓘ
essay ⓘ published book ⓘ |
| audience |
Kenyon College class of 2005
ⓘ
college graduates ⓘ |
| author | David Foster Wallace ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| criticalReception | widely acclaimed ⓘ |
| date | 2005-05-21 ⓘ |
| deliveredAt | Kenyon College ⓘ |
| genre |
commencement address
ⓘ
non-fiction ⓘ |
| hasForm |
booklet
ⓘ
commencement video ⓘ online text ⓘ transcript ⓘ |
| influenced |
discussions of mindfulness in education
ⓘ
popular discourse on empathy and awareness ⓘ |
| intendedEffect |
encourage empathy in daily life
ⓘ
increase everyday awareness ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
adult life
ⓘ
awareness ⓘ choice of how to think ⓘ consciousness ⓘ default settings of the mind ⓘ empathy ⓘ everyday life ⓘ |
| mediaType |
audio recording
ⓘ
print ⓘ video recording ⓘ |
| notableQuote |
The capital-T Truth is about life before death.
ⓘ
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline. ⓘ This is water. ⓘ You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. ⓘ |
| partOf | David Foster Wallace bibliography ⓘ |
| placeOfDelivery | Gambier, Ohio ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2009 ⓘ |
| publisher | Little, Brown and Company ⓘ |
| speaker | David Foster Wallace ⓘ |
| subject |
compassion
ⓘ
liberal arts education ⓘ meaning in everyday routines ⓘ mindfulness ⓘ self-centeredness ⓘ |
| tone |
didactic
ⓘ
reflective ⓘ |
| year | 2005 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: This Is Water Description of subject: This Is Water is a widely acclaimed commencement speech by David Foster Wallace that reflects on awareness, empathy, and the challenges of adult life.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.