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2011 was probably the best year of my life. It’s gonna be a tough one to top but hell, I’m gonna try my hardest. Below are my goals and resolutions. I will successfully fulfill about 16% of these.

- Make money. Become financially independent. Buy my mom a pink Cadillac.
- Spend less money.
- Apparently you’re a writer now. That’s what people tell you. So write. Everyday. Preferably five hours or more.
- Write longhand more frequently.
- Block access to all websites other than Wikipedia while writing. Absolutely no emails.
- Write more prose and short fiction. More poetry.
- Become a better photographer. Take more photos.
- Read more. Interesting things. Biographies. Books on art. On design. On philosophy. On ideas.
- See more movies. Foreigns and classics. Documentaries. Stop supporting stupid movies by giving them my money at the box office.
- You tried this once already in 2011 but . . . learn to draw. Paint.
- Take photoshop class/tutorial. If you’re feeling really ambitious, take an html coding class/tutorial.
- Drink less alcohol.
- Go to more museums and galleries. Go to more concerts.
- Make up for music you download illegally by purchasing more records on vinyl.
- Check social media less frequently. Once at breakfast. Once at lunch. Once in the evening. No more.
- Leave phone on silent more often. Better yet, leave phone in the car. Observe life again. Don’t be glued to the iPhone screen. Don’t be a slave to the noise.
- Play more basketball. Play more catch. Hike more often. Take up a boxing class. Go to Yoga once a week. Run more. Create some sort of workout routine. Stick to it.
- Eat better. Eat out less. Cook for yourself more. Cook better things. More fish. More fruit. More vegetables. Less bread. Less beer. Less sugar.
- Watch The Sopranos and The Wire.
- Make more daily to-do lists so that at the end of the day I can address a bunch of things at once as opposed to having little things interrupt the flow of my day and break my concentration.
- Focus. Focus. Focus.
- Be present.
- Don’t be a chump.
- Have more patience.
- Be kinder to people.
- Take vitamins.
- Write letters to people.
- Don’t take life for granted. If the Mayans are indeed right, you only have twelve more months to enjoy the simple things in life. Like a good cheeseburger. And afternoon naps. And Bob Dylan. And your friends. And family. And that incredible part in the ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ demo where Paul Westerberg pauses a few beats too long between, “I can’t wait . . . . . . hardly wait.” Brutal.

Eddie O’KEEFE (Dec. 31. 2011)

Let me start this by saying, I don’t know for a fact that Steve Jobs is dying. I assume the rumors are true. I do know that he has cancer. And bad. Pancreatic. Like many of you, I’ve seen the TMZ paparazzi shots. In them he’s being walked toward a car by some sort of handler. He’s frail. Emaciated. He’s not wearing his signature uniform: blue jeans and a turtleneck. In fact he has shorts on. Shorts that expose a pair of hairless, skinny, toothpick legs which look barely able to support his already slight frame. Steve Jobs wearing shorts is like Mick Jagger wearing shorts — it’s weird. It’s wrong.

These shots might be photoshopped — or so Twitter tells me. Either way it makes little difference because Steve Jobs’s resignation as CEO (with or without photo evidence of his disease) has haunted me all week. It haunted me in a quiet sort of way. It’s a palpable grief which has lingered for days. The photos and rumors confirming or disproving his impending death only laminate the greater disappointment. And that disappointment isn’t in regard to what one might think. It doesn’t have to do with the fact that we won’t have cool Apple products anymore, or that progress in technology, communication and design will cease. I don’t believe that. The disappointment I’m speaking of is a deeper, more human, more collective one.

Steve Jobs dying means that we’re all dying.

Like Coca-Cola or The Beatles or Cadillacs, Steve Jobs is something we can all agree on. In fact he might be the last thing we can all agree on. In an increasingly fractured world where we share less and less in common with one another, Steve Jobs and the products he helped innovate are universally respected. Not always loved, not without their fair share of criticism, but always respected. Always trusted. His constant pursuit of ruthless innovation was something we never stopped applauding. In a world where we are way too used to shitty products and half-assed execution, Steve Jobs lead an uncompromising battle for quality, singularity of vision and the American spirit of conquer and change. “Oh, you like the floppy disk? Sorry.” “Oh, you like buttons? We think different.” How cool is that? Rock n roll, man.

He started Apple in his garage. He was a revolutionary. He’s a lighthouse. We look to people like him to reaffirm our core beliefs. You might not dig working for the weekend in your nine to five but knowing there are guys like Steve Jobs out there, chugging along, changing the world — it’s comforting. It’s vital. We look to those guys to always be there for us, singing their song, keepin’ on and blazing the trail ahead. And when one of those figures is dying — perhaps the last one we all agree on — it reveals to us our own mortality.

If a guy like Steve Jobs can die, we’re all doomed.

In some ways his dying sheds light on our impermanence more than the passing of a family member. Though he is far more distant and elusive than anyone with whom you share blood, Steve Jobs is ubiquitous. We share him with everyone on the street; people the world over. And unlike rock stars and celebrities who’s unmaking is largely their own doing, for Mr. Jobs that is not the case. He’s dying simply because that’s what happens to everyone. It’s the Universe giving him the big call-up. The Universe reasserting itself as the true CEO.

In those morbid TMZ shots, as disheartening as they are, there’s also something sort of incredible about them. Steve Jobs is standing straight. He’s weaker than hell; he looks cashed, but he isn’t hunched over and he isn’t in a wheel chair. He’s standing completely erect. He’s gazing at something toward the horizon. He looks deep in thought. Defiant, even.

He might be hurdling toward fate faster than most of us, but Steve Jobs is going to meet the unknown standing up.

Here’s to you, Mr. Jobs. Thanks for being a punk.

-Eddie O’KEEFE

photo credit: Christian JANSS