Two Views Into the Abyss

By Breanne Boland August 7, 2008 Issue

The best function of the Internet, if you approach it right, is that there’s a marvelous democratic process built into it that can make the cream of the crop rise to the top, shedding light on people and stories the world at large might not notice otherwise. In recent months, this process has brought the world two amazing videos. In the last few weeks, these videos became books.

Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (Viking, 182 pages) chronicles her unique perspective on the stroke she had at age 35. Stroke is usually a condition that suggests panic and confusion. Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, saw it as the experiment of a lifetime, experiencing the altering states of her traumatized brain as an unparalleled demonstration of the organ she’d devoted her life to.

Computer scientist Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture (Hyperion, 224 pages) is based on a lecture of the same name that he gave at Carnegie Mellon, where he was a professor. Usually the idea of the last lecture is an intellectual exercise for professors; for Pausch, it was fact. Diagnosed with untreatable pancreatic cancer, he used the opportunity to sum up his life in an astoundingly positive and funny way and to present the lessons he’d learned. He worked with the theme of childhood dreams, of how to make them real and how to help others achieve them. Pausch had an uncommonly high rate of success. But then, working in virtual reality and pushing the frontiers of entertainment lends itself to that.

Bolte Taylor tells her tale after eight years of recovery, looking forward to the rest of her life as a chance to tell what she’s learned about consciousness and about how we can work with what our brains give us. Pausch looks back, examining his academic career and everything he achieved in a relatively short time. Despite the very different perspectives, both are remarkably hopeful and, dare I say, uplifting. The gravity of their respective health catastrophes and the resulting gallows humor keep them from Hallmark-treacle territory.

Bolte Taylor approaches the stroke as a magical mystery tour of the mind, the chance to see what it feels like when you can listen but not speak, or when your control over your right arm is severed. She blends metaphysical ideas with her hard science and explains, in the most experienced terms, what function each half of your brain serves and how they come together to create you. After a lifetime of studying the brain and then bringing hers back from a traumatic injury, her awe for this most complicated organ is untempered. She blends memoir and scientific inquiry with a guide for stroke victims and their families, concluding her book with lists of considerations for stroke recovery.

With a life that includes working with the Disney Imagineers, meeting William Shatner, and riding in NASA’s zero-gravity Vomit Comet, Pausch understandably spends most of his time looking back. He examines what he wanted as a child and compares it to what he spent his adult life doing. For the most part, the lists match. Initially, he addressed an audience of his students and fellow faculty; here he speaks more directly to the reader. He’s no less engaging and frank for the wider audience. It’s easy to be in awe of a man who can be his full, vibrant self when he’s facing his death and carrying several tumors in his liver, but he makes it clear that there wasn’t really any choice in the matter. He lived his life in an uncompromised way, and he had no intention of changing that when faced with the balance of it.

It’s a cliche that those who have come near death come back with some kind of wisdom to impart to the rest of us mere mortals, but that’s not always the case. A doofus who sees the bright light is probably still going to be a doofus the next day. However, Bolte Taylor and Pausch were insightful, extraordinary people to begin with. Their experiences only gave them a new perspective on their lives, and the Internet gives them a new medium with which to spread it.

To see the videos that inspired these books, visit www.ted.com and search for “Jill Bolte Taylor,” and visit www.thelastlecture.com and select “Watch the last lecture.”

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