The curious matter of Steve Jobs vs. my grandmother

When we were in middle school, our grandmother came to stay with us for an extended period of time.  We would thus spend a lot of time with her accompanying her on walks and chatting with her in the evenings before going to bed.

One piece of advice she gave was that we say a short prayer or repeat the name of a God just before going to bed or just as we were waking up.  She did not offer any more explanation as to why this was important, other than that it would be good for us.

Over the years, I have grown up to be what I can best describe as a skittish agnostic.  

A Skittish Agnostic

I am generally agnostic because I have been reared by science.  And I have the firm confidence, that if we discover a law here, it will apply there.  When an apple falls to the ground, I don't pray to it.  Rather, I can apply Newton's laws to it, and be confident it not only applies to that apple, but to entire planets in the solar system!  That is the power of science.  So whether it is evolution or physical laws, the power of science to explain means that we need no extraneous factors to explain how things work.  And for those things that we do not know, we keep applying the experimental method till the secrets reveal themselves.

However, I am skittish as well.  When I think of the well being of my near and dear, emotions are as important as reason.  And there is nothing I want to do, that will provoke a scorekeeper with a karmic calculator to punch in a net-negative in my account.

Hence, I tend to be a skittish agnostic.  The agnosticism feeds confidence that a law exists waiting to be discovered that shall be applied regardless and the skittishness drives the constant desire to seek the larger meaning of reality.

So whether or not I exactly follow my grandmother's prescription, I do feel that I invest the time in asking larger questions.

Steve Jobs

Which brings me to Steve Jobs.

The other day, while sleeping I happened to be disturbed by a slight glow on my wife's blanket.  I ignored it for a while but kept being drawn by it.  I thought some window was open and maybe the street light was streaming at an angle.  But all the windows were shut.

I was really curious.  Now awake, I looked more intently at my wife's blanket and discovered that the light was coming from inside the blanket!  I move the blanket aside to see that she was using the Apple iPad.

In a little while she switched it off and went to bed.

Presently a 6 AM alarm went off.  It was then that I noticed that both of us reached out to our respective iPhones to switch off our alarms.  Did we shut off the phone?  

No.

We both proceeded to check our emails.  I promise you, neither one of us had important emails in the inbox, nor were we expecting any.  But we checked anyway.  In particular, my work blackberry is something I do not bring into my bedroom for fear of being stressed by work emails.

The iPhone is so integrated between calendar, the web and email and apps like the alarm and flashlight, that it is just a handy device to have.

So now, instead of following my grandmother's advice of saying a short prayer before going to bed and just before waking up, skittish agnostic that I am, have thrown in the towel to bow to gadget that has been created and rather than asking larger questions, am stuck with deleting junk email from vendors hawking everything from books to saucepans!

Invasion of the iProduct

On the train, in the cars, at work, pedestrians, kids in cars, sleepers under their blankets, teeny tots while eating - everywhere I see, in the curious matter of Steve Jobs vs my grandmother, electronic gadgets are dominating mindshare.

In this holiday season more iPads and more iPhones and more iTouches are going to be bought as gifts.

A wish

As a skittish agnostic, I would like to send best wishes from my grandmother that we take a deep breath, take a pause, take a step back away from the tweets and beeps and occasionally ask life's larger questions.