A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. 

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"The Last Lecture" idea is one that a number of universities host in which a highly regarded professor is asked to imagine they were just given the news that they were to die soon, then tailor a unique lecture incorporating what advice they would offer or life lessons they've experienced that they'd want to share with others.  Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University as well as a professor of technology at the University of Virginia, was given such a task but in his case he truly was nearing death at the time he offered his lecture. Shortly before giving this lecture, Pausch had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, his doctors notifying him he had mere months of life left. But Pausch points out early on that once he agreed to do the lecture, he didn't want the focus to be on his impending death but instead on how he managed to fulfill his dreams with the time he had been given. 

In addition to being a college professor, Pausch was also an award-winning researcher for tech companies such as Adobe, Google, EA (Electronic Arts gaming company) and Walt Disney Imagineers, so he had plenty of life experience to pull from to craft his message! Pausch came from a family that strongly endorsed educating yourself -- go to the library, crack open some reference books, find the answers yourself, go for walks and think on a subject, that sort of thing. His parents also taught him to be tenacious. He writes of first getting established in his technology career during the 1960s-70s and being reminded of Captain Kirk's line in Star Trek: Wrath of Khan: "I don't believe in a no-win situation." Pausch's parents' lessons on building a tenacious spirit served him well, spurring him in later years to pay it forward, in a way, when he imparts his own version of the idea to his students: "Brick walls are there not to keep you out, but to teach you how badly you want to get to the other side."

The most formidable wall I ever came upon in my life was just five feet, six inches tall, and was absolutely beautiful. But it reduced me to tears, made me reevaluate my entire life and led me to call my father, in a helpless fit, to ask for guidance on how to scale it. 

 

That brick wall was Jai.

 

~ Randy Pausch on first meeting his wife, Jai.

Pausch tells of an early experience of trying to get a job with Disney. He desperately wanted a spot on the Imagineers team and had to spend years using that well-worn tenacity before he even got an interview with anyone. As he puts it, they regularly sent him "the nicest go to hell letters ever ". He eventually went on to take a job as a professor at the University of Virginia because, y'know, dreams are great but bills still gotta stay paid! In 1995, while he was working at this university, Pausch heard news of a team of Imagineers struggling with a project to create low-cost virtual reality technology for Disney's Aladdin park attraction. Once again, Pausch found himself regularly contacting Disney offering his knowledge. FINALLY, his efforts payed off and he was patched through to one of the leaders of the Aladdin project. But his work wasn't done. It took Pausch more schmoozing, getting the guy to agree to meet with him over lunch and hear his ideas, before Pausch truly got a foot in the door. 

Pausch also admits that it's beneficial to have at least a few "tough love" friends in your life who will give it to you straight, even if the truth hurts. He tells of some of his close friends who would sit him down and tell him at various times when he was being arrogant, brash, tactless, always correcting people yet being stubborn and contrary if he himself was ever corrected. Essentially, they would let him know whenever his sometimes hypocritical nature was driving people away. So Pausch recommends that its important for flaws to be "social rather than moral". 

The Last Lecture, as presented here, is a book translation of Pausch's original speech at his college. Pausch's ideas were molded into book form with the help of Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow, who was present in the audience at the original lecture. Pausch's words got such rave reviews, people immediately clamored for a book form they could gift to friends, family, co-workers, etc. 

This book has gotten a flood of rave reviews pretty much since its day of publication. Pausch does offer some nice morsels of inspiration such as:

• *Give yourself permission to dream
• * Stay humble. "No job is beneath you."
• * "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you want."

All nice, warm sentiments but IMO Pausch didn't always consume what he was selling others. There were a number of passages here that came off pretty self-congratulatory. To some extent, one can cut the guy some slack, he was nearing death. Still, in my mind, even death shouldn't allow one to go out on too smug a note. There were some things about this guy that just REALLY bugged me. Choosing to do a speaking engagement over being at home for your wife's birthday when you both know you won't get another chance to celebrate? Nope, sorry, not cool. And the whole ranking system he did with his students where everyone was publicly given a rating from worst to greatest and him claiming he was "doing them a favor." Whaa?! I know this book is well loved by many but there were just some things here that screamed "jerk" to me. 

This book grew out of the desperation of a computer professor, when he discovered that he had terminal cancer, and he wanted absolutely to leave a manual of guidance for his little kids. It's this fact about this book that drew me, because, in terms of parental guidance, I haven't been one of the lucky ones.

I was surprised by the vividness and vivacity of the writing. The pages kept turning as if by themselves, and I was disappointed that the book ran out so soon.

Authentic and practical wisdoms that come not from the brain but from the heart of a devoted father. How I wish I had one book like this when I was growing up. A perfect example of how a man on death trip becomes immortal through the keenness of his soul.

A friend post this on FB on spiritual but not religious books.

This books list suck.

Could I do better? 

Let me try.

1 Sam Harris Waking up.  I've read this one and it is about an atheist searching for the spiritual experience through meditation and drug. Nice and honest tone. 

2. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Even if he was a bit overly optimistic, to try and live your dream in this limited life time is still a good meditative tool. Ask yourself what you want instead of listening of what society what it wants from you. 

3. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens is his last unfinished work. It is a good book to contemplate on death. 

4. The Atheist Manifesto is a thoughtful book on what atheists could do to improve the world. Couldn't get more spiritual than trying to help save the world. 

5. The Little Prince by  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry teaches us all lessons on life and what is important. 

6. Winnie the Pooh books teach us about friendship and how to deal with disappointment. 

7. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins teach us that we are as a sub specie of ape could do so much to see the world as it is, instead of what we want it to be. 

8. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker make me rethink my own understanding of human nature, quite a lot tinted by religious bullshit forced fed to me when I was too young to resist. To know this nature of human is to learn how to trust humans from a neutral position. 

So there you go. Here is my list of spiritual but not religious books. I think it is a good list. But it is very likely that I learned more than I think from books. 

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Randy Pausch agreed to give the Last  Lecture of all Last Lectures. Unlike every other lecture in the Carnegie Mellon series, his was in fact an actual last lecture. He and his family had already left Pittsburgh for Virginia so that his wife and children would have a better support network after his death, but despite this he returned to Carnegie Mellon to deliver his presentation, not only as an inspiration to his students to dream big, but also as a way of sharing all he had learned with his three children who he would never see grow up, and still so young their memories of him would be few. This book takes everything from that lecture and gives it a form that will leave a more permanent mark. 

I found this book to be quite inspirational, but in many ways it is no different from any other book of its kind. The lessons are much the same, they are just told from the personal viewpoint of its author. I enjoyed it, but I don't know that it is a must read. I had planned to watch the recording of Pausch's Last Lecture, which can be found on YouTube, but at this point I am not sure that it is necessary and I am likely to forget my intention long before I get around to it.