David Foster Wallace: Depression, Irony and Humor | Video Lecture Series (1/2)

David Foster Wallace: Depression, Irony and Humor.
In this installment of our video lecture series on David Foster Wallace, the author reflects on depression and the nature of humor.
Taken from an interview clip featuring the late Wallace, this video serves as an audiovisual supplement to the original.
An excerpt from the interview:
"In the U.S. there's a strange situation where in some respects, humor and irony are political responses and they're reductive. And in another sense, particularly in popular entertainment, irony and a kind of dark humor can become a way of - It's pretending to protest when it really isn't.
Someone once called irony the song of a bird that has come to love its cage. And even though it sings about not liking the cage, it really likes it in there. So that it can be both a wake-up call and an anesthetic. And the difference in the U.S. now is very tricky and very complicated, it seems to me.
I'm not often all that aware of stuff that's really funny in the book.
In the American version of "Infinite Jest", I set out to write a sad book. And when people liked it and told me the thing they liked about it was that it was so funny, it was just very surprising. It's the other strange thing about humor. I teach school and I teach literature and some of what I teach is Kafka. And there's a story about Kafka, that in some of Kafka's most horrific stories his neighbors would complain, because he would be laughing so hard late at night, as he wrote these stories.
He found them very very funny and there are things in them that are funny, but I don't know that many people would understand laughing so hard that your neighbors would complain. So there's something. It's probably difficult to talk to a writer about the humor or sadness or something in his or her own work, because our sense of it tends to be very different from readers.
Except, see, I don't know that much about music. People who do say that there is a purity with which the composer's emotional state can be felt by the listener that can't be approached by anything else either. Probably, most of kinds of art have this magical thing of, for a moment, there's a kind of reconciliation and communion between you and me that isn't possible in any other way.
Reading requires sitting alone by yourself in a quiet room and I have friends, intelligent friends, who don't like to read, because they get - it's not just bored - there's an almost dread that comes up, I think, here about having to be alone and having to be quiet. And you see that when you walk into most public spaces in America. It isn't quiet anymore.
They pipe music through. And the music is easy to make fun of, because it's usually horrible music, but it seems significant that we don't want things to be quiet ever anymore. And to me, I don't know that I could defend it, but that seems to me to have something to do with when you feel like the purpose of your life is to gratify yourself and get things for yourself and go all the time, there's this other part of you that's the same part that is almost hungry for silence and quiet and thinking really hard about the same thing for maybe half an hour instead of thirty seconds that doesn't get fed at all.
It makes itself felt in the body and a kind of dread in here. I don't know whether that makes a lot of sense, but I think it's true that here in the U.S., every year the culture gets more and more hostile. I don't mean hostile like angry. It becomes more and more difficult to ask people to read or to look at a piece of art for an hour or to listen to a piece of music that's complicated and that takes work to understand, because - well, there are a lot of reasons - but because, particularly now in computer and internet culture, everything is so fast.
And the faster things go, the more we feed that part of ourselves, but don't feed the part of ourselves that likes ... that likes quiet.
That can live in quiet. That can live without any kind of stimulation."
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[@philosofried710]

Thanks for watching! Taking recommendations for speakers and lectures! What do you think?

[@ziggomatic5772]

Great stuff, I could listen to dfw all day

[@guitargatekeeper]

do more dfw

[@QuidamByMoonlight]

Having suffered from depression myself, I can tell that David was depressed and struggling with insecurity when we did this interview. He was a lot braver than he gave himself credit for...

[@philosofried710]

Very true. I recommend the Charlie Rose interviews he did as well. Same depression and insecurity coming through...

[@bojackhorseman3787]

This man is a genius.

[@johngoldsworthy7135]

David knew deep down what was happening culturally and it saddened him beyond words. RIP

[@Henry_Swanson]

Kafka laughed so hard at his own jokes his neighbors complained. Now there's an artist I can relate to.

[@law9665]

The man is a shining emblem for anybody trying to find meaning in the world. He made time, he appreciated solitude, he created his own authentic views, with good will and kindness. The great tragedy for DFW was that his depression beat him; he should still be here creating and voicing this art. 💗

[@philosofried710]

A legend. Totally agree. Thanks for sharing.

[@shucksful]

The ending story is a horrible nightmare for anyone, much less a parent. Genius.

[@philosofried710]

Haunting, for sure. Thanks for watching.

[@ohelno]

I like this guy.

[@gdmfsob2341]

nice work. DFW will always be one of my heroes. would love to see more of these!

[@philosofried710]

More to come!

[@ShaynAlmeida]

So good! Thanks for posting 🔥🤙🏽

[@Einstellung]

Brilliant video. I love your exposition toward this

[@philosofried710]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@guitargatekeeper]

"Thinking really hard about the same thing for about half an hour instead of 30 seconds that doesn't get fed at all."

[@QuidamByMoonlight]

@4:20 Hilarious, and perfectly timed at “4:20” as well. This is 90% of the self-help guru industry right there...

[@philosofried710]

I would like to say I did the 4:20 on purpose but I'm not that clever... Just lucky :0

[@michellezhang6720]

amazing

[@philosofried710]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@relight6931]

I have suffered with various kinds of depression, even felt true clinical one, where they usually put you in hospital, since even eating, basic hygiene is sooo far out of reach, want, need.. i would eat only every third day, since by then if I continued just smoking cigarettes, my stomach would start hurting.. If it didn't I would just starve.. Luckily that severe lasted for just a year.. I had this coping mechanism since I was 10 maybe even younger, where I always had this half joke of, don't worry man, just keep trucking, if things get real bad, you can always drive off a cliff.. Up until I was 35 that thought was always there and actually gave me comfort.. I only tried suicide once, while being completly out of control due to gambling addiction.. Luckily, I chose some shitty quality tie.. It broke before I even completly lost conciousness.. At 35 I did everything I ever wanted, even though the feelings that should have been present, were never there.. I suspect I come from a family of doers, workoholics, emotionally quite stunted people,and they menaged to start killing my sensitive side and I finished it.. What could a child know, how when you get rid of negative emotions, you lose the ability for any possitive ones.. Again, at 35, being slightly bored, I figured last bucket list thing I never had. Living with someone who I love in my own capacity and vice verca.. Also realized I need to get rid of the unhealtly coping mechanism that boils down to "exit this way" simply because It would destroy my folks who don't deserve it.. One thing I never thought about is how life will be percieved harder by me,when you actively say no to that option forever.. It is really easy to be desulusioned with life when conciously or unconc. you basicly cut all tiess.. Those ties are what makes people want more time, certainly not all the bad sides of old age.. One would think someone like me should feel empathy towards DFW.. But all I can menage is rage.. I never knew him, I plan on riding some of his books, yet I am just plain mad he took his life.. i don't care if he never wrote another book again.. i know suicide isn't a surrender.. It is the most difficult curagous decision you can make.. I don't even know of his personal life.. But to know that someone so much smarter, eloquent, successful, knowledgable.. Decided to end it, whyyyyy? Why do I feel so pissed about just his suicide?? Btw, last year from this new psyhologist I was seeing for a while, actually told me that no, most people never think aboit suicide.. My mind was blown. Still think she might have been lying..

[@rajnishsaha9073]

Now that's interesting, .. deep david .. part 2? or even upto part 22

[@philosofried710]

Part two coming this month. Might do a part three after. Definitely have enough of his material to last to part 22 :)

[@collinbarry-kamp4146]

Awesome video! What’s the music that plays in the background?

[@philosofried710]

Most of the music in this video is from a composer named Chris Zabriskie. GO CHECK HIM OUT! He is absolutely amazing.

[@collinbarry-kamp4146]

@@philosofried710 Thanks! I will!

[@jamesmadison8424]

There needs to be a movie made on his life with Ryan Hurst playing David

[@philosofried710]

Agreed!

[@tekkenchampion832]

There is a movie about DFW, its called The End of The Tour featuring Jason Segal as DFW. :)

[@MikeRoberts1964]

@@tekkenchampion832 Yeah, I think he meant a good film made about DFW....

[@pod9363]

@@tekkenchampion832 I think he meant more like the early years of David, him being a tennis player and going to college and getting his first book written

[@emmashamburg]

me every time he says "entertainment": 😱

[@DJABEATS]

That’s what’s up

[@philosofried710]

Word, yo.

[@hughiedavies6069]

Sensationalism is interesting 🤔 I like the people who have a dark sense of humour about it the ones who show us the absurdity of it ..people like Stanley kubrick or Kurt vonnegut , people who see the humour in the shit we are fed .

[@guitargatekeeper]

2:25

[@PatrickJMcF]

First step toward rebellion. Watch this video.

[@CorySinger]

Thanks for sharing! If you have a second, I've been recording some acoustic covers of my favorite artists like Lifehouse. As a fellow music fan, I'd love if you would take a listen. It's on my page. Hope you like it.

[@bkbland1626]

"Evil" is a lazy assessment. Good is also. Interesting is the only one I'm interested in.

[@Misserbi]

"...a scared little American," carrying fathoms of insight for the ultimate purpose of ending a source -- himself. Let us delve into his family life before leaving home. He is a teacher. A teacher is honest but is supposed to have thick skin. Is that what he feared? That takes work. hum hum...

[@munetoshiyamasaki7536]

The person who hates Andre Agassi will go to hell. To hell with him. He wastes so much time to find someone's flaws and he doesn't look at his own flaws, that made him die early. Agassi has changed personality throughout his life and he has transformed into a Philanthropist. Now. Agassi is going on forever and the whiner has gone away forever from this earth.

[@zeeeefineass1930]

What you talking about ?

[@munetoshiyamasaki7536]

@@zeeeefineass1930 OK. If you're not a Tennis fan, probably you haven't read about Wallace's Tennis essays. He criticizes Andre Agassi in his essays, so I don't like him.

[@jbasti227]

@@munetoshiyamasaki7536 What specifically about him did he criticize?

[@munetoshiyamasaki7536]

He said Agassi is a fake and egoist kind of thing. Maybe, he was little bit jealous since he was an underachieved junior Tennis player who never made it as a professional player.

[@philosofried710]

Jeeze.

[@ghostmantagshome-er6pb]

What does any of this have to do with the fact Trump was the best president in 70 years??

[@SteveJohnson-fy7qr]

Turn the goddamn volume up