I read a book that I want to quickly review today, before my regular Friday Books review appears tomorrow. (The book reviewed tomorrow is much better than today's! Come back tomorrow and see.)
Today's book is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. This book was OK. Not great. I hate to dis a dying man, but I think this book was probably most meaningful to his family and personal friends. It wasn't that well written, and I just wanted it to hurry and end. He gives his ideas of life, what makes life worth living, how to face certain challenges and whatnot... ideas he would share with his young children through the years but must do quickly as he is dying of cancer.
He was a loving husband and father. My sympathies to his wife and children. I felt generous and gave this book 3 stars.
1 comment:
I have run into this book or author before somewhere. Perhaps it was in the local paper...the guy taught at Carniegie Mellon and I recognized his picture at Amazon. Maybe portions of his lecture appeared in the paper.
I am generally a coward with such writings, not so much out of a fear of death, but more out of the fear of the absurdity of the situation. We are all going to die, but most of us maintain the luxury of the date being in the undefined future. As such I believe our minds operate under a fiction of, if not outright immortality, at least that we have a lot of time remaining--when in fact our next breath could be our last.
Facing death does not necessarily confer an element of wisdom--it only shatters the illusion of an endless pile of sand in the top of the hour glass. I think that we as a society, helpless in the face of the absurdity, tend to endow an element of heroism to the state of being a victim.
I am not sure that I would want to live in a world where everyone lived each day as though it were their last. Most of the world's work is dull drudgery, and despite it being dull, it still need done. It will probably be done best by people who think they have a lot of time on their hands.
Post a Comment