I looked forward to reading this past Friday’s Yukon News edition, in part to maybe get away from the Jobs crisis.
No, I don’t mean the recession. I mean the death of Steve Jobs.
On Facebook, I am bombarded with messages about Jobs. Usually people are either outraged with the tears shed for one man, or they display real sentiment for the death of a neat guy, father and tech icon of our age.
Alas, in the middle of the paper I came across Andrew Robulack’s column (which I usually enjoy à and likely still will in the weeks to come).
His genuine grief at the death of Jobs is expressed, but morphs into a eulogy claiming that Steve Jobs was the axis for our world and, without him, we are lost.
I have to admit his heartfelt words befuddled me à prompting a gag reflex.
He writes, “With the death of Jobs, not only technology but culture has stalled.” Moreover, he laments that with his absence we have lost someone who “made our lives magical.”
Do I live on a different planet entirely?
Snow at Christmas makes our lives magical.
Family, potlucks, hot baths, concerts, music É you name it à almost anything else makes our lives magical.
Not Steve Jobs.
If the iPad were gone tomorrow, we would cry, weep, mourn and, in two weeks, get on with our lives. Culture has more longevity than that.
As a Medievalist, I can admit certain technologies have changed the shape of our world (the printing press, wheel, gramophone). But our culture is bigger than the evolution of these tools.
Culture is not ebooks, planes and iTunes à rather it is words, travel and music à get my point?
Robulack’s young son saw the tears in his father’s eyes after Robulack heard about Jobs’ death.
His son said to him, “What are we gonna do now?”
Can I make a suggestion?
Take him on a walk, to a concert, to a birthday party or even just carve a pumpkin next week and remind him what culture truly is.
It is something alive, beyond an “application” and outside the confines of a touch screen.
Marlon Davis
Whitehorse