YouTube – Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.
If you want a shorter “trailer” version of this professor’s lecture, you can watch it here. I recommend watching all of it. It is worth it.
How do you know you’re at the finish line …
The main reason, people stop what they are doing before the job is completed is because, they do not have a picture of the finished product. In other words, to finish something, you must already know what it looks like in your mind.
~ Pastor Clyde C. Williams
I thought this was a pretty good quote. How do you know when something is finished when you don’t know what finish is?
Quite frequently, when I talk about kung fu to people, I always tell them “How do you know you are good when you do not know what good is?” Some people think they are awesome, but it is only because they have not seen the bigger fish.
When coaching dragonboat, I always point out other teams to my team. I have always found pictures of good teams to show them to my team in the hopes they can be inspired and can find higher levels to push themselves to.
In terms of life and in general, having goals is important. How do you know where to head, if you do not have goals. People might stop trying, even just short of achieving their goal, just because they do not have a clearly defined goal and not know where that finish line is.
I’m not exactly religious, but I happened to come by that quote while searching online.
Google: Major in learning & why I’m a photojournalist
At the highest level, we are looking for non-routine problem-solving skills. We expect applicants to be able to solve routine problems as a matter of course. After all, that’s what most education is concerned with. But the non-routine problems offer the opportunity to create competitive advantage, and solving those problems requires creative thought and tenacity.
Here’s a real-life example, a challenge a team of our engineers once faced: designing a spell-checker for the Google search engine. The routine solution would be to run queries through a dictionary. The non-routine, creative solution is to use the query corrections and refinements that other users have made in the past to offer spelling suggestions for new queries. This approach enables us to correct all the words that aren’t in the dictionary, helping many more users in the process.
Official Google Blog: Our Googley advice to students: Major in learning
I have always believed in being a life long learner. That’s why I made the switch from the I.T. industry to journalism. Through journalism and my interaction with a wider variety of people, I get to learn more about the world around me. The value to me of my learning in journalism, far outweighed the financial payoffs of working in the IT industry. Read the rest of this entry »
Quantum Holography and EEG Headsets
Recently on the discovery.com website, there was an article about a new type of gaming controller that read your EEG patterns and used a complex algorithm to decode it.
I think that is an amazing piece of technology! Removing mechanical components from a computer interface would allow much more precise, responsive interaction as well as overall productivity. Imagine being able to type this blog entry just by thought alone!
In his article about quantum holography, Edgar Mitchell mentions the brain as a quantum computer.
The brain is clearly a quantum computer (Schempp & Marcer,1996) which utilizes both quantum and space/time information.
If we can learn to control “virtual reality” with our minds, could we be rewired to control quantum information too one day? I remember attending a talk by Roberta Bondar, a Canadian astronaut, on one of my assignments. Bondar said that while insects and other animals with short life spans evolve quickly, our relatively long live spans make us slow to evolve biologically, hence humans evolve ourselves through technology.
In this case, could we use technology to evolve ourselves biologically? Will the next generation of children be born with an inherent ability to interface with the computer through their EEG readings, and ultimately, a few generations later, to reality?
Why I love Kung Fu
If you do not train to fight in kung fu, you are missing out on very valuable benefits of kung fu including sensitivity, reaction, confidence, the list goes on. Sure, there are those who care only about “form” because they are “only studying for the art”. The list of benefits above are lost to those in that frame of thinking. They might as well be taking dance lessons, which actually are more enjoyable.
So why do I love kung fu?
Sensitivity
I had this very novel idea to carry and balance my cameras for quick access to them. Today, as I was walking through the Royal York Hotel, the little flaw in my system became apparent when a strap I used for the system became unravelled. The result was both my SLRs falling simultaneously to the ground. Thanks to my sensitivity, I detected the moment the weight shifted on my shoulders and had lots of time to react. My sensitivity is partly due to genetics (I always have to cut away the rear label on my shirts as I feel them attach to me and it bugs me) and in no small part, sharpened by my kung fu training.
Reaction / Reflexes
Reflexes are ability to react in time. However, proper reaction is also required, not just a random reflex. Thanks to the kung fu training, and my relative ambidextrous abilities, I managed to catch both cameras at the same time before they hit the ground. Thank you kung fu once again.
Kung fu will always remain a big part of my life. Some people might think that training to fight is barbaric, but I think this example illustrates how useful “training to fight” is in everyday non-combat life situations.
Human Doing vs Being
Be A Human Being – Not A Human DoingHave you ever admired a successful person? What was it that you admired? Was it their fame? Their lifestyle? Their accomplishments?
Society teaches us that to be successful, we must achieve-we, must “do” something to earn it. We are taught to work hard to be “successful”. And to show our success we buy things – material “things” that prove our success “status”. When we focus on earning success we become “Human Doings”.
Human Doings overload themselves with long lists of goals, objectives and “to do” lists. They become emotionally drained as they spread themselves too thin. Worse yet, they are unavailable to respond to the emotional needs of those around them because they have so little left to give. Just as a hand becomes calloused to toughen sensitive skin, so does a human doing become insensitive to “feeling” the emotions of those around him.
“Human Beings” consciously chooses to slow down, prioritize and maintain balance. They understand the risk of getting too over responsible to their success at the cost of becoming insensitive, distant and emotionally unavailable. They make a decision to stay in touch with those they love by setting up boundaries that prevent them from becoming a slave to their goals.
Strive2Thrive
Thanks to Kevin Charland for this link. I love the quote here and it makes a lot of sense. I guess in this society, there is much pressure on defining people by what they achieve, and not really what they are. It’s a philosophical debate that can go both ways, but I like how they define Being vs Doing here.
Empowering Youth
Twenty years from now
you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn’t do
than by the ones you did do.So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbour.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.~ Mark Twain
I covered a couple of youth based events this weekend, the Mississauga Choral Festival, featuring a few children’s choirs, as well as the Youth Can Move the World symposium, which gave the youth of today’s society tools to help make a difference in this world.
To put it shortly, I was moved by all the work the youth have done, and especially by the Wildfire dance team. I love to dance and the notion of being able to travel to various continents in the world and communicate through dance … makes me think … what was I doing when I was younger?
I had all my credits to get into University at 16 … I think I should’ve been learning about life … or roaming the world instead.
Better late than never. My sails are hoisted. Just waiting to throw off the bowlines. This time though, the wait won’t be long … and I’ll just go whereever the winds take me.