Why am iSad? | 7th Oct. '11

Why am iSad?

Well, that last word is from a phrase doing round online. A tribute to perhaps an icon - Steve Jobs.

I remember as a kid having read that Steve Jobs along with his friend had made the Apple computer in a garage. And from their they moved mountains. As I was grew up and learnt about computers, I was saddened that despite having the best features, Apple was not the number 1 selling machine. Much later, not until I had done my management, did I understand the difference between a great product and great business.

The non-understanding of why Apple was what it was and the understanding of why Apple is what it is, does not change one thing - I feel sad on the loss of Steve. Honestly, I do not care what happens to Apple's share price. But I do care, on what has happened to Steve Jobs.

And, I am surprised at myself. He was not related to me. I am also not a gadget geek - I have till date not worked on a Mac or an Apple machine. I have seen the fancy stuff around me, but never worked on them. I am fairly technology neutral. I do not particularly love inventions, nor do I love challenging the rules of science. Steve and Apple did not change my life - as they perhaps did to the millions around. Yet I mourn. And paradoxically, the death of a figure that is impersonal to me.

Or maybe not. Perhaps, it is about the Steve Jobs - the person. Not the inventor, the creative genius, the maverick - but the person, who relates to the person within me. I remember having read Steve Jobs Commencement Address to the Standford University graduates in 2005. It lodged itself at some place in my heart. And I forgot about it. And now, I see it all over the net once again.

As I read each and every word of it - again and again - I realise what profundity of thought lies behind those words. Behind the creative, maverick, genius, lay a person willing to see himself vulnerable. A person willing to chase his dreams, a person willing to fail and then rise up again. It is not the spirit that moved Steve - he moved the Spirit within. For a person who is willing to be vulnerable is a person with the maximum strength.

As I look back at the history of Apple computers and of Steve Jobs (from whatever little I know), I realise one thing - what made Steve Jobs the man he was, was his strength of vulnerability. It sounds paradoxical - but to me, it does not. Only a person who has the courage to be vulnerable, is the person who has the 'courage' in life.

I am reminded of Rudyard Kipling in "IF" (ladies, please pardon the sexist word 'he':

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
with sixty seconds worth of distance run;
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it -
and which is more,
You'll be a man, my son."

To give the unforgiving minute, the sixty seconds worth of distance run, requires one to put all at stake. For each second is just in the moment. Giving that minute a run means letting go of yourself and running. And that is life. Steve Jobs perhaps lived that. We do not know his deepest thoughts, but from his actions and life, we can surmise, he had the courage to be vulnerable.

Or perhaps, is it that Steve Jobs, though a being outside, is also a construct and a concept inside. A voice somewhere deep within me - that calls me to my destiny. That calls out for me to listen to my own self. And perhaps the recognition that one man i.e., Steve Jobs lived it all. As he said in is Stanford Lecture:

"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."

Perhaps, it is that voice within. Maybe, he is just the archetype (to borrow from Jungians) - the archetype of Steve Jobs - and it is this archetype that calls me. And at this moment confronts me - with an example of a life lived. Maybe, all this while, while Steve lived the life he did, I could project my own archetypal Steve Jobs on him and not live it myself - the life that the voice deep inside wants each one of us to live. And perhaps, with his death, the curtain has fallen and now we are confronted to see our own selves as the actor has gone. They say that the actor is actually in the audience and the audience create the cast. As we stare in the mirror, all that we see is a vacuum where we cannot project that voice and live our lives vicariously.

Perhaps, that is why I mourn the death of Steve Jobs. In some ways, it feels like a stage of suspended disbelief. And however, hard I try to write or think or feel, deep down in my heart, I still do not know:

Why am iSad?