I've been trying to gather my thoughts on the passing of Apple [AAPL] leader, Steve Jobs. There's opinions everywhere, most are good, others crassly board the bandwagon of his life to make specious points. What words can I add to this clamor?
Only connect
Words are complicated. Even at their best they are nothing more than reflections of the never-ending internal chatter each living sentient being experiences in their life.
Sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes a few words help foster one of those rare strong connections our souls yearn for. Other times, no words can join those so sundered. Sometimes it takes more than words, it takes action. And it's all about communication. Communication is joining the dots.
Steve Jobs and communication:
A job description
This stuff ain't cheap. Some days you need to dig so very deep. Some days you just have to gather and distil every iota of your own experience, pull it all together into some small compressed ball of internalized primal ectoplasm, then compress this substance even more if you are trying to strain out even the merest scent of a hint of an intimation of an original idea.
Look, we've all been there, think about it. We've all found ourselves suddenly inside the most important conversation of our lives straining our whole being, our whole soul in an incredibly painful attempt to say just one thing we truly mean, just one thing which resonates, one gleaming thought that truly connects. Because we all want to connect. And it takes real effort to get there.
Now imagine thinking at that kind of level was your day job. Because it was Steve's day job.
Every day, to get ahead of the curve he will have been trying: to distil his humanity, his ideas and experiences, his loves and love's inevitable friend, pain, to dig deep into this compressed experiential bale and pull out new ideas like rabbits from hats. Ideas of such purity and substance that they revolutionized whole industries and put him on the map not just as the finest CEO the world has ever seen, but as a genius maverick, an artist, an idiot-savant product design poet with a brain full of freedom and a heart full of ideas and a love for what he did which I suspect was only transcended by his feelings of love for the planet he was doing it for. Because would you do a day job like that for any lesser motivation?
Creative expression
Some people say that the passing of Steve Jobs was a JFK moment; an Elvis moment; as significant and memorable and world-changing as the death of John Lennnon. I know I'll never be able to forget the morning I heard the news.
I imagine the family and friends of the man, and I can't but sense the feeling of loss there, because someone like Jobs could never be anything other than a man you don't meet every day. I can't imagine how dark it must be for his closest friends now they have to live without his light.
Us on the outside can recognise how he wandered in the far places where the most creative expression hides to find the inspiration for the shiny techno pleasures we use every day today. Given my limited understanding of the effort it might take to achieve that, then I see no reason to believe his personal relationships were any less meaningful or inspired.
The alchemist
Jobs had the power to distil his thought and experience until he found the essences of ideas which changed the world. A spiritual/technological alchemist from a place where artistic expression and technological innovation collide.
See, it isn't one thing or another. It isn't about innovation, artistic integrity, sincerity, humor, product design, humanity, it is all of the above and more.
Ultimately, we're all children of our own nature. Very few of us can join the dots enough to make the invisible visible, to weave fantasy into real, to reach out and touch millions through an expression of an idea wrapped up inside something mass produced, yet beautiful.
Products of perfection and humanity that shine all the more brightly for being surrounded by the pygmy notions that we already know will never, ever make the grade but which seem to dominate our wider society at this time.
For all these reasons and more, I salute you, Steve Jobs. Now it's up to the rest of us to try to join the dots.
If you have messages, leave them here, or send them to Apple at rememberingsteve@apple.com
What are your thoughts? Speak up, I'm interested.
Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter or in comments below and let me know. I'd like it if you chose to follow me on Twitter so I can let you know when these items are published here first on Computerworld.
Only connect
Words are complicated. Even at their best they are nothing more than reflections of the never-ending internal chatter each living sentient being experiences in their life.
Sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes a few words help foster one of those rare strong connections our souls yearn for. Other times, no words can join those so sundered. Sometimes it takes more than words, it takes action. And it's all about communication. Communication is joining the dots.
Steve Jobs and communication:
- Here we sit reading and writing and researching on these graphical user interface controlled computers.
- Here we are, using an Internet browser that didn't even exist just a few years ago until Berners-Lee managed to write the world's first Web browser using a NeXT machine.
- Perhaps we first heard the news of Jobs' passing on an iPhone, or an iPad.
- Perhaps we use a Mac.
- Perhaps we'd just watched a Pixar movie.
- Perhaps we sat down after hearing the news to listen to our favorite tunes on our iPod.
- Perhaps we read about his passing in a newspaper or magazine, printed using fonts. Did you know that Jobs was resposible for bringing fonts to the masses because he included support for them within the Mac OS?
A job description
This stuff ain't cheap. Some days you need to dig so very deep. Some days you just have to gather and distil every iota of your own experience, pull it all together into some small compressed ball of internalized primal ectoplasm, then compress this substance even more if you are trying to strain out even the merest scent of a hint of an intimation of an original idea.
Look, we've all been there, think about it. We've all found ourselves suddenly inside the most important conversation of our lives straining our whole being, our whole soul in an incredibly painful attempt to say just one thing we truly mean, just one thing which resonates, one gleaming thought that truly connects. Because we all want to connect. And it takes real effort to get there.
Now imagine thinking at that kind of level was your day job. Because it was Steve's day job.
Every day, to get ahead of the curve he will have been trying: to distil his humanity, his ideas and experiences, his loves and love's inevitable friend, pain, to dig deep into this compressed experiential bale and pull out new ideas like rabbits from hats. Ideas of such purity and substance that they revolutionized whole industries and put him on the map not just as the finest CEO the world has ever seen, but as a genius maverick, an artist, an idiot-savant product design poet with a brain full of freedom and a heart full of ideas and a love for what he did which I suspect was only transcended by his feelings of love for the planet he was doing it for. Because would you do a day job like that for any lesser motivation?
Creative expression
Some people say that the passing of Steve Jobs was a JFK moment; an Elvis moment; as significant and memorable and world-changing as the death of John Lennnon. I know I'll never be able to forget the morning I heard the news.
I imagine the family and friends of the man, and I can't but sense the feeling of loss there, because someone like Jobs could never be anything other than a man you don't meet every day. I can't imagine how dark it must be for his closest friends now they have to live without his light.
Us on the outside can recognise how he wandered in the far places where the most creative expression hides to find the inspiration for the shiny techno pleasures we use every day today. Given my limited understanding of the effort it might take to achieve that, then I see no reason to believe his personal relationships were any less meaningful or inspired.
The alchemist
Jobs had the power to distil his thought and experience until he found the essences of ideas which changed the world. A spiritual/technological alchemist from a place where artistic expression and technological innovation collide.
See, it isn't one thing or another. It isn't about innovation, artistic integrity, sincerity, humor, product design, humanity, it is all of the above and more.
Ultimately, we're all children of our own nature. Very few of us can join the dots enough to make the invisible visible, to weave fantasy into real, to reach out and touch millions through an expression of an idea wrapped up inside something mass produced, yet beautiful.
Products of perfection and humanity that shine all the more brightly for being surrounded by the pygmy notions that we already know will never, ever make the grade but which seem to dominate our wider society at this time.
For all these reasons and more, I salute you, Steve Jobs. Now it's up to the rest of us to try to join the dots.
If you have messages, leave them here, or send them to Apple at rememberingsteve@apple.com
What are your thoughts? Speak up, I'm interested.
Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter or in comments below and let me know. I'd like it if you chose to follow me on Twitter so I can let you know when these items are published here first on Computerworld.
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