Friday, October 7, 2011

Thank You Steve: He Who Inspired Me, To Love Design


It's a day past Apple, Inc.'s chairman and co-founder Steve Jobs's (1955-2011) death and I find myself writing this post, still dejected, feeling disowned by my own idol. A person whom I never met or knew personally, seems to have affected my life so drastically that the moment I read the news of his passing away this morning, lightning struck. Everything had come to a stand still that very moment. Like I was no more a part of this world. I realized teardrops surfacing over my eyes. I couldn't understand their significance, though. But probably that was the place that "He" had earned in my life, our lives.

Steve was a revolutionary thinker, an innovator, an icon, a visionary and a salesman-all beautifully gift-wrapper into a single package. He knew what we wanted. He knew how to get the money out of out pockets, how to get us interested in whatever he created.
NYTimes: When asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” -via kurt_loder on Twitter
He was such a genius that all I can say is Hats Off to his maker. Born to unwed graduates, adopted by parents who were not even graduates themselves (but promised to send Steve to college), dropped out of college, kicked out of his own company, disowned his own genetic daughter, suffered a unique kind of pancreatic cancer, died young; yet created the greatest of the consumer products of all times for us to cherish, to love and to connect with.
"We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." -via ITyorkshire on Twitter
So many failures, yet so many successes that followed. How did he ever happen to achieve the feat in spite of the failures he suffered? The answer is- he loved what he did. He pursued his intuitions, and believed them, strongly enough to act upon them in real time.
"I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did." -via briandelcata on Twitter
He never feared of losing anything in life. He realized the human mortality. He knew that like every human on this planet, he would die one day, and lived his each day as if it were the last day of his life. He would wake up everyday and ask himself if he would be doing the thing he was gonna do that day if it were the last day of his life and pursued it only if the answer happened to be a "yes".
"Remembering that you are going to die is he best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose" -via symo29 on Twitter
 Such a legend, such an idol, such an inspiration, no more. Techkind seems to have it's greatest visionary. The revolutionary behind the multi-touch concepts, the iPhones, the iPods, the iPads, the iMacs and the numerous other innovations is gone. Yet, he resides in our heart and soul, in our memories, in every product he envisioned and created, in Apple, Inc. Thank you, Steve, for everything so wonderful. May your soul rest in peace.


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