Creativity

Steve Jobs has been much on the minds of many since his death last week. What made him who he was? What in his past paved the way for his vision and his ability to realize it? Wired writer Steven Levy has posted an insightful piece on Jobs and we were particularly interested in what he had to say here: Jobs usually had little interest in public self-analysis, but every so often he'd drop a clue to what made him tick. Once he recalled for me some of the long summers of his youth. I'm a big believer in boredom," he told me. Boredom allows one to indulge in curiosity, he explained, and "out of curiosity comes everything." The man who popularized personal computers and smartphones -- machines that would draw our attention like a flame attracts gnats -- worried about the future of boredom. "All the [technology] stuff is wonderful, but having nothing to do can be wonderful, too." The intersection of Steve Jobs and the importance of downtime is also one that College Admission contributor Denise Clark Pope of Stanford University's School of Education often uses as a thought experiment to provide an "Aha!" moment for students and parents.