Pensieve of Higher Education: The “Quality of Life”
At my job, October marks the beginning of the new fiscal year, the time when we look back on the last twelve months to see if we’ve used our resources wisely and when we map out goals for the next twelve months. In this transitional season between summer and winter, I can think of no better time to apply this action to real life.
This is the only Pensieve Post I will ever ask you to read.
I have been away from LiveJournal lately, which has had a lot of interesting effects. On the one hand, it’s given me some time away from my desk to experience some things I would otherwise not have time for, and I’ve had some incredible, beautiful moments that I really want to take time to explore when I’m able to figure out just how I want to gush about it. On the other hand, I’ve regretted not being as present in your lives as I have been before, albeit I hope that I have managed to gather enough from phone calls, e-mails and my limited perusal of the friends-list to ascertain whether or not you’re well or whether you are experiencing difficulties - difficulties that for some of you, I have slipped on the wrist brace to type to you that I’m here, I have more words of comfort to offer if you want them, and when I gather my thoughts, I’ll write them down for you. Being of a careful disposition, I hold back and put off these promised replies because I honestly believe that the most useful words can only come to me if I let them arrive instead of trying to force them to the surface. Of course, there are so many friends here that have been dealing with tough times lately that I find myself overwhelmed and unable to concentrate my focus enough to put together anything that accurately portrays my sympathy, concern, and utter belief that things will be all right.
This post is for you, for all of us. Even if you’re having a fabulous start of autumn and life has been going swimmingly, I hope you will take a moment to finish what I have a sneaking suspicion will be a very long entry. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this positive about things, and I can only say that I am struck tonight with the compulsion to share with you this energy in the hope that it blesses you the way I have felt blessed.
As I said, this is a good time to look back on things and take inventory of the past year. At this time in 2006, I was finishing my final draft of my Master’s thesis and in quite a different frame of mind. I had lost my cousin Ivan, I was miserable in my surroundings and failing to contrive a way to escape all the horrible things I more or less imagined about DC, primarily because I felt a need to punish myself for all the bad decisions that had led me there. A year later, I am experiencing a different side of this place, my negative associations have been replaced by happy moments with new friends, I am able to invest in my hobbies with the plan that they will become something more, and there is an abundance of something I had little of last year: hope. (I daresay it helped me draw Trisha’s commission.)
I write this at risk of sounding self-centered, but only because I was so adamantly certain that there was no end in sight to the depression I’d been experiencing, and I recognize the same traces of despair that I once had behind what others on my flist and elsewhere have written. I want you to know that the last twelve months were astounding in that the changes were so gradual - altogether unnoticeable as they were happening - and only now, going through the archive of my LJ to reread the transcripts of my sulking, am I amazed to find that I’m out of the woods, even if I still have a ways to go yet. More importantly, I am no longer having that conversation with myself that all my bad spots happened for a reason - not because it’s not true, but because I am finally fully convinced that it is true.
Now, being in grad school was the hardest part of the last four years, and while it may not have made me the best writer, it has granted me at least a little insight into how poetic, how literary, our experiences on this earth are. We seem to live in one giant crossword puzzle where 100 different moments interweave in your personal tapestry to comprise the answer of a transcendental riddle: ‘What is the meaning of your life?’
Last week, I joined my roommate and a couple of friends on a trip to see “Bodies: The Exhibition” in Rosslyn where real human bodies were on display. We walked through it, laughing, reflecting, and grimacing the entire way as we moved through the different systems of the human body and stages of life, witnessing with curiosity and even revulsion the effects of cancer and disease, marveling at the miraculous complexities of our very existence. The message of this exhibit could be paraphrased thus: These were real people. They were once kept alive with the same life force that keeps you alive now. Do not take your body for granted. Take care of you.
The fact that this visit occurred days before I would go to my anatomical drawing class feels like it was scripted by an unseen playwright. Prof. Samuels, an immensely talented and inspiring artist, taught us about the geometry and symmetry of the human figure, dropping inspiring quotes as he went around the room to examine our sketches. “Art is not the truth. It is the lie that helps us understand the truth.” (Picasso) He went on to say that we are not approaching the body as doctors do and that we are meant to concern ourselves with the structure that shapes the surface of our skin; movement, dimension, and the emotion that those two things create when they cooperate with each other. We had our first nude model that day, and I admit I had a shock when he dropped the blanket and posed for us to draw him, but it wasn’t because he was naked. It was the moment I realized that my desires and actions had aligned at last - I was in an art class for the first time in my life. In tandem with the forces that have shaped the last four years, I brought myself here.
There is a third leg to this brief tangent on the human body, if you’ll excuse the pun. This week, I stumbled upon the story of Randy Pausch, PhD. Perhaps you’ve heard of him (he’s gotten a lot of press this past month). At 46 years of age, he is a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the most prestigious technical universities in the United States, and apart from his staggeringly impressive resume as one of the founding fathers of Virtual Reality, he is an incredibly positive individual and the sort of teacher we all wish we had in school.
He is also dying of Pancreatic Cancer. As of August, Prof. Pausch was given 3-6 months left of good health before this aggressive disease will take him away from his wife and three small children. Having finally seen what tumors look like, I am disconcerted at how his outer appearance does not match at all with what is happening under his skin - tumors are interspersed throughout his liver, spleen, and elsewhere. When he does finally pass on, it will be an uncomfortable exit to say the very least. If anyone ever had a reason to be filled with despair and hopelessness, it would be Randy Pausch.
But he’s not filled with despair. Nor does he want pity (in fact, he has expressed equal distaste for anyone who approaches him with herbal supplements). Instead, he gave his “Last Lecture” before an audience of 400 people on September 18th, which was webcast and quickly circulated throughout the globe as one of the most inspirational talks you will ever hear. This is a dying man, a teacher leaving behind one final lesson to his young kids, and to Students of Life all over the world. [See the embedded video below]
If you can, please, please watch the entirety of the video. It will lift you up, regardless of whether or not you’re in a negative frame of mind, simply because we all have the experience of prioritizing badly, but death shouldn’t be the thing that gets stuff in order. As Pausch puts it, “it’s amazing how much you focus when you have the noose about your neck.” And yet, he has managed in his 46 years of life to accomplish everything he ever wanted, and perhaps that is why God is taking him so quickly and so early - like my cousin Ivan, his time on earth has been so completely fulfilled that he can only further his good works from an elevated plane. Moreover, his message is one of perseverance and of hard work. We are not isolated in the things we desire and the things we strive for; we all want change, we all have human frailties, but we are not helpless and should never give up. Even when things get rough, when there’s no end in sight, when we feel we can’t try harder. Even when the curtain is about to go down on our existence.
So I’m now going to do what they taught me to do in Grad School and try and tie all these threads together. I’m a little rusty, but here goes.
Let me be redundant. “Art is not the truth. It is the lie that helps us to understand the truth,” said Picasso. Whatever your story, it helps to acknowledge your life for the magnificent work of art that it is. We are made of something so big that my education cannot qualify it, but I think you know what it is. It is the thing that makes us want things, it is the force behind the valuable attachments we make to friends and family, it is stronger than this body at the same time as this body is a standing monument to its power and grace. When you look at everyone around you as you pass them on the way to work/school/home/whatever, remind yourself when you need to that your distance from them is imaginary. We’re in this together, and that means you’re not alone.
Finally, recognize that change is constant even if you can’t feel it, because Higher Education doesn’t actually happen in an institution. Learn and relearn to respect and love all that makes up what and who you are because you will unconsciously bring yourself in contact with the very things that will help you to author your own happiness. Be lenient enough to forgive yourself if you have rough patches. Remember Randy Pausch, the man who, dying at 46 years old, is “living the ending to ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.” (GMA)
The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch, PhD:
(ETA: He begins talking at approx. the 8-minute mark)
As I said, this post is for all of us, so I want to pose a question in the hopes that this post can act like a time capsule that you can revisit in 2008: Where do you want to be next year?
Thinking of you,
Venessa
This is the only Pensieve Post I will ever ask you to read.
I have been away from LiveJournal lately, which has had a lot of interesting effects. On the one hand, it’s given me some time away from my desk to experience some things I would otherwise not have time for, and I’ve had some incredible, beautiful moments that I really want to take time to explore when I’m able to figure out just how I want to gush about it. On the other hand, I’ve regretted not being as present in your lives as I have been before, albeit I hope that I have managed to gather enough from phone calls, e-mails and my limited perusal of the friends-list to ascertain whether or not you’re well or whether you are experiencing difficulties - difficulties that for some of you, I have slipped on the wrist brace to type to you that I’m here, I have more words of comfort to offer if you want them, and when I gather my thoughts, I’ll write them down for you. Being of a careful disposition, I hold back and put off these promised replies because I honestly believe that the most useful words can only come to me if I let them arrive instead of trying to force them to the surface. Of course, there are so many friends here that have been dealing with tough times lately that I find myself overwhelmed and unable to concentrate my focus enough to put together anything that accurately portrays my sympathy, concern, and utter belief that things will be all right.
This post is for you, for all of us. Even if you’re having a fabulous start of autumn and life has been going swimmingly, I hope you will take a moment to finish what I have a sneaking suspicion will be a very long entry. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this positive about things, and I can only say that I am struck tonight with the compulsion to share with you this energy in the hope that it blesses you the way I have felt blessed.
As I said, this is a good time to look back on things and take inventory of the past year. At this time in 2006, I was finishing my final draft of my Master’s thesis and in quite a different frame of mind. I had lost my cousin Ivan, I was miserable in my surroundings and failing to contrive a way to escape all the horrible things I more or less imagined about DC, primarily because I felt a need to punish myself for all the bad decisions that had led me there. A year later, I am experiencing a different side of this place, my negative associations have been replaced by happy moments with new friends, I am able to invest in my hobbies with the plan that they will become something more, and there is an abundance of something I had little of last year: hope. (I daresay it helped me draw Trisha’s commission.)
I write this at risk of sounding self-centered, but only because I was so adamantly certain that there was no end in sight to the depression I’d been experiencing, and I recognize the same traces of despair that I once had behind what others on my flist and elsewhere have written. I want you to know that the last twelve months were astounding in that the changes were so gradual - altogether unnoticeable as they were happening - and only now, going through the archive of my LJ to reread the transcripts of my sulking, am I amazed to find that I’m out of the woods, even if I still have a ways to go yet. More importantly, I am no longer having that conversation with myself that all my bad spots happened for a reason - not because it’s not true, but because I am finally fully convinced that it is true.
Now, being in grad school was the hardest part of the last four years, and while it may not have made me the best writer, it has granted me at least a little insight into how poetic, how literary, our experiences on this earth are. We seem to live in one giant crossword puzzle where 100 different moments interweave in your personal tapestry to comprise the answer of a transcendental riddle: ‘What is the meaning of your life?’
Last week, I joined my roommate and a couple of friends on a trip to see “Bodies: The Exhibition” in Rosslyn where real human bodies were on display. We walked through it, laughing, reflecting, and grimacing the entire way as we moved through the different systems of the human body and stages of life, witnessing with curiosity and even revulsion the effects of cancer and disease, marveling at the miraculous complexities of our very existence. The message of this exhibit could be paraphrased thus: These were real people. They were once kept alive with the same life force that keeps you alive now. Do not take your body for granted. Take care of you.
The fact that this visit occurred days before I would go to my anatomical drawing class feels like it was scripted by an unseen playwright. Prof. Samuels, an immensely talented and inspiring artist, taught us about the geometry and symmetry of the human figure, dropping inspiring quotes as he went around the room to examine our sketches. “Art is not the truth. It is the lie that helps us understand the truth.” (Picasso) He went on to say that we are not approaching the body as doctors do and that we are meant to concern ourselves with the structure that shapes the surface of our skin; movement, dimension, and the emotion that those two things create when they cooperate with each other. We had our first nude model that day, and I admit I had a shock when he dropped the blanket and posed for us to draw him, but it wasn’t because he was naked. It was the moment I realized that my desires and actions had aligned at last - I was in an art class for the first time in my life. In tandem with the forces that have shaped the last four years, I brought myself here.
There is a third leg to this brief tangent on the human body, if you’ll excuse the pun. This week, I stumbled upon the story of Randy Pausch, PhD. Perhaps you’ve heard of him (he’s gotten a lot of press this past month). At 46 years of age, he is a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the most prestigious technical universities in the United States, and apart from his staggeringly impressive resume as one of the founding fathers of Virtual Reality, he is an incredibly positive individual and the sort of teacher we all wish we had in school.
He is also dying of Pancreatic Cancer. As of August, Prof. Pausch was given 3-6 months left of good health before this aggressive disease will take him away from his wife and three small children. Having finally seen what tumors look like, I am disconcerted at how his outer appearance does not match at all with what is happening under his skin - tumors are interspersed throughout his liver, spleen, and elsewhere. When he does finally pass on, it will be an uncomfortable exit to say the very least. If anyone ever had a reason to be filled with despair and hopelessness, it would be Randy Pausch.
But he’s not filled with despair. Nor does he want pity (in fact, he has expressed equal distaste for anyone who approaches him with herbal supplements). Instead, he gave his “Last Lecture” before an audience of 400 people on September 18th, which was webcast and quickly circulated throughout the globe as one of the most inspirational talks you will ever hear. This is a dying man, a teacher leaving behind one final lesson to his young kids, and to Students of Life all over the world. [See the embedded video below]
If you can, please, please watch the entirety of the video. It will lift you up, regardless of whether or not you’re in a negative frame of mind, simply because we all have the experience of prioritizing badly, but death shouldn’t be the thing that gets stuff in order. As Pausch puts it, “it’s amazing how much you focus when you have the noose about your neck.” And yet, he has managed in his 46 years of life to accomplish everything he ever wanted, and perhaps that is why God is taking him so quickly and so early - like my cousin Ivan, his time on earth has been so completely fulfilled that he can only further his good works from an elevated plane. Moreover, his message is one of perseverance and of hard work. We are not isolated in the things we desire and the things we strive for; we all want change, we all have human frailties, but we are not helpless and should never give up. Even when things get rough, when there’s no end in sight, when we feel we can’t try harder. Even when the curtain is about to go down on our existence.
So I’m now going to do what they taught me to do in Grad School and try and tie all these threads together. I’m a little rusty, but here goes.
Let me be redundant. “Art is not the truth. It is the lie that helps us to understand the truth,” said Picasso. Whatever your story, it helps to acknowledge your life for the magnificent work of art that it is. We are made of something so big that my education cannot qualify it, but I think you know what it is. It is the thing that makes us want things, it is the force behind the valuable attachments we make to friends and family, it is stronger than this body at the same time as this body is a standing monument to its power and grace. When you look at everyone around you as you pass them on the way to work/school/home/whatever, remind yourself when you need to that your distance from them is imaginary. We’re in this together, and that means you’re not alone.
Finally, recognize that change is constant even if you can’t feel it, because Higher Education doesn’t actually happen in an institution. Learn and relearn to respect and love all that makes up what and who you are because you will unconsciously bring yourself in contact with the very things that will help you to author your own happiness. Be lenient enough to forgive yourself if you have rough patches. Remember Randy Pausch, the man who, dying at 46 years old, is “living the ending to ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.” (GMA)
The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch, PhD:
(ETA: He begins talking at approx. the 8-minute mark)
As I said, this post is for all of us, so I want to pose a question in the hopes that this post can act like a time capsule that you can revisit in 2008: Where do you want to be next year?
Thinking of you,
Venessa