The guy who changed everything, ctd

There's certainly no shortage of this on the internet. That is, people like you and me expressing our humble sense of grief in the wake of Steve Jobs' death. In the event of a public figure's death, I generally find myself slightly, but quietly cynical about the whole process of public grieving. To me, it seems the whole idea of expressing one's grief in plain view – let alone over the death of someone you never knew – seems to, in a way, diminish the loss of those who actually knew them. Such excessive displays of public grieving, it could be said, are almost acts of posturing. Unlike close friends, we are merely remote observers, and we ought to behave as such.

But this time it seems different. For perhaps the only time in my memory, I actually feel remotely affected by the event. I still shudder a little every time I see footage of public grieving over Princess Diana, and the kind I feel for the first time is a strange sort of grief: 'upset' or 'sad' would be the wrong word entirely in describing the feeling. Instead, the dislodging feeling that the world has lost something, something irreplaceable.

Attempting to diminish Jobs' achievements would be rather difficult indeed. It would be almost equally difficult for me to list them comprehensively here; they come in such volume and at such depth, we cannot possibly attempt to catalogue them concisely. But perhaps personally, his greatest achievements weren't the ones we might name. In a recent Times article, a close friend was quoted as saying: "I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left."

In many ways, Jobs' life resembles that of an artist, not only in the creation of beautifully-crafted products to which contributed so much, but in that – just like the great authors, poets, and other artists of the preceding centuries – he will retain some level of immortality in the work he produced. People are sure to not only use his products well into the future, they are intent upon talking about him, too. Which, I suppose, makes any Diana comparison horribly inapt, as the two seem completely incompatible in this sense: Steve Jobs actually achieved something. History is to ascribe the personal computer revolution to him.

We resonate with his story because it is perhaps the kind we might wish for ourselves. We respected and admired him because we felt a minute part of that story: the story of a man who founded a company and was fired, came back and made it a success, revolutionized industries and toppled business empires; the man who changed what anyone thought technology could be and, thus, changed the world; the man who challenged convention and won. Perhaps no other business leader in history has inspired such admiration and sorrow. This time, it's different. We're sad – but not in the weeping sense. Oddly, though, the fact that we never knew him seems to make no difference at all.

(Image: "Steven P. Jobs introduced the iPhone 4 in San Francisco in 2010." Jim Wilson/The New York Times)