Four Percent Survival Rate

Twenty-five years ago when my grandmother died of pancreatic cancer at 68, portable music was a boombox, playing video games required a trip to the arcade, the telephone was wired to a wall and the five year survival rate for pancreatic cancer was 4%.  Today phones, music, movies and games are all on one machine called an iphone we carry around with us everywhere we go.  The man who made it died last week of pancreatic cancer at 56, because the 5 year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is still 4%. 

You can be one of the most influential men in the world, whose creativity changed the way we work, communicate and play, who created companies that influence the financial integrity of entire countries and the behavior of every stock exchange in the world, who created technology to consolidate the contents of 700 books onto a machine the size of a coloring book, and put a computer into almost every home in the country, but cancer doesn't care. 

Respect and thank you Mr. Jobs.  Rest in peace.  I'll try not to think too much on what you could have done for the world with another 56 years.  Instead I'll try to help do it for you.  Big shoes to fill. 

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"“Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose... There is no reason not to follow your heart.” - Steve Jobs

Writer's Block

You walk around with the character you've created, in him, as him.  You see the world through his eyes.  You drive to work, order food, drink coffee, listen to music, look at porn as him.  And you slowly start to realize, that no matter how successful the book is, how lucrative the movie deal, how much money you make, you won't ever get to actually sleep with him.  You can create him, you can bring him to life, you can share him with the world.  You will know everything about him, his deepest fears, his biggest secrets, his strengths and his weaknesses.  You will fall in love with him.  But he will never love you back, because he doesn't exist.  Because he's you.  And you don't want to sleep with you.  You fucking hate yourself.  That's how the whole thing got started in the first place. No matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you work, no matter how many producers you know, the best you're ever going to get is a chance to look at his picture.  The picture you painted yourself.  But you know what?  It's a hell of a nice picture.