the last lecture: a review, of sorts.
I just finished The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. The book, published in 2008, is a sort of accompaniment to Pausch's last lecture at Carnegie Mellon, where he was a human-computer interaction, design, and computer science professor. I remember watching the lecture a few years back and being touched, and wanted to go through the book since I've been interested in memoirs lately.
Pausch was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer a month before giving the lecture and writing this book. He talks about childhood dreams, lessons he's learned, stories from his life, and things he's learned from teaching. The book is really moving. It's evident that Pausch has a sincere love and appreciation towards his life. He's acutely aware of what his death means, but is able to maintain a deep sense of optimism. I found that incredibly admirable.
I also found the book difficult to get through because of the various parallels I found between his life and mine. Pausch's oldest son was five years old when he passed away, which was the same age I was when my father passed away. The difference, it seems to me, is that Pausch had the mental and physical capacity to prepare for his death in a way that was unimaginable for my family. He had financial security, a strong support network, and an abundance of resources at his fingertips. He could hire someone to help him write a book about his life. He could spend money to swim with dolphins with his son and go to Disney World. He could spend time crafting and curating the image of himself that he wanted to leave with his children. Dying young is always a tragedy, but of all tragedies, his was the fairytale. He said all of his goodbyes, witnessed the glory surrounding his own life, and left his mark on the world.
His message about achieving dreams, gratitude, and making the most of life are universally relevant, but by the end of the book, I felt resentful. The things he left his kids with - stories, security, entire pieces of himself - were things that I would not ever get. They were things that my father couldn't prepare for, and for that, the book wounded me.
At one point, Pausch leaves a specific message for his kids - that he wants them to pursue their own interests, and that he would never want them to feel obligated to become something because that's what they thought he wanted for them. Those were words that I needed to hear and to fully believe. I cried when I got there because I didn’t know how much I had wanted to hear those words in a different voice until they hit me.
This book drips with privilege, but it is a genuine celebration of life. It is a love letter to his family, Disney, academia, and the opportunity to say goodbye. It is a complete collection of everything I wish I had received from my own father, and for that reason, I cannot love it.
I don’t know how I found this artist but this song is making me feel lots of things.
Basically just posting to say that I updated my about me section. It’s taken a bit of time for me to acknowledge my confusion and current lack of direction in my life right now, but putting that out there was pretty therapeutic. For whatever friends that don’t know, I moved back home to Orange County a few months ago. I was struggling mentally in Boston and wanted to be closer to family. I liked the work that I did in design, but want to take the time to learn more about myself, explore other possibilities, and develop a stronger sense of what I want to tackle and accomplish in my 20’s. It hasn’t been easy. There’s many days where I wake up and feel utterly useless. It’s taken a while to detach my sense of self-worth from my job title. I still don’t think I’ve completely reconciled the work it took to get my degree and what I’m doing now. I tell myself repeatedly that it’s okay to be confused, to be lost, to be young and a little clueless. A lot of the times, I don’t believe it. Today, I did.
I suppose there is a question mark after goals because I have no sense of what 2019 brings. I changed my website up for the new year—I’ve had the previous theme for about 3 years now, and decided it was time I refined some of my photo collections and strengthened some aspects of my website (this is still a WIP). I’ve added a “writing” section because writing more is a major goal for 2019. I started by submitting a piece to 35mmc, a film photography blog that I’ve been following for a while now. I think that will be the last definitive “non fiction” type of writing I’ll do for a while—I’m interested in blurring the lines between fiction and reality and experimenting with how hazy those lines can get. I also integrated the Medium post I wrote a few months ago into my website here. I like Medium because it’s accessible for people who would otherwise never go on my website, but it feels much less personal. I changed up some photos from that piece and added a few more.
Back to the topic of goals—reading, as always, is part of my goal list. I attempted to read 40 books in 2018 but only completed 38. This year, I’m aiming for 60. Since New Year’s Day, I’ve read My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki, The Once and Future World by J.B. MacKinnon, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, and Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. I was trying to do a book a day but that seemed like a path straight to burnout. Here is my tentative list for the year. Leave a comment if there’s anything you think I’d like!
Both life and death manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate. They are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.