Jobs, lost in self-seeking: psychedelics, cannabis, meditation, vegetarianism, Zen...

Author's Note:

Jobs was an extremely sensitive and sensual genius, and too many business leaders lamented his superb aesthetic.

Emotional people, the pursuit of inner embodiment and realization, it is easy to get lost, as was the case with Jobs when he was young.

meditation

Article content:

Rational people, based on the principles of physics, seek external limits and carry out the exploration of dreams.

The sensual person is immersed in inner experience, deeply investigates the inner mysteries, and carries out enlightenment and realization.

The unscrupulous Jobs, after graduating from high school, was even more crazy.

He didn't want to go to college, he didn't know what he wanted to do, and the ultimate experiences of hippie culture, vegetarianism, Zen, music, psychedelics, meditation, and marijuana converged on him to form a complex charismatic personality that was both good and evil.

He takes psychedelics. In a wheat field outside Sunnyvale, "it felt good," he recalls, "and I listened to a lot of Bach music during that time." In an instant, the whole wheat field seemed to be playing Bach. It was the most wonderful feeling of my life so far. I felt like I was the conductor of the symphony, and Bach seemed to be in the wheat field. ”

He began to eat a mandatory diet, a habit that lasted his whole life—eating only fruits and vegetables—so he was thin and sturdy, like a Whippet.

He was deeply influenced by books on spirit and enlightenment, notably Be Here Now, a book about the beauty of meditation and hallucinogens by Baba Ram Dass, whose real name was Richard Alpert.

He hitchhiked with friends to the beach, participated in raps about the meaning of life in his college dormitory, went to the local Harley Krishna temple for love festivals, and went to a Zen center for a free vegetarian meal.

He and his friends carved out a meditation room in a small space in the roof loft, where he arranged Indian floral cloth, a hand-spun cotton blanket, candles, incense and meditation cushions. "There's a little door in the ceiling that leads to the attic, and there's a lot of space there," he said, "and we sometimes take psychedelics there, but most of the time we just meditate inside." ”

Buddhism's emphasis on intuition also deeply influenced Jobs. "I began to realize that intuitive understanding and awareness were more important than abstract thinking and logical analysis." He later said that although nirvana and the state of calm were not clearly manifested in him.

However, the hands-on transformation ability of his adoptive father, Paul Jobs, and the business of used cars, were also passed on to Jobs.

Paul: "Steve, this is your workbench from now on. He said as he drew a piece on the table in the garage. Jobs remembered his father's dedication to craftsmanship. "I think Dad's sense of design is good," he said, "because he can do anything." If there was a lack of a cupboard in the house, he would make one. When he fenced the house, he gave me a hammer so I could work with him. ”

And, for the pursuit of perfection, even on the dark side that no one else can see.

Steve Jobs, Sr., said it was also important to make the backs of cabinets and fences, even though they were invisible. "He likes to pursue perfection, and he cares about places that others can't see."

Although Jobs was not interested in machinery, through the car, his father gave Jobs the first exposure to electronic devices.

He didn't have a deep understanding of electronic devices, but he often worked with them on cars and other repairs. He showed me the basic principles of electronic devices, which I thought was interesting. "What's more interesting is the process of going to the scrappit to find parts." Every weekend, we take a trip to the scrap station. We'll look for generators, or carburetors, and all sorts of components. "He remembers watching his father negotiate prices at the counter." He's good at haggling because he knows the reasonable price of parts better than the seller. ”

Electronic equipment, the pursuit of perfect quality, used car business, these elements, also in his youth, were implanted in Jobs's life by his adoptive father Paul.

And then there's the neighbors of Silicon Valley. "The fathers who lived around me mostly studied cool things like solar photovoltaic cells and radar," Jobs recalled, "and I was amazed at these things, and I often asked them this and that." ”

The most important of these neighbors, Larry Lang, was seven families away from Jobs. "He's the standard image of an HP engineer in my mind: a super radio enthusiast, a die-hard electronics fan, and he'll bring me something to play with." As we walked to Long's old house, Jobs pointed to the driveway and said, "He put a carbon-crafted microphone, a battery and a speaker in the driveway." He asked me to speak into the microphone and the sound was amplified through the speakers. ”

The architectural style also influenced Jobs's design philosophy. The Jobs family's house, located at 286 Diablo Avenue, was built by real estate developer Joseph Eichler, whose company built more than 11,000 homes between 1950 and 1974 in various parts of California.

Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's vision of "a simple modern home for ordinary Americans," Edgeler built inexpensive homes characterized by floor-to-ceiling glass walls, open floor plans, unobstructed beam and column construction, concrete floors, and a large number of sliding glass doors.

"Edgeler did a great job," Jobs said on one occasion while walking around the neighborhood with me, "and the house he built was neat and beautiful, at a low price, of excellent quality." They bring clean design and simple taste to low-income people. The house itself has great little features like thermal radiant heating under the floor. When we were young, we were carpeted and lay on top, warm and comfortable. ”

Jobs said his appreciation for the homes Edchler built sparked his passion for making well-designed products for Volkswagen. "I like to incorporate great design and simple features into my products, and it's not too expensive." Pointing out to me the cleanliness and elegance of the houses, he said, "This was Apple's original idea, and we tried to do it when we built the first Mac computer, and we realized it on the iPod." ”

After a year at the expensive Reed College, he dropped out of school, ashamed of spending his parents' savings on the one hand, and having no interest in the compulsory courses at school on the other. The school was magical and still allowed him to stay in the dormitory and listen to the classes he liked.

"As soon as I drop out, I don't have to go to the required courses that I'm not interested in, I can go to the classes that look interesting." He said. One of these calligraphy classes was very attractive to him, because he noticed that most of the posters on campus were beautifully painted. "I learned about serif and sans-serif fonts, how to adjust their spacing between different combinations of letters, and how to make perfect layouts. I was enchanted by the beauty, historical significance, and artistic subtleties that science could not capture. ”

In 2005, he was invited to speak at a Stanford commencement, and one of the stories was the Reed Academy experience, where he said that the bits and pieces of the past would end up in a wonderful string together, "connecting the dots," and he used the fonts he learned in the Mac's graphical interface.

In short, the various elements of technology, art, and commerce, from different sources and in different ways, were slowly implanted into Jobs.

However, he still did not understand that the meaning and value of life were still in search...