Steve Jobs

Wow.
Just read a piece on the man in Time magazine. It wasn't long enough but I guess when you deal with a man of his vision it's hard to capture the essence in any length. However I was pleased to learn that Walter Isaacson has written a biography coming out on October 24. A must read.
The man was a visionary. He didn't invent things (I didn't know this)  but he took what he saw, looked at them differently and vastly improved them and integrated them into our lifestyle and mindset.
Apparently he was a bastard to work for, but I guess that's what you get from a perfectionist and an innovator. And somehow, even though he became a corporate giant and one of the richest men in the world, he maintained an image as a rebel, an outsider, one of us. I don't know about you but I don't have a billion dollars in the bank. But I am working on it.
I read about people like this and I try to osmosis-ize something about them into my own DNA. I can never achieve at that level; my brain is too small and whiskey soaked - I have crossed the 50/50 line - more of my brain cells are dead than alive. But most of the human brain is wasted anyway, so there is hope.
The consistent thing about geniuses is that they see things differently. I think for many of us, that ability would drastically change our lives. We get trapped into a certain way of thinking, a specific view of the world and we are afraid of change. But a slight shift in perception, a more open perspective might just blow your world wide open. We don't have to be as small as we are, even though that is what life demands. Flapping your wings and puffing out your chest in a constructive way might free you of the chains that bind; easier said than done, however, which is why genius is few and far between.
I think at his core he was a sensitive man. The words he spoke at a commencement speech he gave at Stanford in 2005 certainly give you that impression, although this occurred after he was diagnosed with cancer. I don't know if he was reborn, or if this was the way he always looked at the world. In any event, dig this:
"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 peoples' 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."
Straight to the heart, baby and words to live by. Not easy to do; we are all as pliable as Gumby, easily influenced and driven off track. We think (myself included) that by drinking excessively we are rebels and we are living our lives. We got to think bigger than that.
I'm going to read the book and dig into the man a little deeper. What have I got to lose?