On dreams
This post is somewhat overdue, but then, they all are.
I went to the Pancreatic Cancer walk recently in honor of Randy Pausch, who I only knew for a very brief time but who has had a profound impact on my life since then. Randy's battle with pancreatic cancer lasted longer than most people who contract the disease, and for awhile I wondered if he would actually somehow beat the thing. I went both to honor his memory and to see the other people whose lives he touched. It was a very good year for the walk; "Pausch's People" and the other cancer survivors, friends, and loved ones were able to pull together what I understand to be the most money to-date in the Pittsburgh donation area.
There are a hundred personal stories about Randy running around right now, and each one is a little different. I decided to share my own, both because I think it does his memory some small honor and because it touches parts of my psyche that I can't easily put into words. I want to be able to fall back on these thoughts in the future, the next time I find myself unable to reach these more vulnerable parts of myself because I have either forgotten or walled them away out of fear.
What I felt at Randy's illness and eventual passing was awkward. I am unusual in that all these years I have been on this earth (and granted, I am still young), I have never had anyone close to me die. It is an area of life experience that I know is absolutely inevitable, yet I have no way to prepare for it; fate has not seen fit to bring such tragedy to my doorstep, and I am not on a road to seek it out. I live in a society where---at least in my part of it---I have to go out of my way to be close to death, to volunteer to put myself in a position where death could be nearby, such as a hospital. I don't have the skillset for it, and frankly, the skills I have lead me away from it; there just isn't much call for a computer scientist that I can see in places where people must deal with the realities of death daily. So there's this oddly-shaped hole in my life experience; I've had friends and family lose loved ones, and I feel sorrow for their loss, but I only know how to extend my empathy so far because I simply haven't been there. The closest I've come is losing a pet cat, and I'd hardly put that in even the same ballpark as losing another human being.
So Randy's death did not hit me personally like it has hit other people. When he announced he was battling cancer, I had already made an emotional parting with him because I had graduated; I felt it was likely that our paths would cross again, but I hadn't left any major unfinished business. There are questions left unasked, but to his great credit Randy did everything in his power to share himself with us through his website and his book; none of my queries are important enough to feel great loss at the impossibility of an answer. There isn't this "Randy-shaped hole" in my life, because while I hoped I would be able to work with him again in the future, at the present we weren't in the same sphere. And I feel nervous in the environment of others who knew him better and who are feeling the loss more deeply, nervous that I'll say something ignorant and add to their pain. It makes me not want to find them and not want to talk about Randy, which is unfair to a man who did everything he could, right up to his death, to spread knowledge and understanding.
So this part is an apology and a sad acknowledgement to those who are hurting from the loss of Randy Pausch---and indeed, from any such loss. I want to feel for you, but I don't know how. I will do my best, and I do not diminish your dismiss your pain; I simply do not know what it feels like. Someday I will, and I fear that when it happens the wound will be deep and I will not have past experience to prepare for it. I ask your forgiveness for my lack of real understanding, and your understanding when my turn rolls around and I am looking for someone to help.
That was my explanation of the loss I do not feel. Here is what I do feel.
The sadness I feel is not for the people who lost Randy, but for the people who never met him. Randy had an incredible gift for showing people that it was worthwhile to chase their dreams. It's a truth no more complicated than any Disney movie, and yet it's something Disney does such a poor job of teaching because Disney is not real. It is, quite possibly, the single hardest truth to teach---that in spite of the obvious and all-too-tangible obstacles, dreams, with effort, can be made reality. Ad astra per aspera, as citizens of Kansas and officers of Starfleet could attest. I believe that this singular truth is possibly one of the greatest realizations a human being can make, alongside the knowledge of mortality and the comprehension that all are created equal. It is through this truth that a person can stop letting life happen to them and start---if they so choose---happening to life. I've seen it happen, through working with the U.S. FIRST robotics competition. I've read it in history---how many generations of humans dreamed of flying, for that dream to be realized in a single human lifespan? And I felt it in my own life, standing on a stage with a dimly-visible audience that included my own grandmother, who doesn't understand this computer thing her grandson does but knows a good show when she sees it.
Sharing this truth is a unique gift because it cannot be given. It is a truth that is only reached at the end of a journey. When you can look back on your path and know where you came from, know where you fell and why, know that it is the work of you and your team that brought you here, you find yourself in a unique place. It is a place where you can turn your eye forward and know something else: the only thing that could stop you is if you decide not to take the next step. This is not a place you can be brought, and it is a unique individual who can guide people to this place without spoiling the path by trying to give it to them. So much of education is simply repeated attempts to get students to this place; yet at the same time, so much of education drags students away from it because of the potential cost. For to really get to this truth, you have to actually meet failure---real, nauseating, ruinous failure---head-on, experience it, and overcome it. It is a rare teacher who can simultaneously be there and not-there for a student, who can bring them face-to-face with their own real weaknesses and then back off and allow them to go to triumph or tragedy alone. It takes, at a minimum, empathy, intelligence, experience, and the kind of wise cruelty that can see someone suffer and understand that this suffering is good, that it's the kind of fire that tempers steel. And I think it also takes a certain humility, an understanding that students will enter your class with some questions that they will never ask, and will find answers for themselves that you did not give.
I don't have Randy's skills, and I'm saddened that I've met so few people in my life who do---and now one is gone. But I try to keep the lessons I learned close, and when I am called upon to teach, I hope I can share some of the insights he shared with me. Thank you, Randy.
Take care,
Mark
I went to the Pancreatic Cancer walk recently in honor of Randy Pausch, who I only knew for a very brief time but who has had a profound impact on my life since then. Randy's battle with pancreatic cancer lasted longer than most people who contract the disease, and for awhile I wondered if he would actually somehow beat the thing. I went both to honor his memory and to see the other people whose lives he touched. It was a very good year for the walk; "Pausch's People" and the other cancer survivors, friends, and loved ones were able to pull together what I understand to be the most money to-date in the Pittsburgh donation area.
There are a hundred personal stories about Randy running around right now, and each one is a little different. I decided to share my own, both because I think it does his memory some small honor and because it touches parts of my psyche that I can't easily put into words. I want to be able to fall back on these thoughts in the future, the next time I find myself unable to reach these more vulnerable parts of myself because I have either forgotten or walled them away out of fear.
What I felt at Randy's illness and eventual passing was awkward. I am unusual in that all these years I have been on this earth (and granted, I am still young), I have never had anyone close to me die. It is an area of life experience that I know is absolutely inevitable, yet I have no way to prepare for it; fate has not seen fit to bring such tragedy to my doorstep, and I am not on a road to seek it out. I live in a society where---at least in my part of it---I have to go out of my way to be close to death, to volunteer to put myself in a position where death could be nearby, such as a hospital. I don't have the skillset for it, and frankly, the skills I have lead me away from it; there just isn't much call for a computer scientist that I can see in places where people must deal with the realities of death daily. So there's this oddly-shaped hole in my life experience; I've had friends and family lose loved ones, and I feel sorrow for their loss, but I only know how to extend my empathy so far because I simply haven't been there. The closest I've come is losing a pet cat, and I'd hardly put that in even the same ballpark as losing another human being.
So Randy's death did not hit me personally like it has hit other people. When he announced he was battling cancer, I had already made an emotional parting with him because I had graduated; I felt it was likely that our paths would cross again, but I hadn't left any major unfinished business. There are questions left unasked, but to his great credit Randy did everything in his power to share himself with us through his website and his book; none of my queries are important enough to feel great loss at the impossibility of an answer. There isn't this "Randy-shaped hole" in my life, because while I hoped I would be able to work with him again in the future, at the present we weren't in the same sphere. And I feel nervous in the environment of others who knew him better and who are feeling the loss more deeply, nervous that I'll say something ignorant and add to their pain. It makes me not want to find them and not want to talk about Randy, which is unfair to a man who did everything he could, right up to his death, to spread knowledge and understanding.
So this part is an apology and a sad acknowledgement to those who are hurting from the loss of Randy Pausch---and indeed, from any such loss. I want to feel for you, but I don't know how. I will do my best, and I do not diminish your dismiss your pain; I simply do not know what it feels like. Someday I will, and I fear that when it happens the wound will be deep and I will not have past experience to prepare for it. I ask your forgiveness for my lack of real understanding, and your understanding when my turn rolls around and I am looking for someone to help.
That was my explanation of the loss I do not feel. Here is what I do feel.
The sadness I feel is not for the people who lost Randy, but for the people who never met him. Randy had an incredible gift for showing people that it was worthwhile to chase their dreams. It's a truth no more complicated than any Disney movie, and yet it's something Disney does such a poor job of teaching because Disney is not real. It is, quite possibly, the single hardest truth to teach---that in spite of the obvious and all-too-tangible obstacles, dreams, with effort, can be made reality. Ad astra per aspera, as citizens of Kansas and officers of Starfleet could attest. I believe that this singular truth is possibly one of the greatest realizations a human being can make, alongside the knowledge of mortality and the comprehension that all are created equal. It is through this truth that a person can stop letting life happen to them and start---if they so choose---happening to life. I've seen it happen, through working with the U.S. FIRST robotics competition. I've read it in history---how many generations of humans dreamed of flying, for that dream to be realized in a single human lifespan? And I felt it in my own life, standing on a stage with a dimly-visible audience that included my own grandmother, who doesn't understand this computer thing her grandson does but knows a good show when she sees it.
Sharing this truth is a unique gift because it cannot be given. It is a truth that is only reached at the end of a journey. When you can look back on your path and know where you came from, know where you fell and why, know that it is the work of you and your team that brought you here, you find yourself in a unique place. It is a place where you can turn your eye forward and know something else: the only thing that could stop you is if you decide not to take the next step. This is not a place you can be brought, and it is a unique individual who can guide people to this place without spoiling the path by trying to give it to them. So much of education is simply repeated attempts to get students to this place; yet at the same time, so much of education drags students away from it because of the potential cost. For to really get to this truth, you have to actually meet failure---real, nauseating, ruinous failure---head-on, experience it, and overcome it. It is a rare teacher who can simultaneously be there and not-there for a student, who can bring them face-to-face with their own real weaknesses and then back off and allow them to go to triumph or tragedy alone. It takes, at a minimum, empathy, intelligence, experience, and the kind of wise cruelty that can see someone suffer and understand that this suffering is good, that it's the kind of fire that tempers steel. And I think it also takes a certain humility, an understanding that students will enter your class with some questions that they will never ask, and will find answers for themselves that you did not give.
I don't have Randy's skills, and I'm saddened that I've met so few people in my life who do---and now one is gone. But I try to keep the lessons I learned close, and when I am called upon to teach, I hope I can share some of the insights he shared with me. Thank you, Randy.
Take care,
Mark