The Loss of a Visionary

Solitude on an early autumn morning.

I still can't believe how the loss of Steve Jobs has affected me, has affected our culture, the world.  Like millions of other people around the world, I can't live without my iPhone, iPod and iMac computer.  There are days when I can barely pry the iPad out of my daughter's hands.  As a budding creative writer, she not only uses it for email, reading books, games and internet searches, but mainly to write stories - the 21st century's version of a paper notebook and pencil.

I can't help but connect Jobs with a video I just watched this week of Saul Bass, where he states, "I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares."  Steve Jobs created beauty out of the ugly, shaping technology so that it appealed to creatives, school kids, and luddites alike.  I never thought I would look at a piece of technology and compare it to art.  He took the intimidating world of computers and made it fun for people like me.  Unlike Saul Bass, however, I think Jobs did care.  He did want the world to see his vision, use it, and make it a part of their lives.  I love his Stanford commencement speech, in which he describes how he audited a class in calligraphy after dropping out of college, and how that class inspired the design of the Macintosh computer a decade later.  Just goes to show you that you never know where your next inspiration for beauty will come from.

In that same speech, Steve Jobs also offers this inspirational quote, which now hangs on my cork board:

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.

Read more here.

Stay hungry.  Stay foolish.

And, Think Different.

Thank you, Mr. Jobs, for creating beauty and useful technology in our lives.  We are grateful that you were and continue to be a part of our lives.  You will be missed.