"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

While it seems that they are less and less valued by society these days, professors are still an integral part of society as they are the thinkers, the ones who are going to pass off functional knowledge to the next generation in order to keep society going. However, they are only human like the rest of us and one day or another have to face their own mortality. 

A good amount of professors have given talks which they’ve dubbed as the last lecture, where they generally reflect upon their lives, sharing the most important bits of wisdom they've come to gather through their journey.

Randy Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon when he received a devastating diagnosis: he was ill with terminal cancer. Needless to say, the man was asked to give one final lecture, and he took up the offer. However, instead of talking about subjects such as death or dealing with it; it was about living and the importance of overcoming obstacles no matter what.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (Book cover)
It was a lecture which discussed the importance of seizing the moment, the importance of recognizing that while the amount of time you have may be out of your control, the way you spend it is up to you. His speech has been since then translated into various languages and made available in many formats, which is the least he deserves as that lecture was truly inspirational and eye-opening about what is really valuable in this life.



Randy Pausch (October 23, 1950 - July 25, 2008)

Randy Pausch
(October 23, 1950 - July 25, 2008)


Randy Pausch was an American professor of computer science, design and human-computer interaction at the Carnegie Mellon University.

He truly made himself known in the world once he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, leading him to give his legendary “last lecture”, after which he co-authored the book titled The Last Lecture in which the themes he touched on earlier were explored in greater depth.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more