Tag: Dropbox

Sand and Storm

Isaac is sweeping through the Keys in a Northwest arch as seen in previous storms.

Paradise bills come due. This summer we have seen an eerie absence of tornadoes (too dried to happen).

Paradise’s sand box are put on high alert.

The last time, a political convention that got that much press attention before it gets started was Chicago 68.

This time, the National Guards are also mobilized, but for a different reason: to help with eventual and possible evacuation.

Grab your bag. Essentials only: toothbrush, toothpaste (shared), eye glasses, underwear and change of clothes. Well, maybe a paperback, normally for beach reading.

I used to have my class do an exercise in forced ranking: what if you could only bring five things to an isolated island.

It makes for group discussion, collaboration and debate.

What would you bring if you were to live in the Keys this morning?

Tow that camper away with everything in it and sit in traffic?

Remember not to forget the I-phone charger, for storm tracker.

I know I would bring my daughter’s pics, even though they are already in a flash drive.

I heard of DropBox. Maybe I should open an account (a safe?) there in the Cloud.

Valuables and all that remains.

A lifetime of memory and momento.

What is life?

Play time and work time, hurt and healing?

Sand storm and sand box.

Some of us are defined by crisis, others crown.

The higher the climb, the steeper the fall.

Just part of the roller-coaster ride.

In other time, Florida Keys are picture perfect. You can’t get enough of it.

But then, one has to live with these North-ward weather patterns, as if everything “negative” seems to have come from somewhere South, if it fits your prejudice. People who reached a certain maturity have come to accept that trade-off : you can’t have paradise without penalty, sand without storm, at least in this life, at least on this Earth.

Faustian bargain

Most of us don’t face life-and-death decision everyday (gaining the world but losing our soul). Leave that to Caligula or Gaddafi.

Yet, a less wealthy Syrian, whose background had been oblivious even to himself, still got some press. Steve Jobs can still sell some books.

Like you, I was curious. So I browsed his biography. One snippet about Steve: he lived for ideas and did not mind recruiting the best of talents, wherever they might be : foreign country or far-out competitor (Dropbox was an example). We all read his introduction in Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check. Or about his last meal out (penchant for the Far East, relics from his early days seeking enlightenment). To this day, no one could explain why not once, but twice, some Beta versions of the I-phone managed to show up in Hanoi.

One man used his oil wealth to buy influence in Africa (calling himself King of Kings… the sun would never set on his Empire).

The other, used his sense of abandonment to “think different”.

Although both were ambitious, the market chose to follow Steve’s lead. We knew he would not settle. And he emphatically said so (Standford Address).

When I left my local Barnes and Nobles, I turned around and saw all those hard-cover books stacking up, all had Steve Job’s staring out the window.

As if to remind me not to settle.

I am sure people at Apple Inc and Apple stores still feel his midas touch. The book cover captures that magical feel, like the all-white room in John Lennon‘s “Imagine” video. Simplicity in life and in death.

Once in a thousand years, out of the abundant gene pool, emerged a few geniuses, in Physics (Einstein), in Arts (Van Gogh), in Music (Elvis), in Aviation (Wright brothers) or in Technology (Jobs).

Although we don’t face the Faustian bargain  on a daily basis, we have much to gain thanks to them. Now the burden is on us to make the most of this treasure trove. Go and invent your iNext.  Stay hungry and stay foolish.