Life, death and Steve Jobs...

[fajrdrako]

Someone at work sent me a link to Steve Job's 2005 Commencement address at Stanford. Yes, good talk. I've heard mixed reviews of Steve Jobs as a person; knowing almost nothing about him, I find myself curious as to why. I suppose that this isn't the best time to hear the worst of him. People don't like to say bad things about the newly dead.

His talk sounded to me like the description of the ideal life, the life of the high achievers. Like Alexander the Great in The Persian Boy. People like Van Gogh, Shakespeare, Byron... And yes, for them, it paid off - often in a "burn bright, die young" sort of way.

But for every Van Gogh, there are a lot of unhappy, haunted people without the vision and the talent. There's only one Shakespeare, and there are lots of men who walk out on their family for a more interesting life than selling gloves in a small town and end up... where? Well, maybe selling gloves in another town, maybe finding happiness, maybe not. My point being: that lifestyle worked for Steve Jobs, and I believe too that follow your bliss is the way to live a good life.

But it seems to me that only a small proportion of the world is capable of fulfulling those... well, 'dreams' isn't the word, because it has to happen before the dreams are formed. Not dreams, but... steps to personal fulfilment with no regard to others. There has to at some point be a vision to follow, even if it's an escalating trail of breadcrumbs to mystery. And some people don't have the friends in dorms who will let them sleep on their floor - I didn't, but on the other hand, I think now I had more friends than I thought I did, I was just too shy to realize it. Perhaps if I'd had a different type of personality... Does it all boil down to personality?

Or is it a lifestyle that only works before you are twenty, or before you are twenty-five? He doesn't categorize it as such. It's never too late to be what you want to be. But at what price? Homeless at 18 isn't the same as homeless at 60. And for many of us, the worry about what would become of us - fear of death, for example - would overwhelm the ability to learn and achieve.

Which is not to imply we should all go to college to learn to be happy, secure cogs in the machine. I don't know what the answer is, and I don't think there is an answer. We all have to find our own.

Steve Job's found his, but I bet Steve Jobs' parents worried about him, in those days he was a hungry student drifter learning calligraphy. (I want that job.)

Comments

[ceruleancat]

I have two different things to say here. One is my reaction to his quote you put yesterday, which while having a lovely sentiment and approach, also brought to mind Lennon's quote about life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
Secondly, this position is very much from a privileged perspective, and that's part of what is annoying. Not only the white male, with all the resources that enabled him to gain an education (college, but even school isn't necessarily obvious). But more in aspects - access to friends who were willing to put up with him, the cultural situation and personality that permitted such steps, and most of all, being carefree - free of any other responsibility other than to himself. No family dependent on him, no debilitating health worries of his own (and probably access to medical insurance when necessary). He didn't have to go to work at 15 to put food on the table for his younger brothers because his parents were too sick or poor, or not there, he didn't have to take care of his own baby, or to pay off huge medical bills.

Mind you, even your own examples show this. But for every Van Gogh, there are a lot of unhappy, haunted people without the vision and the talent.. Not arguing the existence of people without vision or talent, obviously, but the comparison was amusing. Van Gogh was very haunted and unhappy and very ill, and his life reads like a huge sequence of misery, and was probably worse to actually go through, a lot of it regardless of his art. And he didn't reap the rewards of his creations for a single day.
Compare to Vermeer, who was responsible for a large family, and so spend a lot of his time running the family business instead pursuing his art. Critics complain about his "small output".
Alexander, on the other hand, was following exactly in the path laid out to him, Prince of Macedonia, military leader, conquistador. He was good at it, obviously, but it's not like he tore himself from his expected rut to follow his dream career.

Yes, striving for fulfilment and happiness in one's life and career is an excellent guide. But it isn't the sole aspect. There is moderation, and there is compromise. Because that's life.

Clarification: I didn't go read the original now, I'm only reacting to what came out in your post and to very vague memories of talks of his I had the misfortune to translate.

Wow. That came out longer than I expected.

[fajrdrako]

Interesting though. My first thought (which I never did articulate) is that at first reading his philosophy seemed selfish to me - it's the life of a person without ties or responsibilities. And that isn't necessarily selfish, and even if it were, many great achievers have had to put their work before anything else, including other people, including their families, including themselves. Selfishness as a sort of sacrifice to creation: I can see that.

But it isn't for everyone, and that's what I was reacting to: the implication in Job's talk that it's a path anyone can take. And it isn't, for a huge number of reasons - including resources, location, privilege, gender, temperament, situation... and so on.

It might be a glorious gamble, or it might be a quick downward slope.

[ceruleancat]

I think that selfishness as necessary for creation is as much a myth as the requirement to starve in a crumbling garret, preferably in Paris.

And apropos his freeloader no-responsibility approach to life:

Jobs also let his ex-girlfriend raise their daughter on welfare for two years, swearing in court that he was sterile. She was born just as Apple "began to experience significant growth." He did finally acknowledge her and pay for her to attend Harvard, but he'd already fathered other children by then, so the sterility alibi was kind of shot.
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