Setting Eternity

From Scott Hoezee

If you have been paying even moderate attention to the media of late, then you know the huge amount of attention that has been paid to Steve Jobs since his untimely death.   Some of the attention has gone to Walter Isaacson, whose authorized biography of Mr. Jobs was ready to come out remarkably close to Jobs' death in early October.  On several of the interviews of Isaacson that I have heard, the author included this snippet, which if you have likewise heard these interviews, then you know how striking this is.  

Near as I can tell, Steve Jobs was not what you'd call a religious man in any traditional sense.  His proclivities were decidedly Eastern but even then not straight-up one tradition or another.  I am not aware of his ever having had much to do with any offshoot of the Christian tradition.   According to Isaacson, Jobs did not have much to say about an afterlife.   But not too long before he died, he did muse with his biographer on the idea that maybe--just maybe--something of the essence of a person could survive death.   Maybe our wisdom or something about us goes on.   But then, Jobs went on to say, at other times he thinks that perhaps life and death are more or less like an "On/Off" switch--you're On for a time and then . . . you're Off.

Stunningly, however, he then indicated his dislike of that thought.   "Maybe that's why I never put an On/Off switch on Apple devices."

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