Steve Jobs, Faith and the Unseen Universe
Essay by Don Rose
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Have you ever stopped to consider how many things affect our lives greatly, yet we never see them?
Air - pretty essential, yet in most cases, cannot be seen.
Ideas - where are they, exactly? In our heads. Eventually they may come to fruition in the physical world and “get real” in the form of an actual object, but ponder this: every great product you ever used or heard of started with an unseen idea, out there somewhere in someone’s mind.
Love - where is it? Is it stored somewhere? Can you see it? Nope. Only its effects.
We don’t see the air, we don’t see ideas, we don’t see love, but we have faith in them nonetheless. I have faith the air is there. I have faith in good ideas. I have faith that love exists and can result in wonderful things. Even people who say they have no faith usually do, in these three things and many other unseen entities as well.
How about radio waves? Electromagnetic waves? Can’t see those, yet when someone tunes in a radio station, the effects are felt and enjoyed. The person tuning in has faith that those unseen waves will result in sound from speakers.
Gravity? We sure feel its effects (just ask a mountain climber at the top), but can you point to gravity and say “there it is”? Nope.
What about dark matter? Quite in the news lately. Some very smart folks just won the Nobel Prize for the discovery that our universe is not only expanding, but accelerating in its expansion! And dark matter is the prime candidate for what is causing this expansion. No one has ever seen it, yet dark matter is becoming increasingly accepted in the scientific community — the notion that there is some kind of pervasive “stuff” out there that we cannot see yet is having extensive effects on the rest of our universe.
Dark matter is kind of a cousin to that other great unseen entity of the universe, black holes (unseen since, by definition, light near a black hole cannot escape). Yet the effects of black holes are definitely felt (just ask a star that falls into one, never to be seen again).
What is my point? That even when one may believe they have lost faith, one should remember all the things they still do have faith in, perhaps without being aware of it. In fact, awareness itself is unseen!
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The passing of Steve Jobs started me down this road of thinking. In his oft-shared 2005 commencement speech at Stanford, he talked about having faith that the road you take when you follow your heart will prove to be the correct course. Have the faith to do what you love, and it will all work out. Paul McCartney has also talked about this before, that in the early days of the Beatles they used to have a saying when things went wrong… “something will happen”… meaning something will eventually happen to get them on the right road again, to the right place safely.
It is often hard to have this kind of faith, especially in the darkest hours when things look bleak. It is easy to feel fear about the future. Yet Jobs was sure that believing in yourself, having faith in doing what you love, was the best course to take.
Faith… fear… love… belief… the mind… all unseen things.
I also heard a story about Jobs meeting one of his heroes, Edwin Land, inventor of the iconic Land cameras for Polaroid (which let shutterbugs create instant photos thanks to film that developed itself). According to the story, the two legends found that they shared a powerful gift: each could see their inventions before they were ever created. Each man’s creation (camera/computer) was, in a sense, already real before entering physical reality - already seen in each inventor’s mind.
If something is so real you can see it… or so real you can taste it (to quote the old cliche), how can you not pursue it? Both men had unflinching faith in the rightness of their respective visions, and millions have led better lives as a result.
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So… what about me? What about my own senses, and my own sense of faith?
Ever since I became enamored with math and science in school, I’ve always wanted proof, tangible evidence, to experience things with my senses, in order to be convinced of something, or have faith in it. (If I can even call that faith; the concept may be moot once one has direct sensory evidence.)
But now I am rethinking this belief. After all, a belief is just an unseen intangible thing, right? And so is fear. So beliefs and fear are easily malleable… they do not reside in your mind permanently, they are only there because we let them be there.
Ask yourself: do you want to live in a world of fear, or a world of love? I think that choice is pretty easy. And thankfully, we all are in charge of making this choice!
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Steve Jobs may be gone physically, but the effects of his life are all around us, and will be for generations to come. In a way, his greatest achievements were all unseen — his unflinching faith that personal computers were needed by mankind, the inspiration he gave all those who worked for him, and all the joy he gave to the countless millions who have used, do use and will use the products that grew from his “insanely great” ideas.
So here’s to the incredible, intangible, magical, nonphysical essence of Steve Jobs, which cannot die and will live on, forever.
