“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'

This is the freedom of real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think.

None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death. The Capital T truth is about life before death. The real value of a real education has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over:

This is water.

This is water.”