vittaya pinpan/iStock via Getty Images What the Hell is Water? “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?’” David Foster Wallace, the great American novelist, opened his commencement speech at Kenyon College with this story in 2005, about three ye ...