World Enough and Time

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.)