Will this Land of the Pure ever get a Steve Jobs?

Jobs did what he did for his genius but also the fact that he was in a country that rewards individuality, creativity.

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple has passed away. Though immortalised in his creative legacy, he met the ultimate destiny that awaits all mortals. But not everyone blazes a trail such that Steve has left behind. His iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad have revolutionised and changed the way we think about technology. His products not only make him a household name but have created a cult following in Apple admirers.

Even bigger than his creations, was the man himself. He shall continue to inspire all those who hunger for innovation and creativity. What do we learn from the mental prowess of this man? What lessons can be learned from the path he chose to take? What does he bequeath to us in terms of his vision and the means to achieve it? His speech to the graduating class of 2005 at Stanford University reveals the real man behind the so-called ‘exacting and fearsome leader’ at Apple.

Steve narrated three stories from his life. In the first, he called “connecting the dots”, where he talked about his life-changing decision to drop out of college and how he whimsically took a calligraphy course that seemed useless then but later, when he designed his first Macintosh to make it the first ever computer with “beautiful typography”, he could see the value in it. “You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever,” he said, and “this approach has made all the difference in my life”.

His second story was about “love and loss”; how he and his friend Woz (Steve Wozniack) started Apple in his parents’ garage and how within 10 years, Apple grew into a $2 billion venture. At the 20, he co-founded Apple and at 30 he was ousted from it. In Steve’s words, “the heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again”. He then created NeXT and acquired Pixar, the film animation company. Apple finally bought NeXT and Steve was home again after a long hiatus. Pixar’s new technology induced Apple’s virtual rebirth and Steve admits that this would never have happened had he not been fired from Apple. His message is simple but hard to assimilate. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

His third story was about “death”. He would say: “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.” Steve narrated how he was diagnosed with cancer and how he confronted death. His advice is both poignant and stark “Your time is limited … don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice.” For Steve, who asked himself every day, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”, death must have been a seamless transition into a bigger reality.

While we laud Steve’s inventiveness, we know that he did what he did, not only for his undisputed genius but also for the undeniable fact that he was in a country acclaimed for rewarding individuality and creativity; where a college dropout could realise his dream, conceived in a garage, through hard work and ingenuity alone. Will our creators and thinkers ever get this mental liberation? Will we ever grow up unconstrained by predetermined ideas and ideologies? Will there ever be a Steve Jobs in this Land of the Pure?

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2011.