Inspiration and Loss

It’s been an odd few weeks. After not having gone to the Reno National Air Races for over 10 years, I found myself there again this year, on assignment for the EAA’s Sport Aviation magazine. I’d been involved with three different Unlimited Air Racers in the past: The Super Corsair, Tsunami, and the Pond Racer. So I used to go to the races a lot. But all three of those planes crashed; two of them taking the pilot with them. And some of the fun went out of it, then, for me. But air racing is a bit like NASCAR, in that it’s a family event. There were people I saw there that I didn’t see anywhere else. So, I kept going for a while. But I hadn’t gone since 2000.

As anyone who watched the news anytime on September 16^th or 17^th knows, this was not a good year to go to Reno. (For anyone who didn’t watch the news on those days, one of the highly modified P-51 racers broke and went out of control, crashing into the front of the grandstands, killing 12 people in addition to the pilot, and maiming or injuring many more.) In fact, I may have been there the day that racing died. The Cleveland Races were shut down in 1949 after a racer crashed into a house and killed two people. Jimmy Leeward, in his “Galloping Ghost” P-51, killed 12. (Not that he was aware of that. From all indications, Leeward was unconscious from the Gs he puled by the time the plane left the race course.)

I was also much closer to the accident site than I normally would have been, because EAA had a chalet close to the grandstands. Normally, I would have watched the race from the pits. But this year, I was standing with other EAA folks in front of the chalet – 50-75 yards away from where the plane hit. If the vagaries of aerodynamics had played out just a little bit differently, the plane might very well have hit us, instead.

Even if I were inclined to dwell on how awful those few seconds were, I’m not sure I’d have adequate words to describe it. But I’m not inclined to dwell on it. Leave that to the TV folks. It was a horrible tragedy, and there’s nothing good to be said about it. I can only wish comfort to those injured and the families of those lost.

But I have found myself dwelling, since then, on the question of what should be done about the races, now. Nobody who watched that crash play out, real-time, in person, would try to say anything cavalier about it. It was horrific. It may be that even if the races continue, many of those who had a front row seat to the tragedy will not choose to go back.

And yet, even as I felt sick over the loss … there was, and is, a piece of me that thinks the races should continue. Thinks that it might even be important that they do.

No, World War II fighters aren’t going to revolutionize the world. But it’s hard to say where any of us get our inspiration for innovation; for thinking outside the box; for imagining ways we might make something faster, better, or more efficient. Passion and inspiration get sparked by unpredictable things. And I can’t help but wonder if, should the races be shut down, it wouldn’t cause another loss–a loss of something that acted as a tinderbox for sparking not just new technology per se, but new ideas and dreams, and new, innovative thoughts and thought patterns. After all, innovative ideas rarely hit out of the blue. They’re much more likely to strike in minds that are already limber and practiced in imagining ways to make things different or better.

That theme of innovation and loss was echoed again for me last week, when Steve Jobs died. I didn’t know Jobs. But as I wrote in a piece for The Atlantic website last week, I got a real shock when I saw a photo from some of the news coverage that showed his house in Palo Alto, CA–the city where I lived until last September. Because not only was his house in my neighborhood … it was my favorite house in that neighborhood. One I walked around frequently, and one in which I used to glimpse a man moving about, never realizing it was Steve Jobs.

I can’t do justice to my feelings about that house here – I suggest you read my post at The Atlantic for that. But oddly enough, I’m not as sad about the loss of the public Steve Jobs as I am about the loss of that calm, quiet, anonymous man whom I used to wonder about, in my neighborhood … and who used to give me such unintentional inspiration with the peace, beauty and simplicity of his garden and his home. I am just so sad that that man isn’t there anymore. A spark has gone out of that block.

But it drives home for me, again, the point that inspiration matters. And that the loss of it is sad, whether that inspiration is from an event, a dream, a public person, or a private individual you never actually met. Even if the innovation or dreams that come from that inspiration have risks attached to them that can lead to future loss.

Somewhere in there is a lesson about coming to terms with loss in order to embrace life. And perhaps I’ll have more to say about it, somewhere down the line. But for now, I found the best comfort and response in Steve Jobs’ own words: in a commencement speech he gave at Stanford University in 2005. It’s been all over the internet, the past week, so perhaps many of you have seen it already. But if you haven’t, it’s well worth the 15 minutes it takes to watch it.
Jobs had already been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when he gave that speech. But he talked about how circuitous his life path had been, about the losses he’d sustained along with the successes, and how the concept of loss, itself, is important to help us figure out what really matters. And what really mattered to Jobs–especially in the face of a diagnosis of cancer-was following your heart and instinct to do something you love … even if it’s uncertain, risky, and entails the possibility of loss.

Even if you’re already doing something you love, do yourself a favor and watch the speech. It will remind you why you’re doing it. And if you’re not already doing something you love, it will remind you why you don’t really have anything to lose by trying to change that.