God, we were a part of that!

Most of us didn’t make the clothes we’re wearing, and we didn’t cook or grow the food that we eat, and we’re speaking a language that was developed by other people, and we use a mathematics that was developed by other people. We are constantly taking. (Steve Jobs — https://book.stevejobsarchive.com/)

I found a video of Steve Jobs where he says the above mentioned.

I couldn’t find the full video, just a short clip that lasted 1 minute and 56 seconds. In the clip, he talks about wanting to make the Mac special. The video was labeled as the 1984 Keynote, but when I searched on YouTube, I realized it wasn’t from the 1984 Mac introduction. After some searching, I found this quote on the Steve Jobs Archive website. It seems to be from a question-and-answer session between 1984 and 1985.

When I first read this quote, I really liked it. Later, I found the next part, which said: “And the ability to put something back into the pool of human experience is extremely neat. I think that everyone knows that in the next ten years we have the chance to really do that. And while we’re doing it, it’s pretty fun, too — we will look back and say, ‘God, we were a part of that!’”

This blew my mind because it connects to the idea behind my blog. I always want to do something, even if it’s small.

I believe that success is not just about one person. When we say, “That person invented this,” it’s often true that many people contributed to their success.

Let’s think about history. The value and formula for gravity were discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. In his book “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,” published in 1687, he explained how objects attract each other. Today, everyone knows about his work, at least from memes or school textbooks. But what if all the earlier work by other scientists wasn’t available?

Newton’s law of gravitation was built on the work of many others. Johannes Kepler described how planets move in elliptical orbits. Galileo Galilei studied motion and the idea of inertia, which helped us understand gravity. Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the sun is at the center of the universe, which improved our understanding of celestial mechanics. René Descartes introduced the idea that natural events can be explained through laws of motion, influencing Newton’s mathematical methods.

Scientists like Robert Hooke and Edmond Halley suggested that gravity gets weaker with distance. Newton used this idea to show that the force of attraction between two masses decreases as the distance between them increases. The development of math, especially geometry and algebra, gave Newton the tools he needed, and he co-developed calculus, which was crucial for his laws.

Newton famously said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” acknowledging the contributions of those before him.

I may not be as great as these scientists, but I see myself as someone who helps share knowledge, like a printer who makes books available. My contribution might be small, but this quote and the following text made me realize that even small contributions are part of a bigger journey.