It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
David Foster WallaceWriting fiction takes me out of time. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours. Thatโs probably as close to immortal as weโll ever get.
David Foster WallaceProgressive liberals seem incapable of stating the obvious truth: that we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor people not for the poor people's sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people.
David Foster WallaceStated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense.
David Foster WallaceI had kind of a midlife crisis at twenty which probably doesnโt augur well for my longevity
David Foster WallaceIt feels intensely twisted to see reigning industry queen Jenna Jameson chilling out at the Vivid booth in Jordaches and a latex bustier and to know already that she has a tattoo of a sundered valentine with the tagline Heart Breaker on her right buttock and a tiny hairless ole just left of her anus.
David Foster Wallace