Swandives

Randy Pausch, whom I didn’t know but admired greatly as a truly inspiring man, has died from complications from pancreatic cancer.

http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/beyond/2008/summer/an-enduring-legacy.shtml

UPDATE: The Google homepage is displaying a very classy tribute - a text link to his awesome Last Lecture.

Swandives began as a way to understand the lure of the blog, since at the time I didn’t understand the seeming need to ‘dear diary’ to the masses. I began on LiveJournal, then moved to Blogspot (now Blogger) and graduated to the wonderful Wordpress, which is not only a glorious piece of software, but completely blasts every other content mangament system (proprietary, open source, sophisticated or otherwise) out of the water. Under its glorious influence, I came to understand the power of the blog and indeed enjoy blogging - as somebody who used to write regularly for a living in a very structured, traditional environment, I found it extremely cathartic to write for myself rather than somebody else. This blog is, after all, the ultimate exercise in narcissism.

Perhaps I have come full circle, but I think I’d like to retire from the opinionated rhetoric that is the blogosphere. To be honest, I have come to loathe the officious, holier-than-thou banter that in many cases fails to recognise that it’s not OK to personally attack somebody because they have a different opinion and I recognise the hypocrisy in being part of it. In the end, it’s so bloody pointless. With apologies to the late, great Anthony Newley: stop the web, I want to get off.

I seem to be in a bit of a black hole from which I cannot escape. And I’d like to say, ‘move along please, there’s nothing to see here’ and have it go off on its not-so-merry way. I’m being a drama queen, I know. Don’t worry; I’ll get over it and normal operations will continue, I’m sure.

Some days are better than others. Today wasn’t one of the good ones. I found out that my father has cancer in his lung. I don’t know what kind of cancer it is - he goes into hospital for tests on the 23rd. And to be honest, I don’t really know how I feel. In part because I don’t have all the details. Mum wasn’t going to tell me until they knew for sure, except my sister (quite rightly) said she’d want to know if she was me. I spoke to Dad too, but he was a bit short on details.

I have a headache.

UPDATE 17/12/08: I feel I should add a postscript to this post as it’s pretty dire and in the end it wasn’t cancer! It’s quite a drawn-out story but that’s the good news. The process did uncover other issues that have since overshadowed this post somewhat. It will no doubt become a much bigger issue with time and when it does I’m sure various details will appear here. What is it they say about life not being meant to be easy?