The Last Lecture

After all the jack Kerouac and W.S. Burroughs, I finally picked up two books that were not nearly so depressing. One was called 'Love and Louis XIV' by Antonia Fraser, and the other 'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch.

The first book I chose to read because Antonia Fraser is a brilliant and colourful biographer/historian. I loved her biography on Marie Antoinette, and chose this one on King Louis XIV and his relationships to the many, many women in his life (not all of them his lovers). It helps that I find the history of French aristocracy fascinating. I think I love it so much because the French court was so pleasure-seeking in its grand, opulent yet religiously prudish, and sophisticated way. So much so, that it was apparently the most fashionable and genteel of all the European courts for centuries and centuries. It's also always nice to read about important people that manage to find love like any of us, but with the added glamour of these people being powerful and wealthy and what not.

I'm always chasing beauty, especially in history. I'll concede that beauty does not always guarantee the happy ending, which is just fine with me.

The second book, 'The Last Lecture' is basically the last lecture of Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch. He titled it "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Not what you'd expect from a relatively young man dying from pancreatic cancer. Despite his looming expiration date, his lecture, this book, share nothing but optimism. He gives the reader, his audience, all the advice he has to give on how to live life to the fullest and fulfill all the dreams you had as a kid. It was beautiful and life-affirming. I think even Nietzsche would have approved of Pausch's frank no-nonsense way of dealing with his impending death (no religion is involved, mostly just common sense and a rare quality of truly appreciating what life offers in the way of opportunities).

After reading this book I wondered how I am achieving my dreams. I went back to look at my old scrapbooks and 'About Me' projects for grade school. I had written that I wanted to be an artist and a teacher, and that i wanted to go to college and then more school after that (At the age of 7 I thought that grad school was called "university".) I'm not quite the artist I had in the mind of my 7th grade self . . I don't paint and sculpt and draw glorious things real. But I play them, read and write them (or at least I am working on it). I think I've always wanted to just look for beauty and pass it on - I'm shallow like that.

Ii can claim that I guess I've stuck to a loose interpretation of what I wanted to be by the time I'm an adult. I still want to be a teacher, only of bigger kids. I want the college kids, not the hormone-challenged beasts of grades 5-12 or the still far too young to understand children of k-4. Granted, I still have quite some schooling to go before I teach, and I'm not at Stanford like my grade-school self demanded, but I'm on my way to being a real human being. It also means that I'm still in many ways stubborn as an ass and have a one-track mind, despite my frazzled brain and random bursts of spontaneity.

Mostly I think it whispers in my ear that I think too small, and dream too small. That's my biggest fear.

So I will try to dream big and be more spontaneous and enjoy my life more, because I'm so blessed with so many favorable circumstances.

Go to www.thelastlecture.com for more information on Randy Pausch, Ph.D. He's fulfilling his dreams every day.