Fewer inspirations, taken more seriously

A little talked about facet of Steve Jobs I've picked up reading his biography: despite (or maybe because of) relatively little "real-life" experience, he deeply internalized and utilized lessons from almost everything he did outside of work.

Obvious example: he really only studied Zen intensely for a few years, but the internalized idea of focus shaped so much of apple.

One trip to Florence he noticed the stone sidewalks and years later insisted on using a similar material for the floors of the first apple stores. The calligraphy class he dropped in on later informed apple's fonts.

Think about how rare it is for you to truly internalize a lesson like that from anything you do.

Modern culture values inundating yourself with as many experiences as possible. But as a result, none of them are very impactful. In a sense Steve embodied the Charlie Munger aphorism: "Take a simple idea, and take it seriously." I think this explains some of the reverence for re-reading books. Constant inflow of ideas feels good but sometimes its better to just truly internalize a few.

What's surprising and maybe a testament to how well that works is that many of these ideas that he stuck with seem unbelievable random. It doesn't seem he was inherently good fated stumbling across gems of inspiration. But rather he noticed somewhat random things, chose to make them part of his identity, and fully utilized them.