Steve Jobs Helped Me Overcome Paranoia
At my core, I am a skeptic and contrarian. There is a healthy side of doubt, and an important place for the “unreasonable man” in our world, though this can get out of control.
In my mid-20’s, a massive disappointment, surrounding myself with people as crazy as me, and a lot of ego collided and exploded. The result was a crisis of meaning and manic depressive cycles that lasted two years.
There was one particularly crippling theme during this time. When I observed the world system — in particular the relationship between government, healthcare/pharmaceutical giants, and big agriculture — I was convinced there was a massive scheme to keep the population sick, but alive, in order to suck and accumulate wealth and power. It is probably disconcerting for anyone close to me to hear this, though maybe not surprising. (What may be scarier is that, to this day, I still think this way to some degree…)
Of all things, a Steve Jobs quote was a huge help toward changing my perspective, empowering me to live happy and healthy while coexisting with thoughts like this —
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.
And after listening to this short talk, I truly was not the same.
Three major takeaways from this statement have been a lifesaver for me:
- Those who effected the current system into being could have had good intentions, and like everyone else simply been fallible.
- Even if it there are evil cabals conniving together, leveraging a messed up world for their gain, well they aren’t any smarter than anyone else.
- We can, as individuals and groups, create something better. In fact, lucky for us, there’s never been a better time in world history to do just that.
