Bye, Steve

(Sorry, my English is very basic)

I can be mistaken…
From the decade of the seventies, up to 2011 the world has transformed almost totally. For many reasons, this period compresses events, progresses and changes that they had even taken centuries in any other previous time. And although the immediate future will have the same dynamics that time it will be memorable for the progresses and new directions of the economy, the technology, the society and the culture in general.
Who have lived our adolescence and youth, even our adulthood in this time has experienced these transformations personally, and we have had the privilege of making it “in first line.”
In 1975 the personal computer was little less than a dream. Today, student's calculator has more power than the computers of the ship Apollo that arrived to the Moon.
In 1975 the flights to the space could only last few days. Today, except for the jubilation of the North American ferries, the astronauts can remain in the space for whole months.
In 1975 the portable radios weighed, at least, half kilograms. Today, any adolescent can buy, with her money for the school recess, such a small radio that even fits in the same headphone.
In 1975 the audio mini-cassettes was the standard one domestic to conserve music. Today, any chip or similar device can conserve that that thousands of those cassettes.
In 1975 the nets of computers were privilege of big companies and universities. Today, any domestic computer can be connected to the whole world, and thanks to Internet our planet it seems smaller.
In 1975 the mobile telephones seemed handbags of military communication. Today, in each home there is, at least, a cellular telephone, even in some cities; there is a cellular one for each person.
In 1975 the radio, telephone, personal calendar, photographic camera and home movie-recorder were different tools. Today, all that is gathered in a single and tiny apparatus, and also, an entire music discs, videogames and others added.
What has it happened?
These dramatic changes are not work of the chance; they are the sum and product of several small progresses that when interacting to each other makes a synergy that multiplies the possibilities and results to work. But creators are needed, venturesome and visionary that they begin this dynamics, because all this not born of the void.
Steve Jobs belonged one to them.
In 1975, Steve lived the dilemma between to guide his university life seriously or to rush to the adventure of marking his own road, to his way. This way, finally, the following year the decision had taken, and with a friend it ended up founding the “company of the apple.”
The rest is history…
Apart from 12 years of absence, between 1985 and 1997 in that Apple experienced with the Newton Project, that didn't triumph at the end like business but anyway it marked a horizon, Steve and its company they were one, literally.
In a time in that the computational compatibility was the first commandment to grow, to prevail and to prosper, Apple preferred to follow his own, and without being isolated completely, its own one evolved Standard. In an atmosphere that demanded “to be coordinated or to die”, Apple didn't only survive but it prospered.
In times of the Mac common people thought: “it is good, but is not compatible with the other computers; also, there is not a lot of software for her”. In that time, people that I know dreamt, he clamored and claimed that the products of Apple resemble IBM, HP, Epson or Sony. Now it is the other way around, the competition looks for to resemble the most possible thing the products of Apple products.
Why?
Without to ignore neither to minimize the strength of the company, the 12 years of absence of Apple without Steve demonstrate that the genius, and many times its founder's genius marked the difference.
Their strategy: innovation and integration, efficiency and quality. To fight to create something different and better, although it is expensive, and then to fight so that it is accessible, with balance between price and utility. To develop and to offer new products; but not to stay there but offering new experiences. To give more importance to it benefits him to the client, the benefits for the company will arrive alone, besides.
To the inverse of the magicians that extract many things of a small hat, Steve taught us that it is possible to gather many apparatuses or devices in a single small object. Before him, the only resemblance that common people knew was the venerable “3 in 1”: radio receiver, tape-players and disks-players. And Steve began a revolution that he survives him and he will extend for always.
In my country there is a proverb that says: “the good of the ducks is that they swim and fly, but the bad thing is that neither they fly well neither swim well.” Steve demonstrated us with the iPhone that this “duck” makes several things, and very well.
But that it is not their only legacy.
Steve's teaching, even deeper than the previous ones, it is their testimony of life: the revolutionary's integrity that works without rest for what believes that it is well and it is possible, the optimism to assume the problems like challenges and the impossible ones as tasks, the integrity to overcome to the difficulties, and to conquer them; the patience to recognize the bad times like opportunities and the disadvantages like motivations; the integrity to maintain an ideal and to transform it into project of life; the simplicity to be like it is been and to convert that sophisticated in daily; and the love to the life to continue even living in spite of the death…
Steve gave us in technology form and innovation what God gave him in intelligence, creativity and vital force. What had given us if he had been economist, poet, musician, philosopher, priest or political? Maybe Steve something of those things was not?
Steve taught us with his example of life that is not needed to be rich to enjoy the material progresses, and he worried because all the youths and adolescents of the world can gives to the technological products. There is the economist with social vocation.
Steve showed us how the dreams can become realities, with work, dedication and perseverance. There is the poet that announces and presents the metamorphosis of the idea that is materialized in realizations.
Steve taught us that the music can end up being truly universal, to pass over any barrier and to reconcile there with the cybernetic world full with pirates that prosper with the other people's effort, there is the artist's musician godfather and composer that waits a decorous recompense for its effort is.
Steve taught us that the daily life doesn't have to be subordinated to the technology, but rather the technology should serve to a better well-being that the machine should serve the human being and not the other way around. There is the philosopher that shows us art world, machine and daily life contribute equally to the sensation and happiness to live is.
Steve taught us that when one wants, he waits, he works and he requests with all his force and heart, like Santiago, any good achievement said it is possible. Also, he taught us that to preach and to practice what is believed is not separate. He preached and practiced. There the priest that left to the new generations a lesson of love and commitment with the ideal that becomes work and success is.
Steve taught us that the progresses should, and can, to benefit to all that the knowledge is to be able to that that well used power contributes to the well-being, and that the well-being is a human right. There is the politician that worked to democratize the access to the technology, is much more, and in silence that several governments or statesmen.
But Steve left us more something. He believed, as us that we all are valuable, but nobody is indispensable. Knowing that no material life is eternal, it shared its form of thinking and of to live with who surrounded him. The company Apple will continue still experiencing its innovative genius's influence. Contrary to others that prefer to be taken I get their virtues, he worried for “to leave school”, and while slipped discreetly behind of the scene, it supported their followers until their health told him that it was hour of stopping.
And Steve left.
Did Steve die? No, he only left…
The material death, compared with the immensity of the Life, is only a circumstance. Steve lives and will live for always because it has become eternal. It is true, it will be spoken of him successively less, like as spoken of the other geniuses of the History, but when makes it to him, makes it to him in present and not in past. In this, other big to who I admire more every time that I read it again, José Ortega y Gasset, say that to be eternal doesn't consist on extending in the time, impossible longevity, but staying presently of oneself, for the people of the future return to that time to learn of her, and of her protagonist. Then, to become eternal is not to be prolonged toward the future but rather the future directs the look toward that present, no matter how much it belongs to the past.
Steve has become an necessary reference of this time; he is not the only one, truth, but maybe he is the one that more has played the heart of who we have stayed here and a time will be more.
1975, 2011. Two different times, two different realities, and Steve had a lot to see in that...
Their departure not full with pain but of nostalgia for me. One is not able to, pain should not be felt by the departure of somebody that has lived intensely, and has taught us to make it. I didn't meet him personally, but it is as if had known it. At the end, as Gaboshi says when I write these lines with the heart more than with the reason, the good times are stays, as if they were pictures. Personally I keep many “pictures” as an immaterial treasure: Ariel pinching me the neck their first days of kinder, Carola boasting of having saved the spoon although the plate or Gabo has hurrying to its first day of kinder “to be in problems”. Yes, this is truth, Gaboshi, in the ingenuousness of your childhood you has a lot of reason…
And while Steve exchanges jokes with Newton, Leonardo, Pascal, Von Neumann, Edison and his other friends, it corresponds us to learn the good and positive of his life, pursuing our ideals as him made it, and he achieved it.
Bye, Steve, is it less we can make in your memory…
Ukamau the thing.