31 October 2011 | Not So Magical Thinking

Over a couple of drinks, a friend asked me if I had read the new Steve Jobs biography, and when I admitted that I hadn't, he appeared surprised. "What," he asked with incredulity, "I can't believe that you don't have a copy of it on every Apple device you own!"

What with wall to wall coverage of the book, actually reading it seems more like a formality than anything else. And how fitting that bite-sized chunks are the preferred method of discussing the book rather than actually sitting down to read it. But what gets me more is that for all his purported genius, Jobs fell prey to the type of magical thinking that everyone else has when they get bad health news: this can't be happening to me. Doesn't this cancer know who I am?

Playing "what if" is maybe a lazy way to write, but I can't help thinking that if Jobs had taken his doctor's advice when his cancer was first detected, the obit would have been pushed back for quite some time. There's no guarantee of that, of course, but the general consensus is that he hastened his own demise with the magical thinking that macrobiotics or whatever New Age food nonsense he believed in would save him. And I find it especially ironic that he would praise the people of India for their natural "intuitive" way of life to the overly rational West. It's an attitude that is pretty indicative of California types who idealize the exotic East and talk about "lost knowledge" and simpler ways of life. Apparently, Jobs mistook "intuitive" for always being "invincible." I'd venture to say that when people in India get sick, they go to a Western-trained doctor as well. 

This is not to speak ill of the dead, of course. I like to think of all the "magical and revolutionary" products he might have helmed had he lived. But in the end, genius, money, fame, intrusiveness and magical thinking can all be easily felled by a bad decision.