[rebase]

If you haven't watched this, it will change your life. Even if you have, it's one of the few youtube videos that is worth a re-watch. The book is just as good if not better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Spoiler: It is a former CS professor at Carnegie Mellon named Randy Pausch. He had terminal pancreatic cancer. This is a dying professor's last lecture. It is a father sharing life lessons for his kids when they are older to watch.

Some relevant quotes:

- “As you get older, you may find that 'enabling the dreams of others' thing is even more fun.”

- “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

- “The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. ”

- “Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”

- “People are more important than things.”

[therein]

I remember watching this 10 years ago as a 14 year old and getting really emotional. And here I am again...

[sireat]

The video and book were a great example of playing the hand right BUT

for me the conclusion was a rather grim Ecclesiastical one.

Stoicism seems to me 'making the best of bad situation' still we are doomed and doomed soon.

What difference is there between stoicism and fatalism?

Offside: If you are a conscripted soldier in 1940 Soviet army, ordered to march against a machine gun nest in Finland where do you get your solace?

The Finnish soldiers were amazed(and developed PSTD) how consigned to their fate the advancing Soviet soldiers were despite wave and wave of them being gunned down.

Same goes for a situation like in Boethius Consolation of Philosophy and The Last Lecture.

They are screwed and you can delude yourself into thinking things are great.

http://gunshowcomic.com/648

[fapjacks]

I love this lecture. He dispenses a number of classic stoic principles.