My friend Will Wilkinson, mischievous and provocative as ever, reacts to the Steve Jobs mania in a typically interesting way:
Ever since Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO, the video of his 2005 graduation address at Stanford has been in wide circulation and has been unavoidable since yesterday. It’s a nice enough sermon. It’s the usual litany of American banalities about being yourself and chasing your dreams and never ever ever settling for anything less than a universe bent and hammered into the shape dictated by your utterly unique authentic will. It’s more or less the message the lithesome young contestants of “So You Think You Can Dance?” weekly impart to their fans in TV-land because they can’t think of anything else to say.
[…] As an undergrad I was an art major. Frankly, few of my fellow art majors were talented enough to make a living at it, even after four (or more!) years of training. Sure they loved art, but in the immortal words of Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do with it?” “Find what you love and never settle for less” is an excellent recipe for frustration and poverty. “Reconcile yourself to the limits of your talent and temperament and find the most satisfactory compromise between what you love to do and what you need to do feed your children” is rather less stirring, but it’s much better advice.
This is true and it’s a reminder that we should separate what Jobs recommended from what he helped provide but also that what he helped build made it easier to live without his advice and, indeed, in a place where his advice – however well-intentioned – cannot possibly, alas, be universally useful.Steve Jobs’ gorgeous gadgets have no doubt helped some do what they love, and better. But mostly iStuff is so beloved because it offers such attractively pleasant diversion from the disappointment of having settled of necessity on lives we do not thoroughly love.
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