1) This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.
2) I finally realize what has always fascinated me about him. He was ALWAYS working, with every single breath he took. He seems to have found a way of taking the hazy concept of "work" as it is commonly understood, and elevating it to a more in-focus ideal form through which to understand and shape his life.
The 2nd point you made reminds of Beethoven and how he overcame deafness to write some of his most brilliant pieces. He was incredibly passionate about his work and it was reflected in his music. It's amazing to see read this story and to realize that maybe Jobs' most important inventions, the iPhone and iPad, came at a point of extreme illness where most others would've quit. Passion drove everything he did and defined who he was.
As a side note, in a way it's misleading to speak of Beethoven "overcoming" deafness. All of the master composers were so well-trained at their craft that they could hear the music in their head without "trying it out" on a piano or other instrument. By the time Beethoven was deaf being able to hear was superfluous as far as composing was concerned...
We know that Beethoven himself was tremendously depressed by the onset of deafness and thought of it as a terrible misfortune to be heroically struggled with:
But we also know that he gave himself excellent pep talks and then kept going for another thirty years, writing great stuff long after his deafness was far worse than it was in 1802. So, yes, it seems that Beethoven eventually came to agree with you!
And, come to think of it, as I remember Beethoven's biggest complaints about deafness centered on loneliness, and on his fear that nobody would want to hire a deaf composer. I don't actually recall him complaining that his work might suffer. So that's another point in favor of your argument.
Oops, too late to edit, but I forgot that when Beethoven wrote his Testament his fame up to that point had been largely as a pianist, with a healthy side order of composition. And I believe he might have expressed some worry that his piano playing might suffer... which in fact it did; history contains quite a few tragi-comic written descriptions of Beethoven's latter-day attempts to play and conduct.
But his composition just got better, so in fact his declining fame as a performer was balanced by his increasing fame as a composer.
Actually in a lot of his orchestral work, for example the 8th symphony, his arrangement was off. Stuff like trumpets being drowned out by other horns, etc. It's the kind of thing that would be hard to imagine without hearing it.
"What the fuck do you want?"
"Y.T., I'm sorry about this. But something's going on. Something big time. I'm keeping one eye on a big biker named Raven."
"The problem with you hackers is you never stop working."
"That's what a hacker is," Hiro says.
"I'll keep an eye on this Raven guy, too," she says, "sometime when I am
True. That one always blew my mind as it really created a link between the two books. I was half expecting some of the characters to reappear when Cryptonomicon came out (didn't happen but Cryptonomicon has some linkage to the Baroque chronicles)
>I hope you cry for a lot of other things as well, otherwise, I would find this disturbing.
Should we cry at every tragedy? If so, we would always be crying. A death of a great man has moved him(her). Leave it at that.
EDIT: I hope more people downvote me into oblivion because I really don't give a damn. I was the kid who had a really bad life growing up, had friends who chose a very wrong path and read three newspapers everyday attempting to either find answer to the pain in the world or to look at a different journalist's critique of the situation in the hope of finding something positive. I concentrated on every single tragedy I was aware of because I wanted to save them but I could not. Heck, even to this day, I still care about every single life on this earth.
At some point you learn not to cry to about what happens. It begins to wear you down. I no longer read the news because I no longer want the negativity. As always, if I can change things along the way I do so. But I'm willing to bet many of you do not.
To cry about everything is a child's notion. Adults are not afforded that option.
that was an incredibly moving eulogy. I just so happen to be about a quarter the way through his biography, and its an interesting contrast to read about "young" ambitious steve vs steve in the sunset of his life. Mona really hit on something when she said we die in the middle of many stories. Im interested to read some of her work now.
"Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.
Steve’s final words were:
OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."
I assumed the "Oh wow"s referred to each of those people.
In the Buddhist tradition, being aware and clear minded (no grasping to life, no desires, no regrets, no fear) during the end of the self, while being in a meditative state, is the greatest feeling you can experience.
It seemed to me like Steve got to that place he was referring to when he last talked to his wife.
> He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.
It's not exactly a "place", but you can only do so much with words.
Imagine fully realizing that you're one with the Universe ... and then your mind shuts off, your body dies, there is no more action, what you where is no more, there is only silence. The end.
For me I interpreted it as him being somewhat conscious as the feeling of your body dying comes over you and you pass. I have no idea what that would actually feel like, or if that's what happened/is possible, but the thought of being awake and experiencing that feeling gives me chills.
"I have no idea what that would actually feel like, or if that's what happened/is possible"
You can experience ego death relatively safely using various techniques, which science has shown is the same as a near death experience. This is covers most of the experience of dying, minus the last part.
Without wanting to burst anyone's bubble, I'm guessing that the words actually refer to a dose of serious palliative care grade painkillers.
I don't like the emphasis on "last words" anyway. When I'm dying (and probably not especially lucid), I don't want to have to cope with the pressure that any set of words could be my last and hence I'd better make 'em good. I think we should let everyone record their official last words ahead of time, just so there's one less thing to worry about when you're actually dying.
Try to go into Steve's mind when he said "OH WOW OH WOW OH WOW"....try going to the mind of a person who is about to die.....try going to the mind of a person who realizes that this is the end....these last few seconds are the last of a lifetime of seconds....I cant either but at least I am trying.
Aw c'mon, I got downmodded to -3 for being cynical yet realistic on HN? I really do think that "massive injections of painkillers is the most likely context in which someone a few hours of dying of cancer is likely to say "oh wow oh wow oh wow".
I didn't downvote your reply, even if I don't especially care for your explanation. I do believe in the power of painkillers, I just think that there's more to it than that.
The idea of pre-recording one's last words, though, is brilliant!
True class is knowing when to voice an opinion and when to remain quiet, no matter how much truth you feel your words hold. I've had to learn that the hard way.
It reminds me of Hamlet's last words in the Folio edition:
O I dye Horatio:
The potent poyson quite ore-crowes my spirit,
I cannot liue to heare the Newes from England,
But I do prophesie th'election lights
On Fortinbras, he ha's my dying voyce,
So tell him with the occurrents more and lesse,
Which haue solicited. The rest is silence. O, o, o, o.
It has been suggested that the final four "O"s were inserted as a Christian reference to the pure joy expressed upon the revelation of death. One hopes this is what Steve experienced.
Absolutely beautiful. I couldn't get my eyes of the writing. What I REALLY like about the piece was portrayal of Jobs as a loving and affectionate human being which is what ultimately matters. Feels good to know that Jobs parted with such an expression of amazement...
It was a moving and powerful eulogy. Probably the most beautiful thing I've seen written about Jobs since his passing. One important takeaway for me was the quote:
“Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
I've experienced this firsthand. I've been privileged to work with some great web designers. I've forced myself to wait a minimum of 24 hours before rejecting a design and it has always served me very well. Sometimes your first reaction is going to be negative but in a day or so it reverses. I am not certain why this is true but for me it's been a winning strategy.
I've forced myself to wait a minimum of 24 hours before rejecting a design and it has always served me very well.
I've just completed designing a logo for the project I'm working on. Lacking experts around me whose judgement I could rely on, I came up with the following creative process:
1. Come up with an idea and prepare a demo/prototype.
2. Show the demo to a few people around you, preferably those who have some semblance of taste, but they don't have to be experts. If you own a smart parrot, the parrot will do. Since you want to avoid disclosing your idea to competitors, those people should preferably be either close friends or ones who work in a completely different field.
3. Note their reaction. If it is silent or if they say something generic and don't go with an enthusiastic "WOW" in the first three seconds, they are unimpressed. Expect them to be unimpressed, but don't worry about it right away, because even if you showed them, for example, a Paul Rand-designed logo pretending to be your work, they would not recognize it either and would remain unimpressed (they are not experts, remember?).
4. Wait 24 hours. Then ask yourself if you are bothered at all by the disinterest of the people you showed your work to. If you are indeed bothered, it means that your intuitive/emotional brain is telling you that your work is not good enough and that you should go back to step 1. If you are not bothered at all, it means your work is as good as your intuitive judgement is, and you can move on.
The goal is to convince yourself that your work is good enough. Once you achieved that, the opinion of others doesn't really matter. I find this algorithm to be pretty efficient; it lets me hone in on a correct design within a week's time. Your mileage may vary.
Maybe it doesn't apply so much for visual design, but I often find that a negative reaction to a new concept or piece of software is better than a "meh" reaction. One example: I made a browser game a few years back, one of the early players posted a huge rant about how frustrating the game was, I fixed the design issues they raised, they grew to love the game.
So I tend to think that a negative reaction is often a sign you have something good, but flawed. You don't want people saying "yeah, that's kinda cool", you want them saying "OMG THIS THING SUCKS I'M TRYING TO GET IT TO DO X BUT I CANT BECAUSE IT DOESNT HAVE FEATURE Y" - at least in the second case you know you have something they want, and you know how to fix it.
But, my step 4. is slightly different. I also give them some time; and 24 hours is an excellent choice.
Now, I ask them to draw me the logo they saw the other day, and reiterate it in words. Depending on how they respond you should take action. If they can't recall it, you should start from scratch. If they can mention a few things, especially details, you should revision your work such that you make these very details even more bold and stand out. In the end, a good logo is something that is unique and well remembered.
Jean Cocteau, at least in one formulation & attribution
Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
It is not a matter of hours or days, it is a matter of years and centuries. Bach is more beautiful every new century, so is Vermeer, so is Pride and Prejudice. It is the mark of a Classic, regenerated by each new generation.
But we are off-topic, this is again a Jobs thread, unless someone dare compare Sixtine Chapel (priceless) and an Ipad (expensive)?
Almost inherently, however, Jobs' creations were more aesthetically beautiful for their fashion and design trend than their art. In terms of usability, it's another area of continuous improvements, so the simplicity of a product has to be judged partially on the time of its creation.
Does anyone look at the Apple II and think it would be a beautiful design for a computer today? Or the orignal Mac? Or even the Steve Jobs 2nd go-around products G3? Original iPod? Original MacBook?
I have to agree with you about giving a design time to sink in. So many times have I been sent designs for me to start working and a few hours later they are sending me an email saying to stop work while they rework something. First impressions can be very powerful, good or bad, but I do think its important to not rush into an idea.
As for the eulogy, there have been so many amazing things said about Steve Jobs, my wife has been a massive Apple fan for a long time and when she read what Obama said there were a few tears.
I don't think any of the "asshole" or "genius" articles were diminishing of his humanity. We as humans are made up of all aspects of our beings. The good an the bad, public and private, personal and not.
What distinguishes Jobs is he existed in layers from exceedingly public, second hand, apocryphal to private.
What I love about this is it feels like a balancing of that gradient.
Having lost both of my older brilliant brothers to HIV AIDS this passing of SJ conjures up many many emotions. Life is fleeting, live it fully in all you do. For the reaper does come, always unexpectedly.
After reading several articles about Steve before and after his death and after reading his official biography,I always felt that nothing could yet capture the essence of how Steve actually was. This eulogy comes really really close. Beautiful piece of writing. Thank you.
Beautiful eulogy. However either it, or Jobs' biography, is erroneous about who called Mona to let her know she had a brother.
This eulogy claims a lawyer called Mona. But the biography, in chapter 20, claims it is Mona's mother, Joanne, who called:
"""
[Joanne] had never told Mona that she had a brother, and that day she broke the news, or at least part of it, by telephone. "You have a brother, and he's wonderful, and he 's famoous, and I'm going to bring him to New York so you can meet him," she said.
"""
They could both be true, the bio only claims that Joanne had never told Mona until that phone call. The claims aren't mutually exclusive. The excerpt of the bio also quotes Joanne so it could be assumed that it's Joanne's perspective.
I always thought of him as a sociopath. It's nice to read an insider's take that isn't suffused with narcissism and loathing, although I always did figure him for a jerk for parking that Merc in the handicapped space every. goddamned. day.
I really found this eulogy quite moving and beautiful and gave me an appreciation for a Steve Jobs that has not been captured by any of the other things I've read about him since his passing.
But the part about going through 67 nurses did give me a little chill. My heart goes out to those poor 64 people who tried and failed to care for him up to the level of his demanding standards.
On the other hand, maybe one of them was shaken into improving, leading the next person to get a better level of care. One never knows.
It is true that to demand better than good is a tough challenge but I suspect it is why people look to Jobs with some confusion: he expected the best from himself and from those around him. In a regular corporate setting, that may seem dictatorial; in a hospital or care room, that seems psychotic; but in either case, it is about trying to inspire people into giving their best and breaking through to new levels.
Having visited loved ones in the hospital, it's not hard to imagine Steve declaring a lot of nurses "bozos" and demanding better. There is a lot of variability in nurse quality.
Are you saying that in about 5 years of working at Apple, you've only ever heard words about Steve Jobs that were "suffused with narcissism and loathing"?
From your other comments we know you're not a troll and that you worked at Apple. So I find it regrettable that you can't say this here. Two forces prevent it: the taboo against speaking ill (i.e. objectively) of the dead, and the cult of personality. That's not to say that SJ isn't a fascinating character and the OP moving -- I feel both those things too -- but there's a lot of myth-making going on here. The author is a novelist. That's what novelists do.
Edit: not to share your description, necessarily. He seems too emotional to have been a normal sociopath, if there is such a thing. That's one thing I like about the OP - it dwells on the emotional side.
It's obvious that his sister shares his genius. I'm so grateful she shared this intensely private experience with the world.
I have a half brother, ten years older. We didn't grow up together. Mona's story gives me hope that there are relationships we seek out later in life that are just as fulfilling, if not more so, than those we are given as children and take for granted.
129 comments
[ 0.91 ms ] story [ 278 ms ] thread2) I finally realize what has always fascinated me about him. He was ALWAYS working, with every single breath he took. He seems to have found a way of taking the hazy concept of "work" as it is commonly understood, and elevating it to a more in-focus ideal form through which to understand and shape his life.
Sidenote: I hate broccoli too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiligenstadt_Testament
But we also know that he gave himself excellent pep talks and then kept going for another thirty years, writing great stuff long after his deafness was far worse than it was in 1802. So, yes, it seems that Beethoven eventually came to agree with you!
And, come to think of it, as I remember Beethoven's biggest complaints about deafness centered on loneliness, and on his fear that nobody would want to hire a deaf composer. I don't actually recall him complaining that his work might suffer. So that's another point in favor of your argument.
But his composition just got better, so in fact his declining fame as a performer was balanced by his increasing fame as a composer.
And yet, it would certainly put a dent in some of my abilities.
I love literary Easter eggs like that.
Great writing, his final words were striking.
Edit : downvoted as expected... yes I find it disturbing that people are still so sensitive on sj death as compared to other tragic events.
Should we cry at every tragedy? If so, we would always be crying. A death of a great man has moved him(her). Leave it at that.
EDIT: I hope more people downvote me into oblivion because I really don't give a damn. I was the kid who had a really bad life growing up, had friends who chose a very wrong path and read three newspapers everyday attempting to either find answer to the pain in the world or to look at a different journalist's critique of the situation in the hope of finding something positive. I concentrated on every single tragedy I was aware of because I wanted to save them but I could not. Heck, even to this day, I still care about every single life on this earth.
At some point you learn not to cry to about what happens. It begins to wear you down. I no longer read the news because I no longer want the negativity. As always, if I can change things along the way I do so. But I'm willing to bet many of you do not.
To cry about everything is a child's notion. Adults are not afforded that option.
One can only wonder what he was referring to. Such a well written piece.
"Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.
Steve’s final words were:
OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."
I assumed the "Oh wow"s referred to each of those people.
It seemed to me like Steve got to that place he was referring to when he last talked to his wife.
> He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.
It's not exactly a "place", but you can only do so much with words.
Imagine fully realizing that you're one with the Universe ... and then your mind shuts off, your body dies, there is no more action, what you where is no more, there is only silence. The end.
But that's a good thing!
http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
You can experience ego death relatively safely using various techniques, which science has shown is the same as a near death experience. This is covers most of the experience of dying, minus the last part.
I don't like the emphasis on "last words" anyway. When I'm dying (and probably not especially lucid), I don't want to have to cope with the pressure that any set of words could be my last and hence I'd better make 'em good. I think we should let everyone record their official last words ahead of time, just so there's one less thing to worry about when you're actually dying.
The idea of pre-recording one's last words, though, is brilliant!
'Pressure'? Exactly what are you afraid of happening if you screw up your last words??
Thanks for writing this, Mona.
“Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
I've experienced this firsthand. I've been privileged to work with some great web designers. I've forced myself to wait a minimum of 24 hours before rejecting a design and it has always served me very well. Sometimes your first reaction is going to be negative but in a day or so it reverses. I am not certain why this is true but for me it's been a winning strategy.
I've just completed designing a logo for the project I'm working on. Lacking experts around me whose judgement I could rely on, I came up with the following creative process:
1. Come up with an idea and prepare a demo/prototype.
2. Show the demo to a few people around you, preferably those who have some semblance of taste, but they don't have to be experts. If you own a smart parrot, the parrot will do. Since you want to avoid disclosing your idea to competitors, those people should preferably be either close friends or ones who work in a completely different field.
3. Note their reaction. If it is silent or if they say something generic and don't go with an enthusiastic "WOW" in the first three seconds, they are unimpressed. Expect them to be unimpressed, but don't worry about it right away, because even if you showed them, for example, a Paul Rand-designed logo pretending to be your work, they would not recognize it either and would remain unimpressed (they are not experts, remember?).
4. Wait 24 hours. Then ask yourself if you are bothered at all by the disinterest of the people you showed your work to. If you are indeed bothered, it means that your intuitive/emotional brain is telling you that your work is not good enough and that you should go back to step 1. If you are not bothered at all, it means your work is as good as your intuitive judgement is, and you can move on.
The goal is to convince yourself that your work is good enough. Once you achieved that, the opinion of others doesn't really matter. I find this algorithm to be pretty efficient; it lets me hone in on a correct design within a week's time. Your mileage may vary.
So I tend to think that a negative reaction is often a sign you have something good, but flawed. You don't want people saying "yeah, that's kinda cool", you want them saying "OMG THIS THING SUCKS I'M TRYING TO GET IT TO DO X BUT I CANT BECAUSE IT DOESNT HAVE FEATURE Y" - at least in the second case you know you have something they want, and you know how to fix it.
But, my step 4. is slightly different. I also give them some time; and 24 hours is an excellent choice.
Now, I ask them to draw me the logo they saw the other day, and reiterate it in words. Depending on how they respond you should take action. If they can't recall it, you should start from scratch. If they can mention a few things, especially details, you should revision your work such that you make these very details even more bold and stand out. In the end, a good logo is something that is unique and well remembered.
Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jeancoctea100975....
But we are off-topic, this is again a Jobs thread, unless someone dare compare Sixtine Chapel (priceless) and an Ipad (expensive)?
Does anyone look at the Apple II and think it would be a beautiful design for a computer today? Or the orignal Mac? Or even the Steve Jobs 2nd go-around products G3? Original iPod? Original MacBook?
As for the eulogy, there have been so many amazing things said about Steve Jobs, my wife has been a massive Apple fan for a long time and when she read what Obama said there were a few tears.
What distinguishes Jobs is he existed in layers from exceedingly public, second hand, apocryphal to private.
What I love about this is it feels like a balancing of that gradient.
http://www.quora.com/Steve-Jobs/What-is-the-story-about-Paul...
This eulogy claims a lawyer called Mona. But the biography, in chapter 20, claims it is Mona's mother, Joanne, who called:
""" [Joanne] had never told Mona that she had a brother, and that day she broke the news, or at least part of it, by telephone. "You have a brother, and he's wonderful, and he 's famoous, and I'm going to bring him to New York so you can meet him," she said. """
The ending takes my breath away.
"Oh Wow".
One can only wonder...
But the part about going through 67 nurses did give me a little chill. My heart goes out to those poor 64 people who tried and failed to care for him up to the level of his demanding standards.
It is true that to demand better than good is a tough challenge but I suspect it is why people look to Jobs with some confusion: he expected the best from himself and from those around him. In a regular corporate setting, that may seem dictatorial; in a hospital or care room, that seems psychotic; but in either case, it is about trying to inspire people into giving their best and breaking through to new levels.
Buddhist Billionaires can be confusing.
From your other comments we know you're not a troll and that you worked at Apple. So I find it regrettable that you can't say this here. Two forces prevent it: the taboo against speaking ill (i.e. objectively) of the dead, and the cult of personality. That's not to say that SJ isn't a fascinating character and the OP moving -- I feel both those things too -- but there's a lot of myth-making going on here. The author is a novelist. That's what novelists do.
Edit: not to share your description, necessarily. He seems too emotional to have been a normal sociopath, if there is such a thing. That's one thing I like about the OP - it dwells on the emotional side.
I have a half brother, ten years older. We didn't grow up together. Mona's story gives me hope that there are relationships we seek out later in life that are just as fulfilling, if not more so, than those we are given as children and take for granted.