This is water

I don't know how many times I heard this speech; I don't know how many friends I showed it to. I know that I remember the day I first heard it, the friend that shared it with me. I heard it several times in a row: I didn't want to miss not even one small thing. I still listen to it every now and then. 

My time here is ending. Slowly I start to put things in perspective and I ask myself what was my purpose here, and how to communicate it to my colleges, and future EVS. I can start by the beginning, way before EVS, with David Foster Wallace words.  

This is a speech in a graduation ceremony of a liberal arts university course. Instead of presenting a nice "congratulations" speech, Foster Wallace underlines the human value of education and goes to the bottom of that should it be: a tool that allows us to learn how to think and to choose what to think about. For me, this is the true meaning of all education, but even more of non-formal education. 

If you are here, as I am, you have the tools. You can choose to choose, to be aware, to go beyond your default settings. You might not be able to choose the water, but you can choose to see it or not; you can choose how to see it. Your way, our way from now on it a matter of choice, OUR choice. 

This is what, this is water. 

Note: there is a full version of this speech that I highly recommend you to listen.