Thursday, October 06, 2011

Saying Goodbye To Steve Jobs

It's hard to say enough about the accomplishments of Steve Jobs.  I'm not really qualified to try.  I'd rather ski than snowboard. I miss the sound of "records". I threw in with the PC crowd when we thought Apple was an eccentric flash-in-the-pan in the computing world.  What would it really amount to?

But it was Steve Jobs who has defined the digital future and put it in palm of our hands. So when I heard about his death I was struck with by the irony of a man who defined our future dying at the hands of one our oldest enemies, cancer.  The man who could see what none of us could, falls (to borrow the title of a popular book) to "The Emporer Of All Maladies."

If Jobs was anything he was a testimony to the incredible creative genius of what one person can do.  And his passing is a testimony to what we can't do.  Isn't that where we really live?  Capable of so many great things, and incapable of a great many others.  It's easier to believe that our lives are ours to define.  Or to believe the opposite - that we are victims of forces beyond our control.

Like Steve Jobs we are incredible and vulnerable people, all at once.  Maybe that's no accident or tragic flaw that we will one day overcome.  Maybe that's at the heart of what it means to be human and the clue to why we are here.

2 comments:

Beloved Spear said...

It really is remarkable how much influence his relentless pursuit of innovation and perfection has had on the mechanics of my own day to day life. Interesting human being, he was.

Ginny Neil, The Singing Farmwife said...

Well said old friend! Well said.