misaacs | Shared With: Everyone - 16 days ago | life, books, Education and Schools, writing and writers
Quoted: Writers who have been lucky enough to land these gigs are inclined to talk — when we aren’t grumbling — about their good fortune in sensible language, citing all that is sane, healthy, balanced and economically viable about their jobs. But another question is discussed less. What exactly does all this teaching do to our writing? And what, if anything, does it mean for a country to have a tenured literature?
- misaacs | Shared With: Everyone - 23 days ago | Writing and Writers, life, society
David Foster Wallace, best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest,'' was found dead in his home, according to police. Wallace's wife found her husband had hanged himself when she returned home Friday.
Quoted: how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed... Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. - misaacs | Shared With: Everyone - Nov 28 2007 | talk, academia, learning, mortality, death, life, research, university, lecture, computer science
Dr. Pausch's speech was more than just an academic exercise. The 46-year-old father of three has pancreatic cancer and expects to live for just a few months. His lecture, using images on a giant screen, turned out to be a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.
The transcript :
http://cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.htmlThe talk istself :
http://cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.htmlRedotted from Sriraman.
