Party of One...

When I was growing up, I wanted to be Mary Richards. Mary Tyler Moore portrayed her single, working woman character as beautiful, fun and interesting. She led an exciting life filled with friends, cute furniture, glamorous clothing and people around whenever she wanted. But she had solitude when that was desired, as well. It was, in a word, a perfect life.

There are no winners in this reality show...

For the past several weeks, we in the Kansas City metro area have been the focus of the nation for all the wrong reasons once again. [I am telling you here and now, the vast majority of people who live here are wonderful, down to earth, truly decent human beings with great hearts who would do anything to help someone in need. Just because we have some real wackos around here doesn't mean we are all like that. Seriously.] We are in the news this time because a sweet little baby with a cherubic face and a smile that lights up the room is missing, and we all want her found and back with her family where she belongs. So the entire city is obsessing about the situation, while we scan the faces of every baby we see, looking for the answer to what happened in the eyes of strangers.

Decisions, decisions....

Life is full of decisions. Little decisions, big decisions, we are all making decisions every moment of every day. We don't normally think about it in those terms, of course. Should we stop at the stop sign or run right through it? That doesn't seem like a real decision, but in fact, it is a choice. Other people's lives, not to mention our own, depend upon our being willing to make the decision to follow the rules, and society is better for it.

Thinking about critical thinking...

I read three items in the news this morning, which at first glance, may seem disconnected. But for me, they are all part of the whole picture, grainy and blurred, a reflection of a country embracing mediocrity at our peril.

The first article discussed the state of critical thinking in college graduates who are coming into the job market, and their lack of required skills to perform higher order thinking tasks. The second was an article on the trend in entertainment to "remake" films and television programs which were popular 30 or 40 years ago, updating them to entertain today's youth. The third was yet another discussion about the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, which has a quote engraved upon it which was taken so far out of context it changes the meaning entirely, and which has caused controversy to rage between those who were associated with the man versus those who know only of the legend.

Job well done....

The death of Steve Jobs this week has prompted me to reflect on how much the world has changed since I was a child.  Steve and I are of an age, and in looking back at what he accomplished in 56 short years, it is an incredible story.

Way back when we were young, computers and cell phones were something we saw on "Get Smart," not something we pulled out of a backpack or a pocket.  Cameras were large and expensive and used film which had to be processed, which cost a small fortune.

In entertainment, Rob and Laura had separate twin beds, Samantha was a witch with a twinkling nose problem, and Star Trek was as technologically advanced as most people could imagine.  Animation on the big screen was limited to Disney style movies, fairy tales for children taking place in a land far away.

Out of that background came Steve Jobs, a middle class boy, a college drop out, to lead one of the most transformative changes in history.  Although there were many others also at the forefront of the computing age, it was Steve Jobs who made computing personal, and in so doing, changed the course of history.

Even without the creative mind which envisioned a platform in which grandmothers and little children could be functional, I suppose technology would have advanced and gotten smaller.  I imagine that even without his influence, the computer would have eventually become personal.  But I have no doubt that the passion in his heart and his single minded focus pushed us forward faster and further than we would have gone otherwise.

Steve had a particular genius for taking the ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary.  He started with a relatively mundane product, and over and over again, he made it accessible, an accessory, even.  His attitude of quality over quantity has mystified marketing gurus for decades, but his success, even in times of economic downturn, is impossible to overlook.  Whether computer, digital music player, cell phone, or animation, Steve stretched the boundaries of the possible, challenging his staff, and his competitors, to do it better.

Steve Jobs was, by all accounts, an exacting person, a temperamental perfectionist who insisted on things being right.  He didn't tolerate shoddy work or lazy thinking, and was quick to cut free anyone who thought good enough was adequate.  Steve continued to pursue the edges of his universe, even to the very end of his life, in order to be a part of creating the world of connectedness that he envisioned.

I think the life of Steve Jobs is instructive, especially for children today.  It is a story of perseverance, adversity overcome, the power of the personal, and boot strap success.  His story is the fulfillment of The American Dream, that anyone can do anything, if they just set their mind to it.

Personally, I think there was some luck involved along the way, along with creative genius, hard work, a gift for marketing and for understanding the mind of his customer.  Those aspects are key to his success, and should not be overlooked.

There is no question that our lives have been enriched by computers and cell phones and video games and the internet.  But I wonder, if they had all been around back when we were children, would Apple have ever been born?  I find it interesting that Steve didn't allow his own children to watch television, for fear it would stifle their creativity.

My very first computer was an Apple IIc, purchased new in 1984, complete with a second drive bay and a color monitor.  It was the most exciting purchase I had ever made up to that point in my life, an expensive luxury that I used for more than ten years before finally upgrading to something more comprehensive that could go online.  I wrote a graduate thesis on that computer, and my children played games with it.  It never failed us.  There was no blue screen of death, it just clicked along flawlessly through all the years of hard use.  I still have it, and it still works - a throwback to a simpler time when my life was also less complicated.

Some people are reformers, some are transformers, some are transcenders and some are onlookers.  Steve Jobs was a transformer who transcended the everyday world around him and envisioned what tomorrow would be.  He looked forward with a determination that kept him focused on the future instead of the past.  He was the Walt Disney of the computing age, the Gutenberg of his era.  He has found his place in history. Centuries from now, I believe the name Steve Jobs will still be uttered in the halls of academia as children learn about the history of the world and discover there was a time when personal computers didn't exist.

In a famous quote, Brian Littrell said, "Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."  Steve Jobs dared to look past the moon and shoot for the stars in the first place.  A creative genius who never gave up, Steve Jobs is a man in five billion.  They come along once every few decades, and I think it will be awhile before someone has as profound an influence on the world again.

Rest in peace, Steve.  In a world of imperfection, you dared to reach for the unreachable. Your legacy lives on in each person whose life you have touched.