I spent far too many hours of college time playing games on a friend’s Apple when I ought to have been studying.

I started my career sitting at a desk with an Apple computer.

And I first surfed the net, very slowly, on an Apple.

 

There was a time when those of us who were pretty ordinary would roll our eyes affectionately at the Mac-users with their adoration and their geekery. Like who could actually love a machine?

But I fell for it for a while. In fact, it wasn’t really until I moved on to my second real job and had to use a PC that I realised how much I’d fallen in love too.

 

Things have moved on, of course, and there surely can’t be many of us leading totally Apple-free lives. Almost everyone I know has an i-something.

We walk to work with our entire record collection in our pocket, and we entertain ourselves with being able to surf or play games or watch videos along the way.

 

I had no idea that Steve Jobs was quite so ill. I knew that he’d stepped back from his CEO role, but I didn’t realise how bad things were for him.

Any death is sad for the life that ends, and for the people that have to continue with a connected life missing.

But Steve Jobs has been part of connecting all of our lives, and I’m saddened for all of us.

 

And I’m saddened for craziness and bravery and the courage to try new things.

There are so few people in this world who have sufficient faith in their own craziness to be able to take it and share it with the world.

It’s something about youth, I think, and that small space in all of our lives where we are strong enough and energetic enough to push forward with our dreams.

Steve Jobs was one of those very rare people who held onto that space for long enough to use it for something really special.

And he really did change our world. What a legacy. RIP.