Lord Jobs Speaks

Most of what I do on this blog is bitch about stuff, which means that when I mention Apple or macs or iPhones, I’m generally complaining. Which is unfortunate, and misleading. I’m a fairly recent convert to the church of Jobs, but — like most people who come late to their zealotry — I’m about as die-hard an Apple fanboy as you’re likely to meet. To me, Apple doesn’t just make beautiful things: they represent a commitment to an aesthetic of fundamental, unstinting, pervasive beauty that’s pure down to its core. Do it right, all the way through, all the time. Find the perfect balance between artistry and practicality. Never compromise, and never settle for success, and keep your laurels barbed, so that you’re never tempted to rest on them for very long.

Steve Jobs is the core of that aesthetic. If you’d told me 10 years ago that one of the primary deities in my personal pantheon would be a CEO of a giant company, I would have tittered mercilessly at you. Nevertheless, it’s inescapably true that Lord Jobs has a palace (a tasteful, minimalist palace) on the upper slopes of my inner Olympus, and I don’t think he’s going anywhere any time soon. Which isn’t to say that I’m unaware of his flaws. Quite honestly, I’m not sure if I could take the pressure of actually working for the guy. But I fervently believe that he’s more or less the entire reason that Apple is the way it is.

If you were looking for a way to crystalize the Jobsian essence — the hubris, the hope, the drive — you couldn’t do much better than the commencement speech he gave at Stanford, back in 2005. Every so often, when I feel like my priorities have gone completely out of whack, I go back and listen to it. This is maybe one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard — and, if I wasn’t a member of the forgotten Generation X tribe, with all of the self-conscious irony-soaked doomed hipsterism implicit thereof, I’d call the core of it (which I quote extensively below) absolutely fucking inspirational:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Amen, Lord Jobs. Amen.