The passing of an ordinary and yet Great Man: Randy Pausch

Despite today being a weekend, I woke up earlier than usual, meaning on work days. Wify was already downstairs starting her daily routine, another unusual sign for her too for she usually sleeps late on weekends, what with over the midnight bed time last night (or this morning to be exact). There seemed to be some kind of premonition in the air, which I had no inkling about, then.

At breakfast, I picked up the St. Pete Times from just outside the door, sauntered to the table, scanned the first page for a sense of what's happening around Tampa, Florida, and the world at large. St. Pete Times has a news gist column to the left on the first page, summarizing the various news vignettes that point to further expansion inside the paper.

While scrolling down the list of news gist, my eyes caught the title, 'The Last Lecture' professor dies, that sent a jolt through me. Randy Pausch was of course the latest Internet phenom who breezed through the blogosphere like a fresh wisp of air with his presentation of the Last Lecture caught on video, which I have blogged about here. He was best known for his delivery of life lessons, imparted with a mission-like urgency precipitated by the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer just days prior to his fated delivery.

Despite the terminal illness that would have cowed a lot of people into submission, he fought on gallantly, exuding a lustrous passion for life, and conversely, a near disdain for death, that excited those who are similarly afflicted, and more so, shamed those fortunate among us for having taken life for granted.

Life being what it is, his passing should not have been a surprise. All of us will be visited by the same fate, sooner or later. Except that in his case, it might have seen sooner than most of us thought. But his legacy lives on, not only to his loved ones who are the original targets of his 'the Last Lecture', but also the millions around the world who have been fortunate enough to catch a last glimpse of him, literally. And hopefully goad us into living a full life from this moment on. It's better late than sorry.

May Randy Pausch rest in peace, and that his family will remain strong to tide over this difficult time. We all have lost an ordinary and yet a great man, but only in terms of his physical form, and surely not the life lessons that he had had instilled into our collective psyche.

The Continuing Saga of Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch, the indefatigable free spirit whose publicized scorn for life's adversity has made him a household name via his last lecture delivered at Carnegie Mellon University on September 18, 2007 (which I blogged here), continues his inspiring crusade to instill in all of us the love for life. After appearing on Oprah Winfrey's show, he was interviewed by Diane Sawyer at ABC on April 9 (Thanks, Mary, for the lead).

In five clips, readers can catch more than a glimpse of the personal side of Randy, the family support, the coterie of friends and colleagues who have helped mold him to what a delightfully wonderful person that he has become and whose exuberance for life in turn has rubbed on them. The background music was appropriate, played to just the right tempo as the story of his love life with life itself unfolded.

Then he was featured in the May 2008 issue of Reader's Digest, entitled A Father's Farewell, Interview by Jess Kornbluth, on pg. 188-196.

I got most of the message, especially this one, “It's not the years. Its the milege.” But I don't seem to get the humor in “When I went scuba diving with friends, one of them said, “Don't bother putting sunscreen on Randy.”

Obviously when you dive, you don't need sunscreen (right?). So, does that imply that Randy would have no time for any above water activity when he goes for a diving expedition, an euphemism for his single-track mission-oriented focus on the task at hand? Doesn't sound like the Randy that is portrayed as a fun loving guy. Help!

And then there is his book, entitled simply, the Last Lecture. And an excerpt of the book also appeared in the same issue of Reader's Digest (pg. 197 – 199). Entitled Many Happy Returns, it recounted the first day of his wedding, the newlyweds ascending into the clouds on a hot-air balloon. And what an adventurous ride it turned out to be, as if Randy the love your life guy had scripted it. Nothing is ever a dull moment. Quiet, reflecting, cogitating, yes, but never dull.

Just to demonstrate what a stickler for time management guy that he is, Randy said in the Readers' Digest interview on how he finished the book:

“I had to ride my bike for an hour everyday. As I rode, I would talk on my helmet-mounted cell phone to Jeffrey Zaslow [co-author] and tell him stories of my life. Fifty-three bike rides and I was done.”

The Last Lecture on Life

"Few things are better than fulfilling a childhood dream. It satisfies expectations, paints reality on the canvas of imagination and suggests the limits of human potential.” So writes Bill Maxwell, a regular contributor to St. Pete Times' Opinion Section under the heading “When wit was in style” on Feb 28, 2007.

It so happened that I had just watched a video on the same topic, but this time given by an apparently dying man, Randy Pausch.

You see, Randy is a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His doctor has told him (on Aug 15, 2007) that he has likely 3-6 months to live.

So he was reprising his last lecture already given at CMU last September at the Oprah Winfrey Show as captured in the video, just over 10 minutes long. And our friend who alerted us to the video has this to say:

“I found this message particularly inspiring. This is lecture on life from a professor with truly remarkable insight on life, goals, etc. It's about 10 minutes long and one of the best uses of that time that anyone will find.”

What I saw on the video is every bit an academic, but seemingly in the prime of health, projecting confidence and enthusiasm. None of the moroseness or stoicism that we tend to associate with the terminally ill. In fact, he did push-ups on the floor mixed up with hand clapping just to prove his point that right then he might be healthier than a majority of the audience.

And his talk, on how he realized his childhood dreams, conjured up the same vivacious personality, so full of life and wit. Interspersed with slides, he showed the audience that since young he always has a smiling disposition, great parents who enjoy life to the fullest (one of the slides shows his Mon in a knock-knock car and another, his Dad riding the roller coaster on his 80th birthday and winning a huge stuff toy, a prowess he shares with his son as seen from the image above taken from here).

One of his childhood dreams was to play in the National Football League, but he got more out of not being able to play in the NFL than he would have if he had played. But he did realize one of his other dreams of becoming a Disneyland Imagineer, putting his knowledge in the fascinating field of virtual reality to good use such as the Aladdin project.

Some of his words of gem include:

a) Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted.

b) The karma will take care of itself. And the dreams will come to you.

c) Apologize properly, by saying all of the three-parter: I'm sorry. It's my fault. How do I make it right? [So often we miss out the last part, or even the second part, out of pride, thereby aggravating an already deteriorated situation.]

d) Show gratitude.

e) Don't complain. Just work harder.

Wishing to learn more about this remarkable person, I googled him and landed on his webpage at CMU where I first read the transcript of his full last lecture delivered at CMU on Sep 18, 2007. Then I watched a video of his entire talk, the whole 76 minutes and 26 seconds of it, without break. I would have to say that was even more inspiring, more moving, exactly as what the webpage says:

"With equal parts humor and heart, Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch recently delivered a one-of-a-kind university lecture that moved an overflow crowd at Carnegie Mellon - and is now moving audiences around the globe.”

Here he expanded (or rather the first 11-minute video condensed his original lecture) many of the episodes he barely touched on in the first video because of time limitations. I had a hilarious time and more important, had learned some valuable lessons in life.

I recommend everyone to watch the full length feature. I can assure you that it would be the best present you have ever given yourself. It's that good. The hits on the You Tube video is a staggering more than 400,000.

Now blogging today has its own special significance. Because I have to wait for another four years to blog on the same day. It's of course Feb 29, the leap day that occurs every four years. And this morning I read an email on a discussion forum about this guy retiring today, leaping out of his work on a leap day (see the pun?) because he would have to wait for another four years to do it on the same day. For the record, I retired on Feb 1, in the previous leap year because the thought never crossed my mind.

As a note, Randy made it through Feb 15, exactly 6 months after the day his doctor broke the news of his likely shortened life to him. Let's all wish him success in getting through this ordeal.