Such a wonderful, thought-provoking piece! I really enjoyed how you worked in your personal experiences around facing possible death along with Steve's nuanced journey. Bravo.
Thank you so much Kirsten! Your searching early comments were of vital importance to spurring me to reach deeper. Thank you for your generous response to the final version.
Fascinating essay, Chris. So interesting your parallels between Steve, negative/positive space, and your own experience. It indeed is love, not death, the greatest invention of mankind. This is a massive piece, full of precious references and brilliant ideas. And your personal story, and what happened to you, is truly inspirational. It says 24min reading on top, but I took my time and went much slower, as this piece deserves. Thank you for writing this. I sense I will return to it over and over again.
That's high praise, Silvio, from someone with your subtle philosophical mind, and your elegant nuanced perspective on our world. Thank you for your generous response. I didn't include any Italian thinkers in this piece, but in your honour here is a Latin truism from two thousand years ago that I edited out of the finished piece. It reflects Steve's worldview in his darkest, but not his highest, moments: " In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recedimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing.”). Here's to making every day count!
May 23, 2023·edited May 23, 2023Liked by Chris Coffman
Hi Chris. I haven’t been on Substack in a loooong time and I just read your essay. Twice. First, I hope that you are doing ok health wise. Sending you positive thoughts.
It’s brilliant that you connected the positive/negative space with the philosophy of life, visual images, business motto, relationships and life experiences in general. Your talent for elucidating the esoteric made me think deeper about the connections I can make between all the dots in life.
That being said, my understanding of Steve Jobs’ take on death was a bit different than yours. I don’t know much about the man, haven’t listened to the speech, and am only basing my thought on the excerpts of his words included in the essay. He uses the words “tool” and “agent” for change to describe death. Not a "source" of motivation. I believe that in the Buddhist tradition, death is a catalyst for change: from this life to the after life, from the after life to the next life. Reincarnation is at the core of the Buddhist belief, and only through death can you reincarnate. Hence, death as the agent of change as Jobs describes. And as you brilliantly say that we create positive space out of negative space, my sense was that Steve Jobs advocated for love as motivation (positive space), whilst death (negative space) made him change his position in life. (I'm assuming mostly perspective and timing wise).
My family, from both my parents sides, is devout Buddhists but I never was particularly religious at any point in my life. And in the past couple years, Ive developed an interest in Christianity. Which means that my knowledge of both religion is rather shallow. But it seems that Christian Gospel is explicitly centered around love, whilst Buddhist tenet revolves around harmony with the surrounding. At the core, the central message is the same - respect and care for other people. But the passion and love as cultivated by the Christian tradition is rather different from the more “dispassionate” philosophy of harmony, nurtured by Buddhism. And that distinction seems to make the difference between civilizations, but having read your essay, it sounds like Steve Jobs took the best out of both worlds and made the best for him.
Thank you for your brilliant comment Jisoo! I hope you're doing well.
It turned out not to be skin cancer but mastocytosis, which is a cancer-like "condition" rather than disease involving cell mutations. In my case, hopefully it will continue to be a mild condition and not morph into something more aggressive.
Your comments about Buddhism are very interesting and illuminating. To me, Jobs seemed to be talking about death as a change agent within this life, but you may be right that he wasn't focusing so much on the personal level but on the population level, in which case reincarnation would operate the way you describe. He did talk about looking himself in the mirror in the morning and asking himself what he would do differently if he knew the day would be his last, but apparently Steve's most important spiritual advisor as a mature adult was a Buddhist, so I think you've picked up on something significant.
I didn't want to turn the piece into a criticism of Jobs, but he was pretty harsh and cruel to people, both those close to him and total strangers, and I wonder if the Buddhism he practiced was more the strain of Zen with its cultivation of detachment that went so far off track with practitioners of the Japanese Imperial Army, who justified their unbelievable cruelty, torture and murder by this notion of Zen detachment. I don't think Jobs practiced your parents' form of Buddhism!
You may be interested in Rene Girard's notion of Christianity as the first religion that focused on a sacrificial victim (Jesus Christ) from the perspective of the victim and his / her suffering and the injustice committed against them, despite their innocence. It's much more realistic about how to deal with the many times in life when harmony is unobtainable, and perhaps shouldn't be obtained when evil is rampaging.
Anyway, thank you again for your really interesting thoughts! Hope you're doing well!
It's good to hear that the skin condition is not anything more aggressive!
I don't know much about Jobs but i do think that iphones made the world worse. But if a techno future is an inevitable human fate, then i guess better Apple than Microsoft....
Perhaps Jobs harsh nature has something to do with narcissism and his personality?? Purely based on nonscientific reasoning (lol), I sometimes think that a person has to be BPD, OCD, or something of the sort to make an item like an iphone that even a 1 year old can use by intuition alone. So the reference to Zen and the Samurai, to me, seems like the reference to Christianity and the Inquisition. People can make religion the aegis for a lot of cruelty. That depends on the person, not the religion per se. My mother is a Zen Buddhist.
I agree that Christianity is much more realistic. There is definite good/evil in human nature that Buddhism brushes off as something that one can rid of. A central point of argument about religion with my mother. And definite right/wrong, which is not delineated by Buddhism. So it's something similar to postmodern deconstruction wrecking havoc right now. I always thought that Christianity was similar to capitalism while buddhism similar to communism. Your piece made me think a lot.
May 23, 2023·edited May 23, 2023Liked by Chris Coffman
I couldn’t not see the religious allusion when you said he converted to Buddhism from Lutheranism. And the moral of the story for me is that the older I get, the more difference I see between men of faith and men of secularism regardless of which faith they belong to. And that men cannot live on bread alone rings as true as day and night to make the world go around.
Apr 30, 2023·edited Apr 30, 2023Liked by Chris Coffman
This was a delight to read, so well woven together. It also made me realise that, in my own life, brushes with death (either through contemplation or experience) have tended to take me 'away' from life, towards other realms, spiritual seeking, mysticism etc. Conversely, love has been more about returning to life: turning towards those I care for, embedding myself in a community or a place, finding work I am passionate about etc. I also find that death comes suddenly, as an interruption, while love feels like an undercurrent that's always there but just needs to be allowed in. Thank you for putting this out in the world and catalyzing these realizations in me.
Very insightful piece. I imagine Steve Jobs wanting to influence the future was a part of it: if he was as visionary as they say - and I'll take people's word for it - he wouldn't have viewed his activity as just tinkering with a computer. And in America it's common to live for work.
With writers though, I think of Anthony Burgess. He was told he'd die of cancer in a year in the late 50s, and went into a writing frenzy so that he could get novels published. That way, his family could live off the royalties. He ended up living until the 90s, fortunately. But that writing spurt produced A Clockwork Orange. Incidentally, Burgess never liked that that novel was his famous one. Perhaps it had something to do with writing knowing that life has been held onto vs. writing in preparation for death?
Fascinating comment Felix, I didn’t know that about Burgess. I couldn’t get through the novel but Kubrick’s film is a brilliantly chilling and repellent adaptation. I’m looking forward to reading your essays.
Steve was a very self-conscious visionary. I’ve heard several anecdotes that suggest his extraordinary success went to his head and made him close to insufferable by the end of his life.
Then he handed the torch to Tim Cook who green lighted the slave labor camps. I’ve been thinking of adding to the piece or writing an additional one.
Same here, the whole "dialect" he used was intolerable after awhile. It would take awhile, but down the road I'd like to go through Burgess' oeuvre as I am now with Nobel Prize Laureates and see if his feelings about A Clockwork Orange were correct. And if readers really should have paid attention to his other stuff, as he wished. Burgess as an author certainly does live in a shadow.
I didn't know that about Tim Cook. But I never liked the guy: now I know why. Don't know if you have a personal story to connect with Tim Cook as you do with this article - glad to hear you got better, by the way! But I'd definitely be interested in learning more. I feel like we live in a world not of personalities, but faces. And I'm always happy to learn a little more about who lies behind the face.
I thought before I answered your email, I should read through your posts! Here are my own thoughts on mortality - the only time I faced it: http://robinstonsilcancerblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-not-me-and-other-random-thoughts-on.html The bottom line: while I agree with your focus on love as the best guide for each day's journey, I also think that the cycle of life is a wondrous thing and should be fully appreciated and celebrated. I think one can do both simultaneously.
Hi Robin, great to read your always-thoughtful and insightful response. I agree with you that we can do both simultaneously--and will now jump to your link and read about your own experience!
Incredible piece. ✨I really enjoy how you connected your own dots between the speech, Steve Jobs life and your own journey. It reminds me of the book ‘The Last Lecture.’
Thank you Kelly—I hope you’re settling into life in Lisboa. Thanks also for the reminder about Randy Pausch. I haven’t read the book, but he and I were born in the same year and his lecture was a sensation when he gave it back in 2007 / 2008—and has been seen now by 21 million people. Watching it again this morning I was struck by how brave he was, and how clear it seemed how hard he was going to find it to let go and say goodbye—and understandably so. I was also struck by the VR play within the play (as Shakespeare did with Hamlet) and its clear, troubling commentary on death, and the fact that his most memorable moment as a professor was the time a student whose ninja VR demo failed jokingly faked suicide on stage. Beneath his bright and charming surface, death was clearly on Randy Pausch’s mind. For anybody who sees this thread here’s the link to the YouTube video of his Last Lecture: https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo
Such a wonderful, thought-provoking piece! I really enjoyed how you worked in your personal experiences around facing possible death along with Steve's nuanced journey. Bravo.
Thank you so much Kirsten! Your searching early comments were of vital importance to spurring me to reach deeper. Thank you for your generous response to the final version.
Fascinating essay, Chris. So interesting your parallels between Steve, negative/positive space, and your own experience. It indeed is love, not death, the greatest invention of mankind. This is a massive piece, full of precious references and brilliant ideas. And your personal story, and what happened to you, is truly inspirational. It says 24min reading on top, but I took my time and went much slower, as this piece deserves. Thank you for writing this. I sense I will return to it over and over again.
That's high praise, Silvio, from someone with your subtle philosophical mind, and your elegant nuanced perspective on our world. Thank you for your generous response. I didn't include any Italian thinkers in this piece, but in your honour here is a Latin truism from two thousand years ago that I edited out of the finished piece. It reflects Steve's worldview in his darkest, but not his highest, moments: " In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recedimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing.”). Here's to making every day count!
Beautiful and rich citation, Chris. Thank you!
Hi Chris. I haven’t been on Substack in a loooong time and I just read your essay. Twice. First, I hope that you are doing ok health wise. Sending you positive thoughts.
It’s brilliant that you connected the positive/negative space with the philosophy of life, visual images, business motto, relationships and life experiences in general. Your talent for elucidating the esoteric made me think deeper about the connections I can make between all the dots in life.
That being said, my understanding of Steve Jobs’ take on death was a bit different than yours. I don’t know much about the man, haven’t listened to the speech, and am only basing my thought on the excerpts of his words included in the essay. He uses the words “tool” and “agent” for change to describe death. Not a "source" of motivation. I believe that in the Buddhist tradition, death is a catalyst for change: from this life to the after life, from the after life to the next life. Reincarnation is at the core of the Buddhist belief, and only through death can you reincarnate. Hence, death as the agent of change as Jobs describes. And as you brilliantly say that we create positive space out of negative space, my sense was that Steve Jobs advocated for love as motivation (positive space), whilst death (negative space) made him change his position in life. (I'm assuming mostly perspective and timing wise).
My family, from both my parents sides, is devout Buddhists but I never was particularly religious at any point in my life. And in the past couple years, Ive developed an interest in Christianity. Which means that my knowledge of both religion is rather shallow. But it seems that Christian Gospel is explicitly centered around love, whilst Buddhist tenet revolves around harmony with the surrounding. At the core, the central message is the same - respect and care for other people. But the passion and love as cultivated by the Christian tradition is rather different from the more “dispassionate” philosophy of harmony, nurtured by Buddhism. And that distinction seems to make the difference between civilizations, but having read your essay, it sounds like Steve Jobs took the best out of both worlds and made the best for him.
Look forward to reading more from you.
Thank you for your brilliant comment Jisoo! I hope you're doing well.
It turned out not to be skin cancer but mastocytosis, which is a cancer-like "condition" rather than disease involving cell mutations. In my case, hopefully it will continue to be a mild condition and not morph into something more aggressive.
Your comments about Buddhism are very interesting and illuminating. To me, Jobs seemed to be talking about death as a change agent within this life, but you may be right that he wasn't focusing so much on the personal level but on the population level, in which case reincarnation would operate the way you describe. He did talk about looking himself in the mirror in the morning and asking himself what he would do differently if he knew the day would be his last, but apparently Steve's most important spiritual advisor as a mature adult was a Buddhist, so I think you've picked up on something significant.
I didn't want to turn the piece into a criticism of Jobs, but he was pretty harsh and cruel to people, both those close to him and total strangers, and I wonder if the Buddhism he practiced was more the strain of Zen with its cultivation of detachment that went so far off track with practitioners of the Japanese Imperial Army, who justified their unbelievable cruelty, torture and murder by this notion of Zen detachment. I don't think Jobs practiced your parents' form of Buddhism!
You may be interested in Rene Girard's notion of Christianity as the first religion that focused on a sacrificial victim (Jesus Christ) from the perspective of the victim and his / her suffering and the injustice committed against them, despite their innocence. It's much more realistic about how to deal with the many times in life when harmony is unobtainable, and perhaps shouldn't be obtained when evil is rampaging.
Anyway, thank you again for your really interesting thoughts! Hope you're doing well!
It's good to hear that the skin condition is not anything more aggressive!
I don't know much about Jobs but i do think that iphones made the world worse. But if a techno future is an inevitable human fate, then i guess better Apple than Microsoft....
Perhaps Jobs harsh nature has something to do with narcissism and his personality?? Purely based on nonscientific reasoning (lol), I sometimes think that a person has to be BPD, OCD, or something of the sort to make an item like an iphone that even a 1 year old can use by intuition alone. So the reference to Zen and the Samurai, to me, seems like the reference to Christianity and the Inquisition. People can make religion the aegis for a lot of cruelty. That depends on the person, not the religion per se. My mother is a Zen Buddhist.
I agree that Christianity is much more realistic. There is definite good/evil in human nature that Buddhism brushes off as something that one can rid of. A central point of argument about religion with my mother. And definite right/wrong, which is not delineated by Buddhism. So it's something similar to postmodern deconstruction wrecking havoc right now. I always thought that Christianity was similar to capitalism while buddhism similar to communism. Your piece made me think a lot.
Wow Jisoo I love the connections you make between ideas! You've given me lots of think about--thank you!
I couldn’t not see the religious allusion when you said he converted to Buddhism from Lutheranism. And the moral of the story for me is that the older I get, the more difference I see between men of faith and men of secularism regardless of which faith they belong to. And that men cannot live on bread alone rings as true as day and night to make the world go around.
I agree with you, Jisoo!--men and women of faith!
This was a delight to read, so well woven together. It also made me realise that, in my own life, brushes with death (either through contemplation or experience) have tended to take me 'away' from life, towards other realms, spiritual seeking, mysticism etc. Conversely, love has been more about returning to life: turning towards those I care for, embedding myself in a community or a place, finding work I am passionate about etc. I also find that death comes suddenly, as an interruption, while love feels like an undercurrent that's always there but just needs to be allowed in. Thank you for putting this out in the world and catalyzing these realizations in me.
Thank you for your eloquent and insightful reflections which mirror my own experiences; I appreciate your willingness to share.
Very insightful piece. I imagine Steve Jobs wanting to influence the future was a part of it: if he was as visionary as they say - and I'll take people's word for it - he wouldn't have viewed his activity as just tinkering with a computer. And in America it's common to live for work.
With writers though, I think of Anthony Burgess. He was told he'd die of cancer in a year in the late 50s, and went into a writing frenzy so that he could get novels published. That way, his family could live off the royalties. He ended up living until the 90s, fortunately. But that writing spurt produced A Clockwork Orange. Incidentally, Burgess never liked that that novel was his famous one. Perhaps it had something to do with writing knowing that life has been held onto vs. writing in preparation for death?
Fascinating comment Felix, I didn’t know that about Burgess. I couldn’t get through the novel but Kubrick’s film is a brilliantly chilling and repellent adaptation. I’m looking forward to reading your essays.
Steve was a very self-conscious visionary. I’ve heard several anecdotes that suggest his extraordinary success went to his head and made him close to insufferable by the end of his life.
Then he handed the torch to Tim Cook who green lighted the slave labor camps. I’ve been thinking of adding to the piece or writing an additional one.
Best, Chris
Same here, the whole "dialect" he used was intolerable after awhile. It would take awhile, but down the road I'd like to go through Burgess' oeuvre as I am now with Nobel Prize Laureates and see if his feelings about A Clockwork Orange were correct. And if readers really should have paid attention to his other stuff, as he wished. Burgess as an author certainly does live in a shadow.
I didn't know that about Tim Cook. But I never liked the guy: now I know why. Don't know if you have a personal story to connect with Tim Cook as you do with this article - glad to hear you got better, by the way! But I'd definitely be interested in learning more. I feel like we live in a world not of personalities, but faces. And I'm always happy to learn a little more about who lies behind the face.
I thought before I answered your email, I should read through your posts! Here are my own thoughts on mortality - the only time I faced it: http://robinstonsilcancerblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-not-me-and-other-random-thoughts-on.html The bottom line: while I agree with your focus on love as the best guide for each day's journey, I also think that the cycle of life is a wondrous thing and should be fully appreciated and celebrated. I think one can do both simultaneously.
Hi Robin, great to read your always-thoughtful and insightful response. I agree with you that we can do both simultaneously--and will now jump to your link and read about your own experience!
Incredible piece. ✨I really enjoy how you connected your own dots between the speech, Steve Jobs life and your own journey. It reminds me of the book ‘The Last Lecture.’
This quote especially resonated with me:
‘We can’t connect dots in advance.’
Thank you Kelly—I hope you’re settling into life in Lisboa. Thanks also for the reminder about Randy Pausch. I haven’t read the book, but he and I were born in the same year and his lecture was a sensation when he gave it back in 2007 / 2008—and has been seen now by 21 million people. Watching it again this morning I was struck by how brave he was, and how clear it seemed how hard he was going to find it to let go and say goodbye—and understandably so. I was also struck by the VR play within the play (as Shakespeare did with Hamlet) and its clear, troubling commentary on death, and the fact that his most memorable moment as a professor was the time a student whose ninja VR demo failed jokingly faked suicide on stage. Beneath his bright and charming surface, death was clearly on Randy Pausch’s mind. For anybody who sees this thread here’s the link to the YouTube video of his Last Lecture: https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo