Jalaj P. Jha Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Randy Pausch and The Last Lecture

While The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch is making breeze all over the world, I could not save myself from getting impressed by the Book and the Author who reminded me of the classic Indian movie (a fiction) "Anand' and it's central character Anand Sehgal played by Rajesh Khanna

"The Last Lecture" are a series of lectures given by various professors given the scenario that if they were to die in the very near future and they were to give a last lecture what topics would they touch. Randy Pausch was assigned a similar lecture though the authorities were quick to change the name of the series and call that lecture as first in the series "Journeys" for the reason that Randy Pausch was indeed moving towards death being diagnosed with Terminal Pancreatic Cancer.

On September 18, 2007 Randy gave this lecture that focused on Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. This speech was taped so his children, ages 5, 2 and 1, can watch it when they're older. This video was later posted on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo. The video is sized 177MB so while high speed broadband users can view that without any problem, slow speed internet users (includes me ) may find problems. In any case the transcript of the entire lecture is also available here and reading the lecture is as inspiring as the video itself.

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

Randy described his childhood dreams of "Being in zero gravity, playing in the National Football League, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk [Star-Trek]". The entire lecture was bubbling and full of humor, as at one place Randy spoke :

And we’re not going to talk about spirituality and religion, although I will tell you that I have achieved a deathbed conversion. [dramatic pause] … I just bought a Macintosh. [laughter and clapping]

Randy ended his talks with following words :

So today’s talk was about my childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and some lessons learned. But did you figure out the head fake? [dramatic pause] It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

Have you figured out the second head fake? The talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids. Thank you all, good night.

This lecture that was attended by some 500 people got a worldwide coverage with Zeff Zaslow's article A Beloved Professor Delivers The Lecture of a Lifetime that appeared on Wall Street Journal the very next day. Zeff also proposed Randy to elaborate the lecture in a full book for which he was willing to provide all his help in putting his spoken words into writing. Since Randy did not want to compromise with even a small fraction of time and that he wanted to spend mximum time with his family, he declined, but later accepted given the possibility that he needed to give only an hour each day talking to Zeff over phone while he was exercising on his bike.

This way while exercising he was asked a number of questions by Zeff bringing out many of his rare thoughts and experiances. And the final outcome was the book The Last Lecture, a must read book for all those who dream.

It was 15th August 2007, when Randy was diagnosed with Terminal Cancer and given a period of 3-6 months left. Since then he is being treated to buy more time for his life. Randy's website is here and he posts regular updates on his health here