Tag: Roman Emperor

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.

Mars or marble

Have you submitted your name to be shuttled up to Mars?  Space and sea travel or your names on Mars and not marble. This is to show our preference for progress over permanence  – technology over religion.

While it’s good to sit on one of the benches with our parent’s names “in memory of…”, it’s better still for our grandchildren to travel in space to look for ours on Mars.

I found my parent’s graves without a hitch. Right here on spaceship Earth.

In the Far East, people want to travel back to where their ancestors were buried (as of this edit, I have just stepped on a bunch of fake dollars, burnt during an early morning funeral).

Thus, “the Last Train Home” documentary about Chinese factory laborers trying to get home for New Year via train, plane or automobile (their version of White Christmas).

Modernity forces huge displacement. South-South movement will be next, not Earth to Outer space (Indian mobile phone companies are buying up Middle Eastern phone companies to cater to fast growing African markets, while Vietel engineers are rebuilding Haitian and Myanmar telecom infrastructure).

When you are uprooted, your sense of identity suffers. One used to be known by his/her relationship in a communal network. Now, with new “ID“, he/she is known by an employee number. Welcome to KFC, how may I take your order.

With industrialization comes frustration (discontent): who is going to move in those Shanghai towers , and who will have to relocate to make room for the 5th-ring highway?

Uprooted dreamers.

No place to go back to. No bragging rights for aging parents e.g. “my son went to the city and came back a millionaire”.  Bentley in Russia, Ford in China. Wealth shift. G-20+ (make sure Brazil is included, since they know how to party).

For years, we saw a steady rise of “emerging countries”, but we still resort to yesterday’s play book. (Remember the Yugo joke?).

The poor was materially poor, but not in spirit or intelligence. From a near-zero base, the only way for emerging countries to go is to “emerge” i.e. create better-paying jobs, while union and progress in the West , once a blessing, now a hindrance in this post-Recession recovery.

Darwin was right: survival favors the most adaptive. Instead of fighting for a seat on “the Last Train”, those smart entrepreneurs already built alternate-energy bullet trains. It’s not your names on Mars, it’s the challenge to think beyond the marble which for centuries was the last stop for even the most famous of names. A Roman Emperor once hired an assistant, whose main job is to remind him every so often that: “Your Majesty, you will die soon”.  Memento mori.