[MacSpirit] Let's really think about the Macintosh spirit, about life

by Rodney O. Lain

1/18/00

If you make people think they're thinking, they will love you. If you make them really think, they will hate you.

Anonymous

 

The search for meaning is life's fundamental pursuit; all other questions are deemed secondary.

paraphrase of statement originally made by Philosopher Albert Camus and echoed by Psychologist Viktor Frankl

 

Unless a complicated argument can be simplified to appeal to the average person, the chances are great that the one doing the explaining does not understand it either.

Attributed to C. S. Lewis

Introduction: Childhood's End

In the long ago, seven-year-old days of my life, I'd read something that affected me profoundly.

The time was the summer of 1975. The place was the back seat of a loud-orange, 1974 Volkswagon Beetle -- you know, the original Beetle. The thing I don't remember is why I was in the backseat of that car, reading the Bible. Oh, now I remember: we'd just gotten home from Sunday church service at a local Baptist church.

(Digression -- I just remembered a good joke often told by my idol, the late Lewis Grizzard, a comedian and former columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, not to mention a Great American: "You know the difference between a Southern Baptist and a Northern Baptist?" he would ask rhetorically. "A Northern Baptist says 'there ain't no hell.' A Southern Baptist says 'the hell there ain't!'")

I guess it was funnier when he told it. After all, he was a regular guest on "Hee Haw," and they don't take just anyone.

Anyway, I was in that VW reading that Bible. I read it like any other book, starting at page one. Keep in mind that I was seven years old, so imagine me sitting there. I breezed through the part about God creating the "stars and the firmament," the fish, the fowl, Adam, Eve. Ditto for the lengthy sections about who begat whom. there was one passage, however, that terrified me: I read that Adam and Eve died.

Now, I wasn't fazed by the part that said they died because of sin -- that concept didn't even register. But I did have an inkling of death, and it was nothing like what I was reading. I remember reading that God told Adam that "dust thou art," and "to dust you will return".

I remember that I'd spent the subsequent hours mulling over this newfound concept of death and reeling over the implications.

I know, I know: I was a weird kid.

Anyway, I remember that all I could think of was the after-life from that point on. Extrapolating from what I'd read, I figured that after you died, you no longer existed; there was nothing but darkness. A cold corpse embraced by the eternal hug of Oblivion.

It scared me to no end. I couldn't totally wrap my mind around what I was reading -- but I'd wrapped up enough, and it freaked me out You see, up to that point, I didn't believe that kids grew up. I figured I'd be a kid forever, emphasis on the "forever" part.

I don't remember how I weathered that confrontation with my mortality; I just remembered the overwhelming fear and despair -- too much for a seven-year-old boy, barely awakening to the world around him.

Now, this does tie into things Macintosh. Just bear with me. But first, fast forward 10 years or so.

"Why?"

As a teenager, I always was asking "why?" In science class, I wanted to know why C6H12O6 was the formula for simple sugar; just accepting it wasn't enough. In math class, I wanted to know things like why Pi R squared is the area of a circle and why 2 Pi R is the circumference of a circle (I was eventually explained these two things in college course called Math Theory).

I stopped asking "why" around my friends, though. Whenever they wanted anything from me, I would always ask "Why?" or "How come?" I didn't realize I did this until they pointed in out, in characteristically teenaged manner. Something about the "coolness" factor -- or lack thereof -- of being inquisitive.

In later years, I graduated to asking deeper questions: why am I here? What is life all about? Is this life all that there is?

Think. Think Different. Think, period.

How many of you ponder these things at Christmastime? I do. Religion has influenced us to the point that we subconsciously act out religious concepts and allow them to shape and influence our lives. Christmas is the biggest time of the year for the average American -- even bigger if that person owns a retail business. But rarely, except for the occasional church service or Christmas pageant do we orbit the how's and why's, like why we do things like Christmas trees, mistletoe and "Merry Christmas!" Like "Just who was this Jesus guy?" I ponder them all the time.

Where did those things come from? What do they symbolize? What do they mean?

Forget that, let's cut to the chase: Is there a God? Like the opening quote says, once we figure that out, everything else is secondary.

Don't worry, I'm not here to argue a theistic worldview in this column. But I am here to encourage you to search the issue for yourselves.

And I am also here to ask you to ponder all of your beliefs. Why do you believe that the Macintosh is the better computing machine? Because Steve Jobs told you so? Because Applelinks supports the Mac?

Furthermore, is the Mac a computing machine or a computing experience?

Think about it. Think Different about it.

It was a pleasure to meet you

"Think Different" is my unwritten mantra from this day forward. I want to throw some rhetorical bones to you in this column and ask you to think different about the how's and the why's. We don't do that nearly enough.

Few people ponder the hard questions. Even fewer people are willing to do it publicly. We fear appearing foolish. Since I already know I am foolish, I haven't that obstacle to hold me back. I ask you, then, to join me each week, so that you can vicariously appear foolish as I ponder some things that I think you have pondered also.

I look forward to the topics that I want to present to you. I hope you will find the time to write back and add your two cents. I prefer dialogue to soliloquoy.

This column is © 2000 Rodney O. Lain. All rights reserved.

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About Rodney O. Lain

A former journalist and college prof, Rodney lives in Minnesota, where he freelance writes part-time and works for a Minneapolis-based software company. He has a soft spot for H. L. Mencken, Steve Jobs, Prince, Richard Wright and other well-known status-quo breakers.

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November 22, 2008