A PIXEL OF MY PICTURE

i'm not feeling so good right now.

i'm not sick, i'm just bleh..

i don't know how to explain it.

but i'll try.

being in college is fun. it's really fun. i love my roommates and the crazy things that we do. i never thought that shouting at the top of your lungs at one another just for fun is just that: fun. (you'd have to live here for a week to understand, it's something that i can't explain.)  i love our neighbors and the crazy things they do to us. it's good to have someone burst through your door uninvited, unexpected, and unannounced. there's just something about being interrupted from study or homework or napping that keeps you on your feet. i love being able to clean my room when i want and on my own schedule. i love learning the bigger things in life- the things that require a higher level of thinking. i love riding my bike to school every day. heck, i just straight up love my bike! i love going to scoreboard grill everyday and getting the same thing: build your own double, two slices of american cheese, barbecue sauce and ketchup, bacon and lettuce. i say it like that every single time- with the commas in the same place- hoping that one day i'll be able to walk up to the counter and say: 'i'll have the regular', and out will come a burger made just for me, just the way i like it. i love going to work and getting to solve problems that are way above my head. i love the fact that my muscles have memorized certain keystrokes that allow me to create a program in the same way i create music at a piano. there is a beauty and a great power in knowing how to make a computer do anything you can dream of. i love my dreams. and that's where i want to start.

my dreams.

who am i? i can guarantee that if someone close to me answered that question, somewhere within the first ten words would be the word Apple. in the next ten you'd hear 'computer' mentioned twice. and in the next twenty would be the phrase 'he'll be the next Steve Jobs'. do you have any idea how badly that scares me- the fact that i've tied my life so closely to something that can simply be wiped from existence by a newer, cooler little box that has a few chips inside with a screen that displays fancy ones and zeros? the fact that three out of five conversations i have in the day are about computers and why one is better than the other? and not just that but the fact that people expect me to do something great? it consumes me. let me put it like this. have you ever sat on a bench in a public place, maybe in the shade of a tree or something more man-made, and just watched the people passing by? and have you ever wondered, what is he thinking about? where is he going? who does he want to see most right now? i walk by. the answers are: the future. to work. no one. that's my life. i have become so obsessed with inventing and creating that i've forgotten why i love the things i do. i'll explain. i love Apple for many reason, but at the core, at the very center, is one very simple and very plain answer. and i think the answer is best represented in these words.

"This is what we believe. Technology alone is not enough. Faster, thinner, lighter: those are all good things. But when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful. Even magical. That's when you leap forward. That's when you end up with something... like this."

it's because technology alone is not enough. technology is cold, hard, and mean. it doesn't care about you or what you're doing. in fact, often times it will hinder you and misbehave, deleting what you've dedicated your time to working on. frankly, the only thing it cares about is the electrons running across it's arsenic-laced paths. and that's where people tend to be blinded by it. they misunderstand it. they embrace it as it is- they think it's wonderful, that it will help them. they are wrong. they are dead wrong. it takes someone with a vision and a heart to make it right. but not only to make it right- to make it human. that's the point. that's what most people don't understand. you have to be able to stare the man in the eye, forget the wrongs he's done, forget the lies he's told and things he's stolen, and believe in him. believe that he can be a good person. then you have to make him a great person. only then will he be your friend. he will work for you, help you, keep your wellbeing at the front of his mind. he will talk to you, teach you things and together, you really can change the world.

it's through those eyes that you have to look at technology. it's not until you make it human that you can make it great. and that's what i've lost sight of. i've disconnected. i want to be great. i want to share my vision of the future, of what technology can do for us, with the world. i want to share it for the world. i want to build it. i want people to see what i see. but i can't do it unless i remember that.

"Technology alone is not enough. It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing." - Steve Jobs

it's heavy.

it's a heavy thing to want. that's why i feel bleh. i feel like if i don't deliver then i've failed. but that's me. that's what i want.

i'm a different person once you know what i spend every waking second of life thinking about, aren't i? i mean, just listen to me. i sound crazy. but the craziest thing is- i believe it. i believe that i can do it. i'm crazy enough to want to do it. and that's why i will. it would only be fitting to finish with this.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

 i love this stuff. i hope i didn't lose you there. it's hard to explain the core reasons behind what you love. but i did my best. it feels like a huge incomplete sentence that just runs on and on. but it feels good. that's the most complete picture of my mind to date. and what you got was a pixel. i wish you could see the whole thing.