When someone that we don't know personally dies, what exactly motivates us to mourn? Are we sad because we're reminded that life - particularly ours - will inevitably end, and there is nothing we can do about it? Are we upset because we know that the world will never experience another of their words, songs, or lines of code? Are we empathizing with their family members, who are facing a harsh and irreversible new reality? Some combination of the above?
Hearing Randy Pausch speak at our commencement truly moved me. I was touched to see someone so - whimsical, and so vibrant (in spite of the fact that he was very physically haggard.)
As I attempted to read his book, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" I was struck by a very different note, though. In his book - and I acknowledge that sometimes I am an unfairly harsh judge of character - he came across to me as someone who was deeply, unapologetically, self-centered. I can imagine that a large part of that is simply survival instinct - in order to live as long as Mr. Pausch did in his circumstances, I would think that one does need to be absolutely convinced of the importance of his existence.
That didn't stop me from feeling punched in the gut when I read his admission that giving his "Last Lecture" involved him spending his wife's birthday - the last one she'd EVER get with him - in Pittsburgh, away from her*. Additionally, his preparing to give the Lecture prevented him from helping her with the family's move to Virgina, giving her more work to do as she struggled herself with the fact of his terminal illness. He talked about how upset it made her, and about how, in spite of that, he couldn't bring himself to give up his one last chance in the limelight. Perhaps in the long run it will be better that he gave the talk - certainly it created a legacy that will ensure that he will be remembered quite vividly for a long time. Hopefully his wife is comforted knowing that she gave him one last gift of fulfillment.
Don't mistake what I'm saying: Randy Pausch was, by all accounts, an incredible professor and a wonderful father. His loss will fittingly be mourned by countless people.
I can't get rid of this nagging feeling, though. It's not about Randy per se, although his situation is what made me think of it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm not bothered by his actions (or his wife's) as much as I am about the conflict and tension caused between them as a result. It just makes me feel like it's so easy to take love, and each other, for granted - and for what? It makes me wonder how much people really feel like they "need" others in their lives...sometimes it seems like many of us are so self sufficient and self-driven that the idea of being in love or loving, stop making sense...and that really scares me. (Being loved, of course, always makes sense to us, though...)
I feel like I was brought up in such a different culture than the one I'm living in. We were taught to be "selfless" - and I'm not saying I am, even a little bit - but it seems like we at least had a perspective that involved being somewhat humble, and accepting that sometimes we end up taking on burdens for the sake of others. In college I was exposed to a much more individualistic and independent lifestyle, in which many people seemed so self-reliant (and self centered) to the point that they were completely uninvested in any sort of altruistic behavior. I'm not saying that it was a bad thing, necessarily - many of them have been (or will be) extremely successful and live solid, balanced, lives according to a reasonable system of values. It just made me feel like I didn't quite belong, kind of like I was obsolete. Reading about Randy Pausch's lifestyle made me feel quite the same way - even though, like I said, it has nothing to do with the man himself, may he rest in peace.
*She did manage to fly out for the lecture itself, given that day, though.
25 July 2008
02 July 2008
Octave
Yesterday marked 8 years since Grandpa died. Every year I find myself reflecting on him around this time...I'm not sure if anyone has actually read this for years continuously, but if you have, you know what to expect from this post.
For some reason, thinking about Grandpa motivates me more than anything else to ask myself how I'm doing with life - am I being the best person I can? Am I doing justice to his legacy of kindness? Am I pushing myself as hard as I can intellectually to keep learning as much as I can, am I being the best employee, daughter, and significant other that I can?
I think the best advice he ever gave me was just to "lighten up." Life goes so much more easily with a smile, even (especially) when it seems like a smile is pretty hard to work up. Reaching out to people goes a long way, and that's probably been my biggest challenge recently.
Speaking of reaching out, I had a really strange (yet familiar) experience today. I was watching a movie on TV - one of the "Comcast FREE on Demand" whatevers. It was supposed to be a chick flick, so I settled in, totally unprepared for what was coming. The movie was about a guy and a girl; coincidentally I have some physical characteristics in common with the girl. I was (mildly) surprised, and pretty disoriented, to hear the guy start using lines on the girl that TJ had used on me. They were pretty distinctive, not things that could have been paraphrased by accident - things about "E.T. Fingers, Tree-Frog hands" and "horse face" (all with respect to her). Also a few references to, "laying around like walruses." At the time I didn't feel like TJ knew me well enough to be justifiably comfortable saying things like that, and it really threw me off that he wanted to move so quickly into that "sort" of a relationship - the joking, poking-fun-at kind that most people have after a few months of being together.
Now it looks like he was just trying to mimic the main character of the movie, who made great inroads with his girl by being firm, jokingly insulting, and mostly impervious to her crazy episodes (until he finally snapped and broke up with her, only to realize he still loved her). I'm compelled to write about this one incident only because it's not, by a long shot, the first time it's happened (wrt TJ and movie lines), and every time it does happen I become just a little more shocked at how unoriginal some people truly are. Not only that, it makes me more uncomfortable when I think about the sort of relationship we actually probably had. Once more, it seems like he was doing the only thing he could think of to create some kind of perfect - whatever - just like the movie. Life isn't a fucking movie, though, and that's partially what makes me mad. If you want life to be like the movies, or at least as happy as them, it seems like the best way to do that is to actually be genuine, instead of just trying to contrive things (and moreover, to manipulate people.)
The more I think about it, the more I realize that a lot of my reactions are coming from the fact that it seems like, more than anything, that TJ probably didn't really actually know me that well. He knew how to manipulate me - he knew how to push buttons, and he was a hell of a learner (in addition to more or less majoring in movie-watching). But the fact that he just applied what he saw whenever seemed appropriate just makes me feel dirty - it makes me feel really cold and alienated, as though he never realized that relationships are actually comprised of reciprocal exchanges of genuine, heartfelt, emotion and was just doing his best to evoke the sorts of reactions and emotions that he wanted to see me experience, setting up the sorts of situations he wanted to be in. (Note that I'm stopping short of actually using the "s" word, but I'm definitely implying it on purpose). It scares me that there are people in this world who see relationships as verbal exchanges and nothing more; who for whatever reason are just totally incapable of making legitimate social connections.
[Disclaimer: I do realize that it sounds like I've drawn a lot of conclusions from one single experience that I'm describing; unfortunately there's a lot of context that I'm just not interested in discussing in gory detail online. Suffice it to say that tonight just pushed my eyes open a bit more widely.]
I guess tonight is a night for thinking back. It's hard to believe that it's been an entire year since the last time I sat here, thinking some of these thoughts. A lot of things have changed for the better. If I had to put one label on the past year, I would call it "therapeutic." Not everything that happened was pleasant or beneficial, of course, but a lot of it was. I'm back to trusting people in general. I'm back to believing in myself, and I'm getting back to being in the mode of pushing myself to be the best I can. I'm still not as open as I'd like to be, and it's probably going to be awhile before I'm totally rid of the defensiveness and guardedness, but it's good to be feeling so much more like myself.
It's kind of ironic, because I remember last year struggling to be open and genuine with people that honestly meant a lot to me, but really not being able to because I was so shaken and overwhelmed by everything that had happened in the past semester in my personal life, and everything that was taking place with my family at the time. I do remember that I had probably the best, most interesting, most open, lighthearted, conversation that I'd had in a long time with one person in particular while I was remembering Grandpa. It was as though being in those memories for a little while let me relax and let my guard down for awhile, and it was really nice. Maybe this year I can keep a bit more of that with me.
For some reason, thinking about Grandpa motivates me more than anything else to ask myself how I'm doing with life - am I being the best person I can? Am I doing justice to his legacy of kindness? Am I pushing myself as hard as I can intellectually to keep learning as much as I can, am I being the best employee, daughter, and significant other that I can?
I think the best advice he ever gave me was just to "lighten up." Life goes so much more easily with a smile, even (especially) when it seems like a smile is pretty hard to work up. Reaching out to people goes a long way, and that's probably been my biggest challenge recently.
Speaking of reaching out, I had a really strange (yet familiar) experience today. I was watching a movie on TV - one of the "Comcast FREE on Demand" whatevers. It was supposed to be a chick flick, so I settled in, totally unprepared for what was coming. The movie was about a guy and a girl; coincidentally I have some physical characteristics in common with the girl. I was (mildly) surprised, and pretty disoriented, to hear the guy start using lines on the girl that TJ had used on me. They were pretty distinctive, not things that could have been paraphrased by accident - things about "E.T. Fingers, Tree-Frog hands" and "horse face" (all with respect to her). Also a few references to, "laying around like walruses." At the time I didn't feel like TJ knew me well enough to be justifiably comfortable saying things like that, and it really threw me off that he wanted to move so quickly into that "sort" of a relationship - the joking, poking-fun-at kind that most people have after a few months of being together.
Now it looks like he was just trying to mimic the main character of the movie, who made great inroads with his girl by being firm, jokingly insulting, and mostly impervious to her crazy episodes (until he finally snapped and broke up with her, only to realize he still loved her). I'm compelled to write about this one incident only because it's not, by a long shot, the first time it's happened (wrt TJ and movie lines), and every time it does happen I become just a little more shocked at how unoriginal some people truly are. Not only that, it makes me more uncomfortable when I think about the sort of relationship we actually probably had. Once more, it seems like he was doing the only thing he could think of to create some kind of perfect - whatever - just like the movie. Life isn't a fucking movie, though, and that's partially what makes me mad. If you want life to be like the movies, or at least as happy as them, it seems like the best way to do that is to actually be genuine, instead of just trying to contrive things (and moreover, to manipulate people.)
The more I think about it, the more I realize that a lot of my reactions are coming from the fact that it seems like, more than anything, that TJ probably didn't really actually know me that well. He knew how to manipulate me - he knew how to push buttons, and he was a hell of a learner (in addition to more or less majoring in movie-watching). But the fact that he just applied what he saw whenever seemed appropriate just makes me feel dirty - it makes me feel really cold and alienated, as though he never realized that relationships are actually comprised of reciprocal exchanges of genuine, heartfelt, emotion and was just doing his best to evoke the sorts of reactions and emotions that he wanted to see me experience, setting up the sorts of situations he wanted to be in. (Note that I'm stopping short of actually using the "s" word, but I'm definitely implying it on purpose). It scares me that there are people in this world who see relationships as verbal exchanges and nothing more; who for whatever reason are just totally incapable of making legitimate social connections.
[Disclaimer: I do realize that it sounds like I've drawn a lot of conclusions from one single experience that I'm describing; unfortunately there's a lot of context that I'm just not interested in discussing in gory detail online. Suffice it to say that tonight just pushed my eyes open a bit more widely.]
I guess tonight is a night for thinking back. It's hard to believe that it's been an entire year since the last time I sat here, thinking some of these thoughts. A lot of things have changed for the better. If I had to put one label on the past year, I would call it "therapeutic." Not everything that happened was pleasant or beneficial, of course, but a lot of it was. I'm back to trusting people in general. I'm back to believing in myself, and I'm getting back to being in the mode of pushing myself to be the best I can. I'm still not as open as I'd like to be, and it's probably going to be awhile before I'm totally rid of the defensiveness and guardedness, but it's good to be feeling so much more like myself.
It's kind of ironic, because I remember last year struggling to be open and genuine with people that honestly meant a lot to me, but really not being able to because I was so shaken and overwhelmed by everything that had happened in the past semester in my personal life, and everything that was taking place with my family at the time. I do remember that I had probably the best, most interesting, most open, lighthearted, conversation that I'd had in a long time with one person in particular while I was remembering Grandpa. It was as though being in those memories for a little while let me relax and let my guard down for awhile, and it was really nice. Maybe this year I can keep a bit more of that with me.
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