Unbeknown to me, Dr. Randy Pausch has been a silent hero in my life for many years. A professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Pausch helped train some of the most brilliant, innovative minds to hit the programming world…students who, through his honest and inspirational guidance, went on to become video game programmers, CGI designers for major Hollywood studios, Disney Imagineers. He, along with students and fellow computer geeks, designed Alice, a free program that teaches anyone how to design in a 3-D environment, all the while teaching them the fundamentals of several programming languages. As a geek, these things are my bread and butter.
Dr. Pausch also qualifies as a geek idol because of his own intrinsic geekiness. His wish list of childhood dreams included being in zero gravity; being a Disney Imagineer; authoring an article in the World Book encyclopedia; and being Captain Kirk.
With the exception of the last dream, he captured all these dreams. As for that last wish…well, he came pretty damn close. Not only did he befriend William Shatner in real life, but he served as a bridge officer on the U.S.S. Kelvin alongside George Kirk, father of the future James Tiberius. Yes, look very closely at those opening scenes in the new Star Trek movie and you will see Dr. Pausch. He was the officer who declared, “Captain, we have a visual!” This also means that Dr. Pausch has achieved the immortality of now being listed on Memory Alpha, the greatest Trek database ever.
In 2007, Dr. Pausch participated in Carnegie Mellon’s “Last Lecture” series, a program in which various professors are invited to imagine what they would want to give as a final message in light of an imagined imminent death.
The difference for Dr. Pausch was that he was, in fact, dying. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer the year before, and it had metastasized. A month before his last lecture, doctors had given him a prognosis of 3-6 months to live.
How would you cope with such a prognosis? I daresay I don’t know if I could do it with the strength, grace, or humor that Dr. Pausch exhibited. This was a man who lived more positively in his final months of life than most of us live in our entire existence on this third rock from the sun.
Randy Pausch died on July 24, 2008, nearly one year after his grim prognosis. One of his final messages, given to Carnegie Mellon’s graduating class a little more than 2 months before he died, was this:
We don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well and living fully. For the Reaper will come for all of us. The question is what do we do between the time we’re born and the time he shows up.
Sometimes it seems that there is so little in this life to give us hope or inspiration. Sometimes it seems like we’re just spiraling ever deeper into disdain and despair. Look at yesterday’s incident at the Holocaust Museum and how the malignancy of hatred slowly consumed a man throughout his entire life. And now his legacy will be one of death and violence and hate.
Yet here was Dr. Pausch, consumed within by a real malignancy, unstoppable and unmerciful. And what is his legacy? Hope. Courage. Strength. When William Shatner learned of Dr. Pausch’s diagnosis and prognosis, he sent a photo of Captain Kirk on which he wrote, “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.” Cancer may have been Dr. Pausch’s Kobayashi Maru, but it did not defeat his soul. It was never his no-win scenario.
Yes, I’ve chosen to take the schmaltz road in discussing this book. I don’t care. Dr. Pausch is now in my pantheon of geek idols. He was an amazing individual. I urge you all, if you don’t want to read this book, then watch his last lecture. His was an amazing spirit and I’m so grateful for what he has left for us all to discover within ourselves, if we just take the time to look.
Final score: 5/5
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