Multiple Stories

ABC last night aired Diane Sawyer's interview with Randy Pausch, the charismatic computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who created a stir in September 2007 with The Last Lecture just months after he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Randy died Friday, July 24.

A man facing death has few reasons to pose. A poseur's games suddenly don't matter any more. All our life we build multi-story houses about ourselves. Facing death can bring us to a sudden stop. Randy was known to be forthright to the point of coming across  brash and insensitive. Randy told Diane his life motto: Tell the Truth All the Time. 

Harder even than telling the truth all the time is facing truths about ourselves.

This morning before I started writing I had to clear two piles of books that had accumulated on my desk. The piles were so tall I felt like a prisoner behind thick walls.

I looked around to see where I could move the books. Every available space was occupied. To move the books from the desk I had to sort through books on two other locations in the office. I bagged several books from the top of a bookcase, books about language and vocabulary. The Internet has made many reference books superfluous. That cleared the top of the bookcase so I could move one pile of books from the top of the credenza to the space they vacated. I couldn't clear enough space for the books on the desk so shoved several into a library storage box I stored under the desk. Whew!

Going through the books I was reminded of all the projects I had thought I would do. I saw my pattern clearly. Buying a book about an idea was again and again as far as I got with the idea. I've had tons of ideas! There were books on Excel, the Microsoft spreadsheet program upgrades of which I have been buying since it was first offered in 1984 as Multiplan. The only use I've ever made of the program was as a database for my computer and Internet passwords and the serial numbers of equipment and software.

There were many other books on the piles, a dozen about Photoshop that I still have not learned enough to use other than creating the watermark I use on my digital photographs. There were dozens of books on film and digital filmmaking. I have not worked in digital video since I started photographing models. I do want to get back to videos but when? The books represent the many projects I want to accomplish and rightfully feel overwhelmed.

Years ago I became a devotee of Elaine St. James whose book on simplifying one's life became a bible to me. For a while I did apply what I learned from her but you would never know I was into simplifying my life when you walk into my house today. Coming up with goals is so much easier than following through.

Half a year into my yearlong sabbatical and what can I show for it? I have learned a lot about photography and creating websites using iWeb. I have shot models and discovered that photographing people is as much fun, maybe even more fun, than hearing people's stories of their lives when I did clinical work. There certainly are themes that run through my life. Doing a guilt trip on myself does not lead to anything productive. Seeing the patterns might help me restore sanity to my life.

Last night's show included Diane interviewing Randy's wife, Jai, who divulged how she was coping with her husband's illness and imminent death. She told Diane how she reminded herself over and over again. I have everything I need, I have everything I need. That's a mantra I should learn.

We don't have to keep building our multi-story house. Being truthful with ourselves we can restore ourselves to the ground floor. On ground level, we have everything we need.