Sunday, December 16, 2012

So This

Good Lord. I've just finished listening to the audio version of the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and it feels as if I've been listening to it my entire life. And then maybe a few former lifetimes, too.
I enjoyed it. Not the writing so much. Pretty straightforward and journalistic but hey- it was biography, not an epic poem.
And as generally uninterested in technology as I am, I found a great deal of the book completely fascinating because Steve Jobs was a fascinating man. A difficult man to live with, to work for, but fascinating and yes, of course, a genius.
One of the things I've found most interesting about him is how he combined different elements of genius which don't generally go together. He was an artist for sure, and a designer and the term 'perfectionist" doesn't even begin to cover him but he was also an amazing CEO and business man. When he came back to Apple he grabbed that company by the tail and slung it around and threw it into the cosmos and it became what some say is the most valuable company in the entire world. There are a lot of things I could say about him, about how, with his mind, he changed our world, (and certainly mine) but the thing that sticks with me the most is how (and I may have already said this) he would come up with an idea for a product and he'd relate it to his engineers and designers and they would say, "Oh, Steve, that's not possible. We can't DO that," and he'd look at them with his steely glare and say, "I think you can."
And they did.
Almost always, they figured it out.

That just kills me. Makes me wonder what could be accomplished in this world if there were more people like Steve Jobs to come up with the crazy, impossible ideas and who also have the ability to find and inspire the people who can make them real.



I spent all afternoon outside, trimming up the Confederate jasmine which gets so out of control that it threatens to bring down the chain link fence it's growing on. And then I moved on to trimming up the dead brown things, winter's detritus. My overalls ended up being satisfactorily filthy, my pile of trimmings satisfactorily tall. Mr. Moon has spent all day in the garage working on his Cutlass which it seems to me that he has spent decades either tearing apart or putting back together. A quiet Sunday, a pleasant enough one.

We're going to eat pizza tonight. I made two gorgeous pies last night and we didn't manage to get through even one of them and I'm excited all over again. I am not and will never be a Steve Jobs or a Keith Richards or a Louisa May Alcott but I sure can make a pizza.



One of Steve Job's lifelong quirks was diet. From the time he was a teenager he would restrict his diet to only fruit or organic veganism or he would go through periods of time where he only ate carrot salad or something else equally inadequate and he was quick to advise others to adopt whatever strange eating habits he was practicing at the time. One of my favorite parts of the book was where he was having a meal with an overweight man who was consuming a meal with meat and butter with great relish and Jobs looked at him and said, "Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol?"
That man replied, "Look, if you promise not to comment on my diet, I'll promise not to comment on your personality."
And in the end, Jobs' obsession with restrictive diets did not serve him well. When he was quite literally dying and needed desperately to gain weight and eat more high quality protein, he could hardly bring himself to eat even eggs which his doctors pleaded with him to eat.
I would have happily made him a pizza.
But I doubt he would have eaten it.
Or given him some of my beautiful eggs which my hens are once again reliably laying.

Well. Moot point.

I'm going to go heat up those pizzas and call Mr. Moon in from the garage. He's worked on that car long enough today and it's time for him to clean up and sit in his chair and relax a little. It's been a good weekend for us with a fine balance of grandsons and Rock And Roll and getting-a-few-things-done around here.

Be well, y'all. Be at peace. Think different.

Love...Ms. Moon





6 comments:

  1. I know 3 vegans and all three of them are dangerously underweight, pale and sickly. Two of them do not work, one because she is tired all the time (and doesn't know why!) and the other because she has so many health issues. I am not saying I am better because I am far but I worry about all three of them.
    Ii will take a slice of your pizza.

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  2. I have the book but haven't read it yet. It is a tome. His diet sounds pretty extreme.

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  3. Hi, sitting in San Francisco in old patched overalls, I really enjoy your post today, and you actually tell me, read= I decide that you are telling me, to go on with turn crazy ideas into reality, no matter whether I'm almost 64 and even younger people tells me: it's not gonna work etc. or you cannot do that etc. etc. or even look disdainful at you and say, well, that's nothing ! then I read all your good thoughts and I say to myself, well if Ms Moon can, then I can also do it, also in my old overalls, and don't need to wear tie etc. ! have a nice pizza !

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  4. As you know, I also found that book fascinating. I had no idea how difficult Steve Jobs could be -- but as you said, at least he was difficult WITH RESULTS.

    The vegan/diet obsessions (and also his tendency to avoid bathing) were interesting. Ironic that he died of a cancer of his digestive system. You just never know, do you?

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  5. Looks like my pope is a bit yours too. My life too has been altered by Steve and his aiming for perfection. Extreme person with extreme ideas that might have killed him in the end, but his legacy is still with us. We all know who he is... I doubt it that 20 years from now, many will know Bless our hearts or Photocatseyes. ;o))

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  6. I thank god everyday that Steve Jobs was on this earth, my iPod, iPhone, and iPad are all testimony to his genius. I need to read the book.

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