On-Knowing Steve Jobs

As I read one article after another, all paying their heart filled tribute to the man who revolutionised technology; I had tears in my eyes, especially after reading the Punk and the cheerful side of his. It said :

“Jobs was brash from an early age. When he was just 12 he discovered that he did not have a crucial part of a frequency counter that he was assembling and promptly telephoned William Hewlett after locating William Hewlett Packard co- founder’s number in a phone directory. Hewlett spoke with the boy for 20 minutes prepared a bag of parts for him to pick up and offered him a job as a summer intern.” ~Pg 7, Economic Times

And then I came across his Stanford Speech which he gave to the students in the year 2005 which I happened to listen every word of, on YouTube, few months back, and I have to say that it was indeed awe- inspiring. When I heard Jobs speak, I wondered “Why don’t we get such great speakers at our convocation ceremonies?”

But the fact is, that, people don’t become great just when they are born, they become great in the simplest of their gestures which touch many people, and in those gestures when the chords strike, that is when the person begins to be revered.

Read this: At an Apple store in the meatpacking district in New York, someone left an apple, with one bite taken out of it, mimicking the Apple logo. A note read “ iThankYou”. There were also flowers outside Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.

His words, his life is mesmerizing and invigorating for me, and may be for you too, if you take out few moments of your life to know him, even as it maybe through secondary sources.

We all know that when people die, we do get to hear nice things about them. And I wonder if anyone would remember the hurt as well, that which the person caused?

But here, his words, that which HE spoke touch me, they tell me that he knew where he was going, and what he was doing. And only when a person is so determined, can he dare to tell the world to live the way they “WANT” to live! And here I quote Steve Jobs:

“….Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out of your own inner voice”.

In a month and 17 more days, I’ll turn 22 years old. And it’s sad to say that I still haven’t lived many moments of my life which I wanted to, but never pursued. There was always something or the other which stopped me, many a time’s my parent’s concerns being a part of it too.

And here is a man who said:

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary…Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Sure he was a genius, and we all have plenty of examples to see that in front of our own eyes. I remember clicking very fine quality pictures from my dad’s iphone 4 yesterday, and honestly I didn’t have Steve in my mind as I used it. And let’s just all of us accept the fact that when we take people for granted then things (ipad, iphone, Mac Book) sure do come in that category.

I have never been a tech-savvy person. I know the basics and well, that’s how I work. My brother often tells me “All you know is how to do FB and Blogging!! You know nothing else about and in computer”.   It stands true. We all have our inclinations just the way we have our dislikes.

Never before today did I ever look at “The Economic Times”. Never! Today I picked it up, because it, like many others had the major section devoted to Steve Jobs, for the genius, the God of Technology and for the great man who lived his life ‘HIS’ way”.

This article by David Pogues right on the first page says “ …and they are saying it will be a long time before the world sees another Steve Jobs”.

Like i shared few moments before, i am a lil over an illiterate when it comes to technology. But here, I’m talking about his thoughts, which themselves had immense power to pick you up from the dirt and tell you that to strive in life you need to listen to YOUR ‘SELF’ ( self- my emphasis).

And here his words kick my neurons again:

“I mean how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves? ….There’s a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn’t surf the web all day looking for Apple Rumours! I LIVED!

 EXPLORE! DO! LIVE!”

Here’s hoping that I learn from him, not for today, not for tomorrow, but for many more years I have in my life, yet to go……

And in order to keep myself going, I would like to have his quotes on my blog, coz they are upbeat, they are practical, and most importantly they come from a man who at least when spoke these words, unlike many wasn’t a Hypocrite, but DID  what he SAID!

You’ll be cherished Sir and remembered always!!

Regards,

Aakriti

PS: Do search and go through the email from Tim Cook to Apple Staff.

Ladder of Life

This poem has been written after seeing the thoughts that got triggered after seeing this picture whose  Copyright is with  ~ Jaskirat Arora:) Thank you dear!

A broken ladder,

A steps a missed,

A supporting wall of a weaker frame/,

The gaps in there,

The gaps within,

As people leave, without saying,

Few are missed, others jumped over,

This ladder of life rickety and lump,

Some ways to reach,

Other too distant,

And some ties of cloth,

That hold our bonds..

This ladder of life,

Mended and broken,

This ladder of life,

Weak yet strong.

Days of the Past

“Mom??...You are sooooo AWE- SOME!!”

With her eyes and mind engrossed in reading the book “Promises, Promises” she lifted her eyes from the papers, and gently turned her head to the right with a beautiful questioning smile on her face, which turned her dusky complexion into one lit by that one single candle in the dark.

“No?? Ok tell me ..who writes lines like these:

Your innocence, your purity,

The warmth that you exude, along with love,

Your wisdom, your maturity, and,

The trust you bond us with your care,

Like others I was no different,

To come to you and hold your hand,

Every time I selfishly understood,

My own reasons for being sad.

This time embrace me in your shelter,

Let the hug touch the other’s soul,

Hear the beat that the heart speaks,

And let the eyes wash the tears from the core,

And when my tears of love, touch your warm cheeks,

Just close your eyes and feel,

How strong I’m with you, and

Without you undeniably weak.

This time let us be ‘one’,

No two, ‘you’ and ‘me’,

And as our friendship brings us closer,

Let us on wet sand, stamp our feet,

Let us climb the rocks high there,

A special place we’ll find,

And after choosing our favourite rock,

We’ll engrave our names, so divine.

“Hmm..Come sit here besides me sweetheart” she asked her daughter Aadya, lovingly.

Aadya, was a lot like her mother, Amaira. She had taken her sharp features and gorgeous smile from her and from her dad- she had taken his curly hair, dark brown eyes, a whitish complexion and all he could give to her in terms of having that fun element in life. This was more than what Amaira could ask for.

“I’m waiting Mom!!”

“Yes, so tell me where did you find this?”

“In that treasure of yours where you had written a quote by Ella Sharpe, who says~ “The genuine poet is an intuitive psychologist” said Aadya.

Amaira smiled again, amazed and stunned, not knowing how her little fragile bouquet of happiness had grown into this brilliant young teen.

“And what do you think about those lines Aadya?” she asked

“Well, the ones you wrote or the ones which Ella said?”

“Both?”

“Hmm..well, first of all there is no denying that you are “AWE-SOME” and secondly, I just happened to pick the quote that suits you best, of all the others you had written in this diary”.

“Perhaps, that is what you feel Aadya, tell me what you thought about them? Or if you didn’t, then think and tell me?"

“ Mumma, these lines have a lot of passion in them. A lot. There is this loyalty, this desire to be “one” with that friend, so much as if that friend means the whole world to you, and when you write in those lines that you would like to engrave your names on the rock, that is such a profound gesture, you know, a memory, a remembrance of your friendship with that friend, even after that friend is no longer with you!”

 This diary which Amaira gave to her daughter had word- meanings in them, which she would keep penning down every time she would come across some new words, for words were her first and her last love of all. And as a matter of fact, because words would knock her door any time, any moment, not seeking nor needing any permission, she would end up writing mostly at the back of whichever notebook or register she would have. And this time, it was this poem.

She didn’t remember the title, but remembered the association and for the friend for whom she had written, keeping in mind that friend, as she penned those words into a necklace of poetry.

And here was her fourteen year old Aadya who had interpreted the words and expressed them befittingly, as if it was all that she could say at her age.

“Mumma, You thinking about something?”

"Your recitation made me recall the friend I had in mind as I wrote these words”

“Do you still have that friend with you mumma?”

With sadness in her eyes which reached her faint smile, she said “No, unfortunately”.

She sighed reminiscing the fond memories she had with that friend of hers.

“Mom, can I say something?”

“Hmm..?”

“Whatever happened, I do not know, but one thing I know for sure is, that, you loved that friend from the bottom of your heart”. And with this Aadya hugged and ‘held’ her mother just the way, according to Winnicott, a ‘good- enough- mother’* could.  

That hug in that moment spoke more than a thousand words could. And with that Amaira had eyes filled with tears that which she tried to hold back. Aadya kissed her mom’s cheek lovingly and left the diary with her in her lap.

As Amaira lifted the bookmark she opened the page only to feel the poem titled as ……..

“Tears of Love”.


* To share with my Vanilla People, "Good- enough- mothering" is a concept given by Psychoanlayst D.W.Winnicott. A"good-enough mother" is a mother whose conscious and unconscious physical and emotional attunement to her baby adapts to her baby appropriately at differing stages of infancy, thus allowing an optimal environment for the healthy establishment of a separate being, eventually capable of mature object-relations. He is one of the writers I fell in love with:)

Veil

Ah…these love songs, so deceptive,

The way the seductive male voice pulls the girl…towards him.

Oh! This huge world, I still didn’t manage to find that ‘One’,

And then some say ‘wait’, others just say ‘explore!

What about this heart in me, which is lost in this quandary?

Oh! These Urdu lyrics,

And the sensuous Arabic music,

The candles lit in the darkness,

A girl sits with a veil, dark empty eyes…waiting to be filled.

She cried many nights,

Was awake in some too,

And then as the dawn would awake,

The blanket of tears would become sparkly dew.

The sun would shine bright,

Telling her Hope was for the precious few,

But she was stuck to belief,

That which didn’t made to her view…..

She sits on the window sill,

On a rainy day,

Coffee in hand,

A diary in her lap,

Still in hopeless wait……..

I love 'to' You

I love 'to' You

Unlike what many of us have been saying to each other for the many decades ; the three most cherished words which a girl wishes to hear from the man of her dreams, I now introduce you to a new addition – ‘I love to You’ not I love you. You know why? And how?

Here the story goes….

A French Feminist Psychoanalyst  Luce Irigaray introduced the ‘to’ in between the three words, well this is what my very awesome Prof told us in one of his lectures. So basically, according to the rules of English grammar, when you read these words ‘I love You’ in this sentence the ‘I’ is the subject and the ‘you’ the object, which is to say that I love you because you are an object that I need. So, further pointing to the fact that I don’t love ‘you’ but myself in the process, thus fulfilling a narcissistic wish- I love me!

In contrast when Irigaray introduces the word ‘to’ in I love to You, it simply, then means that the You’ in this sentence is a subject as well, thus there being the subject ‘I’ who loves to another subject ‘You’.

Isn't this simply fascinating? Well, to me it is…this is to say that now I would tell my loved ones instead of the age old ‘I  love You’ , I love 'to' You’…..

If you wish to read more on Irigaray, go ahead, but as a caution, she is so damn complex, that all you might feel is reading nothing sensible but gibberish, well that is what I felt when I was reading her ‘Way Of Love’. A fact, I wish to share, is that her books have very erotic appeal, so she has titles like ‘Two Lips’, ‘ The Second Sex’, and some others enticing one in her kitty, and precisely when I thought she’d give me some good material on the way of love, all I got was mere confusion as to what she meant in every line of hers…

Thanks to my dear sir, who decoded her for our class…Yes his method of teaching is to de- construct every single thing for us, every class of his is superk enlightening!!;)