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Steve Jobs Vision : One Infinite Loop

Included here is a description of a spontaneous vision which came to me around an hour before I received the news of Steve Job's death. While I had not immediately realized it at the time, in retrospect, the vision now appears entirely related, and very likely synchronous with the actual last moment of Job's life.

Before I describe the actual vision, some context to how prominent a figure Steve Jobs was in my own life is appropriate:

Steve Jobs inspired and influenced my life deeply. I was 8 years old when my father introduced me to the Apple II computer in 1978 (I was fortunate, as maybe only 1 in 2000+ households had any type of personal computer at that time). This was a seminal and significantly defining moment in my life. I quickly became immersed into a world of extraordinary possibilities, invested long days and nights over entire summers exploring a new type of creative expression, and I taught myself, and eventually mastered the BASIC computer programming language within a few years (before I even reached puberty). I've been an "Apple evangelist" ever since, and the entire spirit and philosophy of Jobs and of Apple has been a primary element woven into the background of my life.

During the rise of the internet culture in the 1990s (in my 20s), and then thru 14+ years as a successful creative professional and entrepreneur in new media, I've made my entire living, crafted an ingenious artistic style, conducted innovative research and development, and enjoyed the benefits of a tech-nomadic lifestyle … all in the wake of this one man's extraordinary vision, character, and ingenious innovative contributions of delivering technologically-based magic to the world.

So I've always understood and generally stood behind the philosophies of quality design and paradigm leading innovation that Apple has been founded on--a philosophy that is spirited by the DNA of Jobs himself. And in some way that is perhaps also magical or not easily understood, these aspects of Job's DNA were passed into me (and many of us).

This past week, on October 4, on the evening before Steve Jobs passed away, I had actually intended to watch the Apple Special Event video that had been released earlier that day. As I readied myself to click the "Play" button, however, I changed my mind … because I felt that I was not quite ready yet to watch the new CEO (Tim Cook) standing in place of Steve Jobs. Somehow, I was still letting go of the fact that Jobs had just stepped down as CEO only a month or so earlier. So I just told myself that I'd watch it maybe in a few days, or whenever I was ready.

The next day, October 5, 2011, was the day Steve Jobs passed away. Around an hour or so before before this news hit the world, I was driving my car along a country road to the local market, and had a spontaneous imaginal vision came thru my mind:

I saw an older man, tho not too old, just between 50 - 60 years old, sitting quietly in a lush green field. He was sitting in a way that he was "looking back", observing a vast space of earth and atmosphere, and he maintained a very calm tho highly attentive observation of what he was seeing and in consideration of. Along with the spontaneous arrival of the vision, I also experienced a felt sense for the character of the man himself, for what he was consciously considering, and a sense of his states of conscious awareness. He was reflecting on the immensity of his life, and doing so from an extreme vantage point of as if this moment being the very last moment of his life. In particular, he was reflecting upon the long stream of various innovative technological advents which he had seen emerge in magical ways … ways which have altered human culture during his life time. He thought: what an incredible life, what incredible progress in technological innovations and cultural change. This led him to then consider what new extraordinary wonders had yet to emerge just over the horizon of time.

Then something new came into the vision: in the middle of the green field, a new technology emerged--something even more extraordinary and wonderful that maybe did not quite exist yet: a whirling, spinning, floating, flashing, semi-transparent 3D field of multi-colored rainbow light emissions--some type of magical interface of extraordinary technology. Around this rainbow-light technology, a group of children gathered, holding hands, and dancing a ring around the phenomena in happiness, joy, and with a fresh perspective that only the very young have new eyes for. These children danced not just for the magical gift of this wondrous technology, nor just for the fresh moment of their generation's time, tho even more, they danced the eternal dance of joy for the ever present origination which the future always promises. As the man observed this, he was enormously moved by the purity and innocence of the children, and moved by the always originating promise of the future unfolding into eternity.

And then he reflected briefly on what was next for him--not an easy perspective: his time is now ending, and the part of him that wants to stay to see the promise of the future unfolding--that part must rest now. He must go … it's never been more certain. For a brief moment, he felt a certain natural sadness around this fact … a sadness that also began to naturally contract his mind and distract his full awareness from the more glorious and whole perspective which he had just been sharing in the scope of today's children and with all future generations. He then became aware of this contracting distraction itself, and then skillfully allowed for those thoughts to dissolve. He saw again that the perspective that he is able to have now, "looking back" from the extreme end of life--is utterly unique in its gifts of wisdom, and only possible from the perspective at the end of life now. And then he realized that the fact of his life's ending is as natural as the beginning of life also was, and always will be. Finally, he realized and settled into a state of complete acceptance that it's okay: the end of life and the beginning of life are natural and right as the stream of life itself in its entirety. This is as things are … and it is all so awesome.

Then the imaginal vision dissolved from my mind's eye. And I found myself continuing to drive along in my car thru the beautiful country side …

At the time that this vision had spontaneously and (seemingly) involuntarily arrived thru my imagination, I had not really considered it anything too unusual (as I am a person in constant engagement with my creative imagination). Tho, even as it did occur, it did seem subtly unordinary, for I had never really experienced anything exactly like it before. And somehow, the character of the man seemed somewhat familiar to me, tho I could not quite place who it was. Also, I did acknowledge to myself at the time that the empathic insights derived, particularly about how the man was coming to terms with some profound and subtle nuances which may naturally occur at the end of one's life time … these nuances of realization were new to me. And it was only by my empathically "borrowing" the conscious perspective of this other man coming thru my imagination that I was able to arrive to these insights myself (insights that moved me as they happened, and that I can now apply to the inevitable ebbs and flows of my own life). This was interesting and unusual to me, and especially caught my attention … as if this imaginal vision was somehow coming from beyond my own autonomous cognitive faculties, via some relationship beyond just myself.

In any case, I soon arrived to my destination at the local market, and the experience completely left my mind for the time. I generally let it go without too much more consideration for its greater significance or meaning.

About a half-hour later, I made the return drive, and arrived back home again. There (at 1:49 pm HST), I got the news of Steve Job's passing while browsing the social network on FaceBook via my MacBook Pro laptop. The news came by my casual discovery of a very early post made by my friend Sara who just happens to work at the Apple store in downtown San Francisco. Within the first few minutes, I had tears welling up in my eyes. As the day continued, and the reality of the news set in, it actually felt like I lost someone I knew personally somehow.

That first night, I barely slept at all. While I did not make the connection at first, the news of Steve Job's passing was stirring in me more deeply than my conscious mind was yet aware of. And it was not until the next morning, after just a bit of sleep, and then freshly awakening with a blank mind … that I realized the potential connection with the spontaneous vision which occurred the day before (again, it happened sometime around an hour *before* I received the immediate news of Steve Job's death, which would place it around the actual time of his passing). While I can't claim to be certain of what the meaningful coincidence of this event means exactly ... I also can't deny that it did happen, and that it is synchronistic, fantastic, and memorable.

Now for several days and nights since then, I've invested several hours (usually in the late evenings) immersing myself into the extraordinary life and now absence of Steve Jobs. I've reviewed his wise quotes many times over, the entire history of his personal life, read thru many of the extraordinary stories involved in his origination and founding of Apple, and his involvement over the years in delivering his vision and the Apple corporation to such awesome actualization of its potentials. In my on-going research and contemplations, the significance has been seeping into me (in many ways both personally meaningful, and mutually meaningful for our collective) . It's been really profound (and positive) in ways that I never expected.

Finally, last night (after first watching Steve Job's last keynote video released in June), I watched the Apple Special Event video that I had previously delayed watching on the night before Steve Job's passing (see links below) . Overall, the video appears strikingly iconic of the poignant junction and juxtaposition of that 24 hour period between October 4 - 5, around the time of the actuality of Steve Job's passing. The video is very interesting in many ways: such as the single and empty front-row seat marked "Reserved" that the camera passes directly over several times (which, if I had watched the video the previous evening, that alone may have seemed foretelling and even symbolic to the next day's news). Then there is the relatively low-key and slightly somber atmosphere of the event and of its executive presenters. There is the expected tho always super impressive statistical reports of how enormously (now globally) successful Apple is constantly becoming as a business corporation: breaking records of sales and distribution, awards for unprecedented innovation, and charts which show how Apple is not just leading several key markets (computers, phones, music, books, etc), but also inventing (and leading) new markets (iPad / app paradigm). Such reports are now even beginning to suggest trends of potentially monopolizing many of these huge and emerging global markets! And then finally, they introduce several truly groundbreaking and extraordinary advents: the new iPhone 4S, iCloud services, and Siri (Artificially Intelligent) personal assistant.

On the day before Steve Job's passing, he has passed along the foundations for both a globally distributed, cloud-based wireless network for automated content back-up and distribution, as well as the voice-activated Artificially Intelligent public assistance service. Each of these advents, of course, is fully integrated into the already established legacy of Apple's global consumer technology base, and is ground-breaking its own rite. Put it all together, and one can sense how Jobs has laid down the final elements of a rock-solid (tho actually electronically ephemeral) foundation for an extraordinary new level of technological synergy on a global scale.

The future is looking bright indeed. What a time to go.

And what a time to be alive … and have these extraordinary gifts of magic living thru us … ~

~ ONE INFINITE LOOP ~

Thank you for everything, Steve Jobs. Your life was as revolutionary and magical as your products, and the world is a better place because of your passion, innovation, and vision. We will miss you ~

Here's to the crazy ones ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

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