I was listening to a podcast yesterday, and they played a newly found clip of an interview with Steve Jobs, recorded back in 1994. Jobs has just left Apple for the first time, and he was reflecting on his legacy. Contrary to expected, he is extremely pragmatic, claiming that everything he has done will be obsolete by the time he turned 50 (which was slightly melancholy, remembering how soon after 50 he died). Although I’ve never been part of the cult of Jobs (and as an English teacher I can never forgive Apple for the “Think Different” campaign,) but this resonated with me deeply and corresponded to remarks that I have made.
Here is the part I liked
Working in the area of educational technology brings with it many things, frustration, minor victories, amazing friendships, but the one thing it guarantees absolutely is a lack of permanence. I did a couple of talks last week that I originally wrote three years ago, and in revision I was shocked by the amount of ideas and facts that had been run over by the realities of just two years. I know speakers in other disciplines who go on the road for decades with basically the same ideas and just a little new stuff at the end. Likewise the programs and strategies that I work on will be shown to be laughably wrong or incomplete in a very short amount of time. If I’m lucky like Jobs, I’ll stay around long enough to bury my own ideas, but even these burials will be shoveled over before I am. Technology, particularly in the field of education, has no permanence, no monuments, no Mona Lisa’s.
However, as the video suggests there is a different kind of immortality (to use a very lofty word) in these endeavors. The evolving field, with all of the stages and people involved, is its own kind of cathedral. Our ultimate contribution may be a small layer, but as medieval cathedral builders (at least in legend) we lay our bones into the structure to build it up just a tiny bit higher. Unlike a cathedral, our monument will never be done, but we keep building higher and higher, all the way to the stars.
I’m a working on building I’m a working on building For my Lord, for my Lord It’s a holy ghost buildingIt’s a holy ghost building It’s a holy ghost buildingFor my Lord, for my Lord If I was a preacher I tell you what I would do I would keep on preaching and work on the building too
And that’s what it’s all for.
As always, I invite your comments
Image: ‘p.v. jensen-klint 05, grundtvig memorial church 1913-1940’http://www.flickr.com/photos/94852245@N00/2164161632 Found on flickrcc.net
And thanks to Bill Monroe for the lyrics to “Working on the Building”
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I like and I agree! I think a major difference is that I am ok with it. Building one’s legacy as a Catholic educator is about the relationships we build and those we help. Bringing Christ to others is of importance. Little else matters.