A Thread on David Wallace Foster

A Thread on David Wallace Foster to talk about David Wallace Foster and whatever else might be relevant.

I'll start.

Coming from some reference in a piece (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/07/big-questions_n_3886381.html) on the Huffpo about "keeping the big questions alive" and "how society is losing contact with things which should be important", I struck on a couple of youtubes which were interesting in various ways.

The pop-version of DWF's "This is water"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z5TIFr5XMo

The full version

And more interestingly, an uncut interview where you can "see" him think and reason in a dialogue of sorts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkxUY0kxH80

And finally, on the darker side of the spectrum, a youtube on people close to him explaining why he comitted suicide

After all the words of wisdom that are present in the bits and pieces from DWF, and finally knowing this definite outcome, I can't help but wonder how this person who looks and sounds like he has all the tools to fight against his own mind, still lost. I really do. And it's a bit confusing.

But what the heck. I thought some people could find something meaningful for themselves as well. And I couldn't find a thread on DWF, so here it is...

edit: lol it's DFW... :S

I'm not super read up on dfw but from what I have read of his I would imagine that it all was just too much for him. His mind didn't seem to edit much out of what was going on around him or with him. That would drive almost anyone to the same end, I imagine.

Perhaps.

But in my own weird logic I would argue that your mind technically produces as much information as it inherently can handle. I can see where the "too much" is coming from and how that could be a plausible explanation. We all know the feeling of "too much information". And "too much" is something that is different to every one of us, but the concept is quite the same, I would argue.

So, on an absolute scale of measuring how much information a brain can cope with, his must have been way up there. But is that an excuse for falling so deep? I don't know, but looking at the Charlie Rose interview, I'm pretty sure this guys brain is worth its weight in gold, if you catch my drift. The issue of "too much information" should - arguably - be child's play to solve.

Trying put suicide into a logic from perspective that suicide is illogical won't get you any closer to understanding it.

Ive read Infinite Jest and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. I'd suggest starting out with Consider the Lobster, which has some thought-provoking (and at many times utterly hilarious) stories.

  On 9/8/2013 at 3:25 PM, SR4 said:

Trying put suicide into a logic from perspective that suicide is illogical won't get you any closer to understanding it.

 

I'm using the perspective that suicide is illogic? What makes you think that? Is this the SR4 "I know what you think" train on steam again?

Thanks for the Lobster-tip though! Have you read Infinite Jest? Thoughts? I haven't. And from the looks of it (in the CR interview), it's one heck of a bigger than the bible book. I'm scared.

It's 1000+ pages I think, but it reads fast. No dense language that I can particularly remember. And the footnoting is pretty hilarious.

The footnoting...from the interview I get that it is some kind of self-conscious attempt to compromise with what his thinking wants, and what the medium of a book (and readers reading your book) allows. Is it hilarious in a self-conscious way? He loves to struggle with the "post modernism" label.

As sidenote: that CR interview is pretty interesting. Especially earlier on when he's still struggling with the idea of the interview (he later admits). ...If there's one thing, DFW seems to continuously struggle with ideas. Even to the point of having those fast facial expressions of a painful thought throughout the interview. Those are a telltale sign of what drove him to his act, btw. (Something close to him -> dad, I'm assuming. But it's not my place to play psychologist.)

People argue over the significance of the footnoting. I personally find it funny because of its absurdity.

re: DFW's suicide

In my experience as a person with bipolar, depression can run independent of reason. Depression can be chemical, not existential. As much as I'd like to say that the great DFW must've killed himself for noble reasons, I think he had a neurotransmitter imbalance that kept him from being (or getting) happy for years and years and years.

Honestly, for this reason, I kinda glaze over anytime people talk about it on any sort of existential level.

  On 9/8/2013 at 8:32 PM, LimpyLoo said:

re: DFW's suicide

 

 

In my experience as a person with bipolar, depression can run independent of reason. Depression can be chemical, not existential. As much as I'd like to say that the great DFW must've killed himself for noble reasons, I think he had a neurotransmitter imbalance that kept him from being (or getting) happy for years and years and years.

 

Honestly, for this reason, I kinda glaze over anytime people talk about it on any sort of existential level.

Of course - how do we define "happy"?

  On 9/9/2013 at 9:56 PM, chenGOD said:

 

  On 9/8/2013 at 8:32 PM, LimpyLoo said:

re: DFW's suicide

 

 

In my experience as a person with bipolar, depression can run independent of reason. Depression can be chemical, not existential. As much as I'd like to say that the great DFW must've killed himself for noble reasons, I think he had a neurotransmitter imbalance that kept him from being (or getting) happy for years and years and years.

 

Honestly, for this reason, I kinda glaze over anytime people talk about it on any sort of existential level.

 

Of course - how do we define "happy"?

I think happiness has something to do with feeling satisfied.

But anyway suicide is a strange phenomenon. There is an illusion that the people who are worst off on this planet are the ones who commit suicide, but paradoxically it's mostly middle-aged white males who commit suicide.

  On 9/9/2013 at 9:56 PM, chenGOD said:

 

Of course - how do we define "happy"?

 

The word happiness is used to indicate at least 3 related things, which we might roughly call emotional happiness, moral happiness, and judgmental happiness. Emotional happiness is the most basic. Emotional happiness is a phrase for a feeling, an experience, a subjective state and thus it has no objective referent in the physical world.

Consider, for instance, how we might define a very simple subjective experience, such as yellow. You may think yellow is a color, but it isn't. It's a psychological state. It is what human beings with working visual apparatus experience when their eyes are struck by light with a wavelength of 580 nanometers.

Because emotional happiness is an experience, it can only be approximately defined by its antecedents and by its relation to other experiences.

An interesting quote that applies to the case of DFW is this from the philosopher Blaise Pascal, "All men seek happiness. This is without exception. ...This is the motive of every action of every man, even those who hang themselves.

(90% of what I've written above is cribbed from 'Stumbling on Happiness' by Daniel Gilbert, a good read so far)