Paul Kalanithi Sparknotes
In 2013, Paul Kalanithi’s world was flipped upside down: he had been diagnosed with stage 4 Lung Cancer. He went from treating others, to others treating him. The way that he had previously looked at life had vanished and has was now seeing it with completely different eyes. In the beginning of the book he talks about his upbringing and how he was the child of two Indian immigrants. He was born on April 1, 1977 in New York. Kalanithi goes on to discuss his schooling achievement including where he went to school (and that list is not short, or anyting less than impressive). He graduated as valedictorian of his class in high school, where he then after went to Stanford University and graduated with 2 Bachelors degrees (One in English and the
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When Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed, he started to look at life in a completely different way. He saw the positives in the negatives and started to understand what the definition of life really is. One example of this in the book is when Kalanithi states“I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.” Another example is “Relying on his own strength and the support of his family and community, Paul faced each stage of his illness with grace—not with bravado or a misguided faith that he would “overcome” or “beat” cancer but with an authenticity that allowed him to grieve the loss of the future he had planned and forge a new one…. He let himself be open and vulnerable, let himself be comforted. Even while terminally ill, Paul was fully alive; despite physical collapse, he remained vigorous, open, full of hope not for an unlikely cure but for days that were full of purpose and meaning.” The last example is “You that seek what life is in death, Now find it air that once was breath. New names unknown, old names gone: Till time end bodies, but souls
When Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed, he started to look at life in a completely different way. He saw the positives in the negatives and started to understand what the definition of life really is. One example of this in the book is when Kalanithi states“I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.” Another example is “Relying on his own strength and the support of his family and community, Paul faced each stage of his illness with grace—not with bravado or a misguided faith that he would “overcome” or “beat” cancer but with an authenticity that allowed him to grieve the loss of the future he had planned and forge a new one…. He let himself be open and vulnerable, let himself be comforted. Even while terminally ill, Paul was fully alive; despite physical collapse, he remained vigorous, open, full of hope not for an unlikely cure but for days that were full of purpose and meaning.” The last example is “You that seek what life is in death, Now find it air that once was breath. New names unknown, old names gone: Till time end bodies, but souls