So I realize we're hijacking g's thread, but that's okay. He's working on piecing now and can't be bothered with posting much anymore.
Anyhow, Randy Pausch brings to mind the experience of Edward Said. Said was very interested in "Late Style" - a reflection of learning and wisdom that an artist has acquired by a lifetime of experience and reflection. Essentially, late style has nothing left to prove.
Is there a late style? The public seems to need it, to know that there is a progression to human understanding. That there's a point, a result of the journey.
What's interesting about Said is that he began his career focusing on beginnings - studying origins and our need to imagine and construct them. So it's interesting his lectures at Columbia before his death turned to late style. Especially since he was diagnosed with leukemia, which he recently died from.
There was a book published from Said's and Said's students lecture notes. Unfortunately those were sparse, so the book isn't great, and the subject matter is more academic than Pausch. But it is an incredible catalyst to think of the rich culture we have at our fingertips from those who have preceded Pausch - everyone from Shakespeare to Beethoven to Adorno to ... to Pausch! And, of course, Said.
Facing one's end is to detach from place and time. It is a rejection of what everyone else strives for. And yet in that rejection is discovery. It is finding meaning in a place that is different from where you thought you were headed. Maybe you didn't want it, or expect it, but here you are - it is resignation and fulfillment at the same time.
It is facing exile, and in exile discovering a whole new world.
