The Spirit of Steve Jobs

The artist as a young man

 Marcus T Anthony's new web site and blog can be found at: www.mind-futures.com.

Like many people I was shocked at the timing of Steve Jobs’ passing. In this post I am going to make a few somewhat dispersed points about this recent event.

When very famous and influential people die there is always an effect on the collective consciousness of humanity, albeit often a small one. In particular, individual egos will feel a slight increase in fear as the realisation of mortality deepens. The function of the ego is basically to keep you alive, so it’s no surprise that this is the case.

My sense is that the reason Job’s death has had such a strong impact is because of what he represents. He is the quintessential baby-boomer, born in 1955. Yet his influence transcends that generation to deeply effect generations X and Y. The mediator is of course, technology, and the Apple products that have become such a striking component of many people’s lives. Such has been his influence on the company, that Apple and Steve Jobs’ the man are sometimes difficult to separate.

Steve Jobs was a creative genius, and that genius has now gone from this world. This for me, and I suspect for many others, is one of the salient features of this entire event. For our power to take ideas and turn them into things lies at the very heart of the human experience. But now the mind that made Apple has passed. This is something of a shock to the ego, which likes to think of itself as immortal. The reality is that time waits for no man or woman, and that even the greatest expressions of human intelligence will soon be gone. It’s a humbling thought.

Pushing Kids to the Edge

Amy Chua and daughter

Marcus T Anthony's new web site and blog can be found at: www.mind-futures.com.

I first went to teach in a cram school in Taiwan in 1999. The school was for preschoolers and primary aged students (3-7 year olds). Not long after I arrived, I was party to a conversation with Jean, the 40 year-old school director, and a another western teacher. Jean was a real tough task master, a typical “Chinese” mother who believed that drilling kids and working them as hard as possible was absolutely necessary to raise successful children. On that day I heard Jean commenting about the parents of a child from another school, whom she found “really strange”. Apparently those parents let the child do “whatever it felt like doing.” “They are just too strange”, she kept repeating.

I’ll never forget that, because Jean’s views on raising children are very different from mine. IAs a long-time teacher I know how important it is to  believe it is exercise discipline, but it is equally important to teach kids autonomy and the capacity to sense what is right for themselves. The reason I bring this little incident up is because I was reminded of it by something which appeared in the media these past few days.

Chinese-American mother Amy Chua created a genuine stir this week when she penned an article entitled “Why Chinese mothers are superior”, for the New York Times, and detailing what she believes is the ideal parenting style. She calls it “Chinese parenting”.

Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of several books, including Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The book covers the same subject area as the article.

To say that Chua is a strict parent would be the understatement of the millennium. Her daughters Sophia and Louisa are carefully parented – some might say micromanaged. They are never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin. Click below to read more....       

Road to Bliss: Using Intuition to Buy or Read Books

 So many books, so little time!

 

If you are a person with a spiritual perspective on life, this short video blog should be very helpful to you. It outlines a very simple way to decide whether to buy/read a book or not. Wanting information to follow your Bliss? Look no further! 

Here's the link to the previous blog post I refer to in the video: Entanglement, the Next Big Thing".