To the nonconformist

Alessia and I paid a visit to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue this week. And it made me think. 

We live in a world of conformists. What I can take away from Steve Jobs’ passing is how we’ve become extremely dependent on technology as a platform to express ourselves. Facebook and twitter have become an extension of our lives because we crave the attention of an audience, a sense of being recognized for some “thing”, an outlet for us to vent/relish/show-off/etc. Sometimes we try so hard to document each significant and/or insignificant detail of our daily lives into cyber space just to make up for that fact that our real life sucks. Before you form any prior judgments, I’m not speaking for everyone nor am I insinuating that people with facebook accounts have sucky lives – I’m merely referring to cases that hit closer to home. What’s sad is how we try to be someone else on line that we forget who we really are in the real world. Or that we try to morph into someone else just because they’re lives seem more cooler or more interesting on facebook without realizing how shallow it really is. It’s sad really. The internet has become as essential to the human race as the food we eat. Case in point, I know people who get really paranoid when they don’t have access to their phone/internet for more than 5 minutes. 


Yet, in hind sight our generation has also demonstrated how conforming to a cause can make a difference to our community and probably to the whole world. Yes, I’m talking about the whole occupy Wall Street movement. What we all can agree on is the fact that our generation is constantly upgrading our perception of the world, and there is nothing wrong with keeping track of these changes; What we should be cautious of is not losing ourselves along the way. So here’s to Steve Jobs, the nonconformist, Thank you for living a life that is truly your own!

"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 invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some 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." 

- Steve Jobs