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歴史の裏方 [読書]
「スパイス、爆薬、医薬品 世界史を変えた17の化学物質」、ペニー・ルクーター／ジェイ・バーレサン 著 小林力 訳、2011年ISBN：978-4-12-004307-9
学校で習った世界史（そして日本史も）は戦争を中心に歴史が動いたと展開され、そのように思い込まされてきた。さらに、勝敗の帰趨は指揮官の作戦、武力、希に自然現象と。 （近年では様々な研究結果が反映され、エピソードも取り上げられているようだが）
そして、戦争の起きる最大の原因は食料と財宝、土地と労働力の収奪にあるとの小生の浅薄な概念もこの学校教育のたまものかも知れない。いや、ちまたの庶民向け世界史、日本史にも直裁的には指摘されていないが、通奏低音のように流れていた。
文明が発達するに従って、これらの欲求は「経済活動の拡大」という趣旨で解釈されるのかも知れない。
近年このような固定された歴史観とは別の史観による研究も書籍に纏められるようになってきた。
本書は、その副題にあるように、歴史の流れに大きく影響した事柄を「化学物質」から俯瞰したものである。結果的には経済活動の拡大ではあったが、その下には２、３の例外を除いて、必ずしも暴力によって直接相手を組み伏せるというような意図・手段では無かったようだが。
「17の化学物質」ということで、スパイス、医薬、爆薬、染料、繊維、など実用の面から17章に章立てされているが、それぞれが単独にあるのではなく、また、17分子以上に周辺の分子も取り上げられている。
このような武力を中心とした世界変革とは別の視点としては以前から疾病－風土病を中心取り上げられている。小生の手元にあるものとしては、ジンサーによる「ネズミ、シラミ、文明」1934年、マクニールによる「疫病と世界史」1977、「ダイアモンドによる「銃・病原菌・鉄」（こちらは武器も含むが）1997、続編の「文明崩壊」2005がある。
これらは、疾病が歴史上大きな役割を果たしたのではないかとの指摘である。そしてこのような研究の道を開くきっかけとなったのが、明治時代に出された医学者富士川 游の著述ともいわれている。疫病に関しては別の機会に取り上げるとして...
ちなみに、本書の章立てを転記しておく
序章
一章 胡椒、ナツメグ、クローブ 大航海時代を開いた分子
二章 アスコルビン酸 オーストラリアがポルトガル語にならなかったわけ
三章 グルコース アメリカ奴隷制度を生んだ甘い味
四章 セルロース 産業革命を起こした綿繊維
五章 ニトロ化合物 国を破壊し山を動かす爆薬
六章 シルクとナイロン 無上の交易品とその合成代用品
七章 フェノール 医療現場の革命とプラスチックの時代
八章 イソプレン 社会を根底から変えた奇妙な物質
九章 染料 近代科学工業を生んだ華やかな分子
十章 医学の革命 アスピリン、サルファ剤
（本章と17章は主題と副題スタイルが入れ替わっている；細かいことだが）
十一章 避妊薬 女性の社会進出を後押しした錠剤
十二章 魔術の分子 幻想と悲劇を生んだ天然毒
十三章 モルヒネ、ニコチン、カフェイン アヘン戦争と三つの快楽分子
十四章 オレイン酸 黄金の液体は西欧文明の神話的日常品
十五章 塩 社会の仕組みを形作った人類の必須サプリメント
十六章 有機塩素化合物 便利と快適を求めた代償
十七章 マラリアvs.人類 キニーネ、DDT、変異ヘモグロビン
エピローグ
主眼が化学物質であるからニトロベンゼンやマスタードガス、ホスゲンなど武器に相当する物質も取り上げられているが。
「禁断の科学」再読 [読書]
「禁断の科学」、池内 了、晶文社、2006年ISBN：4-7949-6701-2
本書は約５年前にここで取り上げている（http://ayumukai.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2007-02-19）。
大きく二部に分かれ、第一部は戦争と科学者、第二部は現代科学の光と影である。その第二部のはじめが「原子力の時代―原発を巡る諸問題」で、本書を読む以前に小生の懸念していたことを取り上げた。
再読では『原子力発電所の事故や核兵器の危険性についての認識を日々新たにしておかなければならない。それを忘れて「安全神話」がまかり通るようになるのが一番恐ろしいことである。いったん事故が起これば、悲惨な被害者が多数出るだけでなく、社会的混乱が引き起こされる事は必至であるからだ。』ということで、自然界のエネルギー利用における原子化学反応と原子核反応の違いが説明されている。
後者のエネルギー発生量は１万～100万倍になるが、それを化学反応の技術で操作しようとしていることに原子力（いわゆる平和利用）の危険性の本質だと指摘している。今回この点が強く印象に残った。
原子力発電にかかる「原子炉破壊」、「放射性廃棄物」、「廃炉」、「放射線被曝」、「プルトニウム」の問題点を説明し、原子力発電を主張する人々の論拠「原発を止めれば電力不足になり市民生活が阻害される」、「クリーンエネルギーである」、「発電単価が安い」、「燃料供給が安定している」、「日本のエネルギー源を多様にしている」に批判を加えている。
題名詐称？ [読書]
「世界でもっとも美しい10の科学実験」、ロバート・P・クリース/ 青木 薫 (訳) 、日経BP社、2006ISBN: 978-4822282875
著者が物理学を専門とする研究者に「美しい」と考えられる実験を募り、最も多くの名前が挙がった10点を取り上げている。当然のことながら全てがほとんど物理学に関係する分野の実験である。
タイトルで「科学実験」としながら、化学や医学・生命科学などは含まれていない。同じ出版社から『もうひとつの「世界でもっとも美しい10の科学実験」』、ジョージ・ジョンソン著 吉田三知世 訳が出版されているとのこと。こちらは個人が選定したもので、化学・生物学・医学もカバーしている。次に読んでみたい。http://ec.nikkeibp.co.jp/item/books/P84020.html
生命化学の分野からは番外編（終章）でメセルソン＆スタールのＤＮＡ複製に関する実験が５行ほどで触れられている。この実験は確かに美しい。私としてはハーシー＆チェイスの遺伝情報を担っているのはＤＮＡであることを証明した実験の方がより美しいと思っている。
遺伝物質はタンパク質か核酸かとの論争がある中、エイブリーが肺炎双球菌を使って核酸であることの確証に苦労している中、実に単純明快に解決した実験である。
それでも本書で取り上げられた実験の多くは耳にした事があり、「なるほどそうだったのか」と改めて先人の偉大さを認識させられるところである。
ところで、「電子を見る」というミリカンの油的実験において、彼はデータを取捨選択したことを論文にきちんと表明している。この点について研究者で論議を醸し出すところである。
その他の有名な実験でも、後世あまりにもデータが整いすぎていると指摘されるものがいくつもある。その代表的なものがメンデルの交配実験である。これについてはだいぶ前にその事を考証した本を読んで、印象に残っている。これを思い出した。ミリカンはきちんと表明しているだけ科学者らしいと言えるのかとも思うが。
SONYのイメージ [その他]
今朝、ＪＲ電車でソニーの電子書籍の車内広告を初めて見た。そのうちに一つにソニーの道徳規範に疑問を重ねる作品があった。
最近プラットホームや歩行者専用路で携帯電話を見ながら歩いてホームから転落したり電車や人にぶつかる事故が多くなった。特にスマートフォンが広まってからそのような事故が増えていると警鐘されているところである。
どこでも、何時でも書籍が手軽に読めるという意図を表現したのだろうが、そのような警鐘に対してあえて挑戦するソニーの道徳観には大いに失望させられた。まさに電車に乗り降りする場面でのこのような構図は迷惑千万と言える。
このような広告を見れば、「やはりどこで見ても良いんだ」と警鐘を無視することになある。
当該広告は自社制作ではなく、広告代理店が作成したものだとの言い訳もありそうだが、できあがって確認してＧＯサインを出すのはソニーの営業部なり、担当部署では無かろうか。
このような事例は今回に限らない。広告ではないが、最初に、携帯できるカセットデッキ ウォークマンが登場し、柳の下を狙う同業者が類似品をどんどん出すようになって、電車や路上でそれらから漏れ出る騒音に大きな苦情が出たものである。
その時、いわゆる「ノイズキャンセリング」システムを搭載して、周囲への迷惑を予防することが可能であると考えたのだが、一介のサラリーマンでは資力も能力もなく、どこかのメーカーが開発しないかと祈念していた。
最近になってこのようなシステムがウォークマンに搭載されたようだが、残念なことに公共指向ではなく傍若無人な購入者指向である。周りの人々に迷惑をかけないようにするのではなく、（これによって音量を下げられると言うが）あくまでも携帯者を保護する視点からの開発である。
これまで種々のＡＶ機器、ＰＣひいては、プロバイダーも系列会社などＳＯＮＹを選択してきたが、ここに来て、こりゃだめだと考えるようになった。最も、他の企業も似たり寄ったりだが、期待の反動は大きい。
最近プラットホームや歩行者専用路で携帯電話を見ながら歩いてホームから転落したり電車や人にぶつかる事故が多くなった。特にスマートフォンが広まってからそのような事故が増えていると警鐘されているところである。
どこでも、何時でも書籍が手軽に読めるという意図を表現したのだろうが、そのような警鐘に対してあえて挑戦するソニーの道徳観には大いに失望させられた。まさに電車に乗り降りする場面でのこのような構図は迷惑千万と言える。
このような広告を見れば、「やはりどこで見ても良いんだ」と警鐘を無視することになある。
当該広告は自社制作ではなく、広告代理店が作成したものだとの言い訳もありそうだが、できあがって確認してＧＯサインを出すのはソニーの営業部なり、担当部署では無かろうか。
このような事例は今回に限らない。広告ではないが、最初に、携帯できるカセットデッキ ウォークマンが登場し、柳の下を狙う同業者が類似品をどんどん出すようになって、電車や路上でそれらから漏れ出る騒音に大きな苦情が出たものである。
その時、いわゆる「ノイズキャンセリング」システムを搭載して、周囲への迷惑を予防することが可能であると考えたのだが、一介のサラリーマンでは資力も能力もなく、どこかのメーカーが開発しないかと祈念していた。
最近になってこのようなシステムがウォークマンに搭載されたようだが、残念なことに公共指向ではなく傍若無人な購入者指向である。周りの人々に迷惑をかけないようにするのではなく、（これによって音量を下げられると言うが）あくまでも携帯者を保護する視点からの開発である。
これまで種々のＡＶ機器、ＰＣひいては、プロバイダーも系列会社などＳＯＮＹを選択してきたが、ここに来て、こりゃだめだと考えるようになった。最も、他の企業も似たり寄ったりだが、期待の反動は大きい。
自閉症とiPad [ネット記事から]
李啓充氏のブログから
「私の場合、iPod に限らず、ジョブズとアップルが新製品を発表する度に「Oh Wow!」と唸らされること繰り返してきたのだが、つい最近、彼が開発したある商品が自閉症児とその親達に大きな福音を与えつつあるということを知って、改めて「Oh Wow!」と唸らされることとなった。」
「ここでは、言葉を話すことのできなかった自閉症児達がiPadをコミュニケーションの手段として使いこなす実例として、報道番組としては昔から定評のある「60ミニッツ」（ＣＢＳ）が10月23日に放送したばかりのビデオをリンクした。他者に自分の意思や感情を伝えることができたときの患児達の喜びの表情、そして、「我が子の心の中を始めて見ることができた」と感涙にむせぶ親達の姿を見て、「Oh Wow!」と唸るのは私だけではないだろう。」
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385686n
http://blog.livedoor.jp/goredsox/archives/1667789.html
「私の場合、iPod に限らず、ジョブズとアップルが新製品を発表する度に「Oh Wow!」と唸らされること繰り返してきたのだが、つい最近、彼が開発したある商品が自閉症児とその親達に大きな福音を与えつつあるということを知って、改めて「Oh Wow!」と唸らされることとなった。」
「ここでは、言葉を話すことのできなかった自閉症児達がiPadをコミュニケーションの手段として使いこなす実例として、報道番組としては昔から定評のある「60ミニッツ」（ＣＢＳ）が10月23日に放送したばかりのビデオをリンクした。他者に自分の意思や感情を伝えることができたときの患児達の喜びの表情、そして、「我が子の心の中を始めて見ることができた」と感涙にむせぶ親達の姿を見て、「Oh Wow!」と唸るのは私だけではないだろう。」
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385686n
http://blog.livedoor.jp/goredsox/archives/1667789.html
スティーブ･ジョブス氏のスタンフォード大学でのスピーチ [ニュースから]
ジョブズの卒業祝賀スピーチ（2005年6月12日、スタンフォード大学）
文章
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152625&cid=12810404
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.
My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because 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. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Thank you all, very much.
Macのハイパーカードにはずいぶんお世話になった。
ご冥福を
文章
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152625&cid=12810404
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.
My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because 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. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Thank you all, very much.
Macのハイパーカードにはずいぶんお世話になった。
ご冥福を
ふるさとの言葉に込められた家族の思い出 [読書]
「まっと、空の方に。 ぼくをみちびく ふるさとのことば」、泉 英昌、文遊社、2004ISBN-13: 978-4892570445
いきなり、『鳥取県では、子供でもタバコすう。』とありびっくりさせられる。
大丈夫、続いて 『ひと休みすることを「タバコすう」と言う。』と説明される。
「一服する」に近いけれど、大人だけでなく、子供にも平気で使えてしまう。
遠足の休憩も「ここでタバコすうぞ！」と言う。...
歩き続けるために、いちばん大切なことは、タバコをすうことだと、子供のころから教えられた。...
働かない人は、タバコも仕事のひとつであることを知らない。...
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建具職人の父親との思い出。字は書けなくとも人としての道を方言で教えてくれたおばあちゃん。母親。54の方言に込められた家族の思い出が詰まっている。
この本を読みながら、小学校時代に開平や計算尺の使い方を教えてくれた父や、そのほとんどを忘れてしまったが昔からの生活・気象・季節・農作業などに関する言い伝えを教えるともなく語ってくれた祖母などを思い出す。
県庁おもてなし課 [読書]
「県庁おもてなし課」、有川 浩、角川書店、2011ISBN：978-4-04-874182-8
すでにご承知の高知県庁観光課を舞台に若いカップルの成長物語。ではあるが、実はかつて、観光客誘致の目玉として「パンダ誘致論」をぶっつけたものの受け入れられず追われるのようにして県庁を去ったが、民宿を営み地域観光興隆に熱意を持ち続ける清遠和政の物語である。
高知県の観光特使を依頼された著者が、導入部はその経緯を反映したものの、出身地を熟知した（そして、引き受けるにあたって調査した）高知の観光スポットを取り上げ、読者に訪れたくさせる内容にもなっている。同時に、著者も後書きで触れているように、展開される観光客誘致策の考え方はどの地域でも当てはまる。
と言うわけで、舞台は高知県ではあるが、それぞれの府県の立場で読んでみては？
横山操「瀟湘八景」 [読書]
「横山 操 現代の日本画10」、児島 薫編、学研、1991ISBN：978-4051044053
何年か前、三重県立美術館で安井曾太郎の巡回展があり、旅行社の企画によるバスツアーに参加した。道中インストラクターによる解説があったが、切手の図柄にもなった彼の有名な作品「金蓉」は当展覧会には入っていないということぐらいしか記憶にない。
目玉の巡回展の他、当美術館の所蔵する横山操の「瀟湘八景」についても解説に及び、さらに彼はその後の越路十景（当館には所蔵されていない）の方が良いと言ったようだった。横山操についてはこの時初めて名前を聞き、作品も知ったのだが、このようなわけで、特にそれ以上の印象もなかった。
さて、美術館に到着して、まずは安井曾太郎の作品を見て回ったわけだが、多くが特に印象も残るほどではなかった。ただ、人物画についてはいずれのモデルも人格がにじみ出ているようで、凄いと感じた。彼は人物画の作家なのだと見直した。
続いて残りの時間で常設展を見て回って、最後に「瀟湘八景」に至ったのだが、展示室に入ってこちらから回れば良かったと残念に思った。縦121cm、横243cmの大きな和紙に墨絵が８点、展示室の周囲の壁に掛けられている。このような大きさに思い至っていなかったが、圧倒的な迫力である。八景全て良しであるが、とりわけ「瀟湘夜雨」が凄い。
残り僅かの時間となって売店に至り複製を求めようとしたが、サイズが小さく、目当ての「瀟湘夜雨」もなかったので断念した。帰宅後にせめて画集か図録でもと探したが、瀟湘八景は小さな画面で、しかも八景全てというのは見当たらず、という状態が続いたが、昨年やっと本書を入手した。
大判の本書で、八景中３景は見開きサイズでやはり見応えがある。越路十景も掲載されている。こちらは多くに彩色されていいるようだ。「親不知夜雨」が見開きいっぱいであり、同じく「出雲崎晩鐘」に比べて迫力がある。惜しむらくは「上越暮雪」、「越前雨晴」も大きなサイズであれば。
本書にはこれらも含め83点が採録されている。それらについては別の機会に。
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