Steve Jobs and the Ride of a Lifetime

 

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

                                                                       -Steve Jobs
   

I’ve always been one who looks more to the past than the present for meaning and inspiration with my writing. In our past lies the patterns and road signs that show the way forward.

That’s why that quote from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs jumped out at me when I read it in a transcript of a Commencement address he gave at Stanford University in 2005. After all, if anyone was ever qualified to be called a forward-thinking visionary it was Steve Jobs. Yet there he was telling a class of eager graduates what a critical part the past played in his deepest personal calculations.

We all want to trust that something can and will show us the way to future success. At some point we all want to be able to connect those cosmic dots.

In my case, one of the biggest dots I ever found was a short piece my father wrote years ago. Every time I read it, it keeps pointing me in the direction of what ‘real’ writing is all about. It honors the craft and makes me want to become a better writer.

Entitled An Open Letter To My Dad, he wrote it on February 6, 1963, while riding a passenger train back to his hometown in northern Wisconsin after his father had passed away. I can hear the rails rolling by in rhythm, timeless, as he sifts through his thoughts and slowly starts to write:

 

So long, Dad.

The phone seemed to jingle a little more nervously than usual when Carol called me at the office and said that you had passed away peacefully.

It wasn’t unexpected. You and I both put up a bold front during my last visit at the St. Paul V.A. Hospital ten days ago, but inwardly we knew. You made it clear that 85 was a lengthy life and you had no regrets in leaving.

Now I find the quiet of a Hiawatha streamliner rolling northward an ideal place for reminiscing. You had a full life, Dad. Coming over from Sweden in rugged pioneer tradition and starting a new life in northwestern Wisconsin was no easy task. But it sure developed your initiative, independence and, best of all, the good old virtue of common sense which more than compensated for your meager schooling. Never gave it much thought before but your working years must have been in excess of 60 years. I don’t think you were idle one day until you reached 75. With limited means you saw that we three kids went to college, which in itself is a splendid tribute to both you and Mother.

Remarkably good health blessed your life until that pesky hip accident. This, coupled with Mother’s passing, dulled your zest for living a little, but true to your humble nature you always kept such thoughts pretty much to yourself.

Two old photographs come to mind: the faded Confirmation photo in which your eyes speak sheer devilment, and that picture of you in your Spanish-American war uniform that displays a physique few servicemen boast today. Not much fighting in that conflict, but those training camp conditions you mentioned on occasion didn’t make me a bit envious.

By golly we had some good times together. Those fishing trips on the St. Croix River. Remember the time I cast your new rod into the depths of the Mississippi? Those leisurely car trips along Lake Pepin where as a youngster you did some commercial fishing. Those trips to the Minnesota State Fair. Oh yes, there were many more — the pheasant we ‘accidentally’ shot out of season; and how you enjoyed coming down to Milwaukee to see the Braves play baseball. Never could figure where you got the stamina to sit through those laborious doubleheaders.

Our Christmas gathering last December left the most pleasant memories. You were feeling exceptionally chipper and I was amused by your comment that Kent, my youngest, really warmed up to you on this visit. I know how happy you were when he came along to carry on the family name.

Truthfully, Dad, I never heard anyone say a harsh word about you, and my memory isn’t good enough to recall all the compliments concerning the love, respect and help you gave your fellow man.

So thanks for everything. I know you are having a marvelous time now, and deservedly so (though I’d like to know how you went about explaining about that pheasant incident). I won’t say goodbye — just so long for a spell.

Sincerely,

Clarence

 

For obvious reasons I feel proud and privileged when I finish reading. Proud of the two generations of men before me, privileged that I have inherited my father’s passion for the past and the written word.

It’s up to each of us to decide for ourselves whether or not there are dots in our past we can connect and infer meaning from. As for me, I agree wholeheartedly with what Steve Jobs said: “You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

All writing should strive to serve the needs of someone else. Here I serve and honor the memory of the men who came before me. In this letter I see words and images and a line running through three family generations. It pulls me in every time and makes me want to live — and write — as honestly and vividly as I can.