[Ed. Note.: Yeesh. I haven't blogged in about a year! I have so many things to tell you about (Parklet! Rickshaws! China!) & will be getting to it ASAP. But this broke the log jam & I plan to be writing more soon. Sorry for the delay dear readers (assuming you are still out there!)]
[PLEASE NOTE: The opinions below are entirely my own & do not represent those of anyone else, much less Apple, Inc.]
Over the past 9 and a half years, I’ve often fantasized about sitting down at lunch with Steve Jobs. I frequently walked past him eating with Jony Ive at the Apple cafeteria and considered it.1
The last time I saw them having lunch together was a few months back, but that time I didn’t experience the wild flash of “what if I just sat down and started talking!?”. That time, I could tell something was very wrong: just seeing the sadness in their eyes and the silence between them made me hurt. I convinced myself that it was just that Steve wouldn’t be coming back to Apple. I think I was very wrong.
Since Steve died last week, I’ve been surprised at how much it has affected me, and in the aftermath I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why. What was he to me? I’ve been having a hard time finding the right word.
The first word that comes to mind is “hero”, but Steve was no hero of mine. He could be too mean too often for that. I’m sure a lot of people will start calling him one, that seems inevitable, but I dislike the process of whitewashing his story. It’s so disingenuous and ultimately devaluing.
So what then? “Pioneer” – too impersonal. “Eminence” – meh. “Mahatma” means “a person regarded with reverence or loving respect” but even besides the fact that Gandhi has that covered, it captures none of the “why” since it is just an honorific. ”Visionary” is pretty good but fails to capture the real world drive he imparted to my life.
So what is the word for someone for inspires your best, focuses your creativity, and creates the standards by which you judge yourself and the world around you?
