Last salute

Interrupting next post to pay homage to Randy Pausch.
He died on July 25th, 2008
I pay my respect to him.He has been a great inspiration to me.I wanted to meet him in person.
(I'm sad.)
We need more people like you.

Many of you must already know him.For the un-initiated, he's the guy who gave the "last lecture"; the wildly-popular and much viewed video on the net.



A book has been released on the same:


"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
--Randy Pausch

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.

why do we do what we do?

For the past four years I have been pursuing a dream.A dream that is so close to my heart that I wish not to disclose it (even)here;even in the cover of anonymity.All I have to say is that it has nothing to do with the matters of heart.

I have been oscillating through a wide range of emotions during this pursuit of mine.It has brought me much pain,despair, made me lose faith, got me depressed.........
It has also helped me in discovering myself, given me energy,hope, faith etc.It has been of a dual nature bringing me sadness and happiness all at the same time.

I became a social recluse refusing to interact with the outside world except for when it was absolutely necessary. I have just retreated into a shell.To sum it up, it has cost me substantial amount of my time and energy.

Now even though I don't have the obsession that I had in the beginning, the fire is still there burning as before.I have kept trying hard to make my dream real.On the way, I have lost patience and gave up many times.I have writhed in pain and despair and given up one day, only to pick up where I left off the next day.Even in the face of utter despair I have refused to give up.Some times I feel like a crazy man who is trying to break a stone wall with bare hands.I have visuals of myself doing that.(that's not me in the pic)

Yet I continue.

This has made me think why I haven't give up (yet).What is that inside me that has made me behave in this way. I have thought about it a lot.I would love to say that it is in my nature to not give up.I'm someone who doesn't stop no matter what.


I would love to say all that.But I would be lying.Though ego hurts, I have given up numerous times.But this one is making me more miserable than anything else I have experienced and still I' refuse to let it go.At first it was an ego thing but now I'm beginning to doubt the extent of my ego.

"A man's desire should never become his weakness" --(a rare original from your's truly.)

I think I have finally found the reason for my stubbornness.It is something very silly.I don't give up because I don't have anything else to do.I can't sit idle.As long as I can I might as well do something.This might as well be it.I need something to push me so that I can (try) push it back.With every passing moment I feel I'm losing a part of myself in this pursuit and yet ,I push on.I have nothing other that to offer.I'm starting to feel more like a machine programmed to accomplish certain task which has no emotional attachment with or any incentive to take from the outcome of the task

It's like a terminator who has no use once his mission is over.Immaterial of the outcome of the mission, once it's over he has no reason to exist.


Only difference is I want to exist (I'm not suicidal!!) and I can't exist without a reason and I'm finding a reason.

It is my attempt at finding "method to madness".

Has anyone felt the same way?

NEXT POST: too(two) depressing(a.k.a ...) - ep1