By now chances are pretty good that you are aware that this year the world lost Steve Jobs, even if you are living in a cave. It’s pretty hard not to notice the near hysterical encomia being leveled at the golden tech God who brought us an overpriced version of the MP3 player, the portable laptop, and the smart phone – transforming many aspects of life as we know it in the modern world including film, television, and other media-based arts. I would say I am most grateful not for my iPod but for Jobs’ support of Pixar during its early days. I can’t imagine a world without Monsters Inc.

One of the more troubling assertions by those who are rushing to cement his legacy by transforming this obviously flawed and complex man into a saint of epic proportions is that many of his early designs were based off of his exposure to Buddhism, in particular Zen. The media would have us believe that Jobs was a devote Buddhist and that his faith drove his life and his business. There seems to be plenty of external evidence to suggest this narrative device is founded in truth. Jobs went to the far reaches of the mystical East after dropping out in search of truth we are told. He attended retreats over the years, and even chose a Master – who later married him and his wife in a traditional ceremony. Lama Surya Das, the American Buddhist, was more than happy to vouch for his old friend after his passing as well. It all seems legitimate enough. So why do I have an issue with all of this?

Well, to me the idea of a billionaire CEO Buddhist famous for his ill-temper, wildly inflated ego, idea stealing, and lack of charity seems an absurd Hollywood creation – probably because it is. Jobs was first and foremost a PR guy who knew how to control the spin, as the recent documentary on PBS about him suggested. It would seem he is still doing just that, controlling the spin, from beyond the grave… with a little help from his friends as the Beatles would say.

Buddha taught about impermanence and emptiness, true, but all of his teachings were also rooted in ultimate compassion for all living beings, or Bodhicitta. Those who practice this high realization are called Bodhisattva’s. So where is this Buddhist ideal of loving kindness in the works of Jobs? It’s as hard to find as the meaning of a Zen koan.

To me the idea of suggesting after his death that Steve Jobs had anything to do with Buddhism because he intermittently studied Zen in his life is like saying Hitler was a devote Catholic because his Nazi Youth once counted a future Pope among their loyal ranks. It just doesn’t hold water. His actions, and his life’s work, suggest otherwise, even if Lama Das claims Jobs found the branch of the 8 fold noble path relating to Right Livelihood.

It is said that a Bodhisattva will take upon themselves whatever is best and most useful to help other people with a supreme great heart. Some give up material goods and work with the poor while others will hold positions of wealth and power in order to use those resources to end the sufferings of countless beings. Born in terrible poverty, Kadampa master Geshe Langri Tangpa was extremely wealthy by the end of his life, despite literally giving away everything he received due to a vow he had made to his teacher, Geshe Potowa. He used his wealth to help spread the doctrine of Buddha and at the end of his life was able to build a monastery and support over two thousand monks and ease the suffering of many poor people. Jobs with his inordinate good fortune had attained enough material success that he could afford to offer the United States government a loan to prevent the country from defaulting by the time of his death. Imagine what great deeds of philanthropy he might have achieved had he chosen to put such resources to use for the good of this world, to repay the incredible kindness he was shown? Then he might truly have deserved this empty praise he is receiving.

Instead Jobs used his wealth and status in a manner inconsistent with the traditional tenants of altruism intrinsic within all branches of Buddhism (save perhaps Hinayana) exploiting other peoples ideas, talent, and hard work and using these to become insanely rich in the process. He was neither known as a kind man nor as a philanthropist in general. As his friend Lama Surya Das put it, Jobs “wasn’t especially generous, humble, or kind.”

There seems to be no more explanation than that as to Jobs’ schism with true Buddhist ideals, just armfuls of excuses from friends and media whores trying to justify his bad behavior with heady talk of his uncompromising genius and the heavy toll it took on him. One of his most ardent apologists is a Forbes columnist whose lackluster and thinly-veiled Objectivist argument for Jobs’ sorry lack of reciprocity for a world that gave him so very much reads like one of the terrible monologues so prevalent in ‘Atlas Shrugged’ – not that anyone would expect less from the leading voice of capitalist propaganda in the modern world.

In the end neither his monster ego nor his piles of money could prevent his early death. That must have been hard to swallow for a man who had spent so much energy trying to control his environment with what many would say was a great deal of success. His legacy, polished to a mirror shine, will continue to be championed by his cult-worthy legion of followers as well as the leering greed mongers who admire his ruthless tactics, perhaps more so than the man himself.

I suspect this obsession with Jobs, in part, comes from the same place that drives poor, working class folk to buy into the ‘pie-in-the-sky’ promises of trickster Republicans protecting their obscenely wealthy benefactors at the cost of the rest of us. It’s the same fascination with wealth and status that causes people to vote against their own interests over and over again, lashing out at the few good souls in Congress actually trying to help them. The idea is that they too will one day be rich and successful millionaires, so the elite like Steve Jobs must be protected at all costs, right down to his saintly post-death image. This type of thinking is as dangerous as it is delusional. It is wrong awareness and it leads to true suffering, plain and simple. This infatuation is undoubtedly behind the radically income inequality we are seeing now, the very same that has caused uprisings and protests around the globe. It’s what leads to tax breaks for billionaires, the sacred cows of Wall Street, the job creators, while the middle class gets crushed and those left in crippling poverty are stripped of all hope.

Great wealth is not achieved in a vacuum. It is a privilege to be used wisely, judiciously, for the good of others. Our culture has done its best to divorce us by the process of faulty and deluded reasoning, to make us think that we alone are responsible for our success and failure, and that once earned the wealth is ours to do with as we please. Buddhism teaches us about the interconnected nature of reality, the truth, which exposes capital for the lie that it is, the lie that helps perpetuate the suffering of countless living beings in this world.

Listen, my intention isn’t to drag down the memory of Steve Jobs or to pretend he didn’t do anything good in this world during his brief time here. Far from it. He obviously contributed a great deal on certain levels to society and was rewarded handsomely for his abilities. Judging a person by their faith is a slippery path, especially when they cannot defend themselves. No need to tell me. I know it well enough. Rather than dismissing Jobs or his faith I’m simply trying to remind us all of the truth – that he was just a man – a deeply flawed man who was just the right combination of very smart and very lucky. Attaching the word ‘Buddhist’ does him and the rest of the world a disservice. Let us remember him as a bright flame who strove for greatness and glory, in the hopes we might forget how he took an extraordinary opportunity gifted to him to help the world, and instead helped himself.

For those who might be wondering (all 4 of you currently reading) I have been sick, which is why I haven’t made a great effort to update the blog. Yes illness has been the culprit behind my lack of follow through with daily updates, far more than the devastating impact of self-censorship, although I’ve consulted with my closest friend Mr. Fuss about the latter in great detail as well.

Shortly after moving to beautiful Palms my wife came down with a cold. It’s seasonal, no doubt about it, a true occupational hazard since she works with grade school kids. Given the cramped, submarine-like quarters we now inhabit it came as no surprise to me when a few days later I began to feel under the weather as well. My symptoms didn’t quite match hers but were close enough – lethargy, stuffed up sinuses, a dull headache behind the eyes that is still with me as I write this, cold sweats… you know the drill.

Accompanying this marvelous list of ailments was the telltale distemper and emotional fragility that have come to mark the beginning of sick daze with such recurring frequency that they now serve as a barometer to an impending bout of something nasty. The more implacable I become, the longer the cold is going to last. Yes in a lot of ways my mercurial mood swings have become my groundhog. Thank Buddha more poor wife Churro is so amazingly patient.

There is seldom a good time to catch a cold. The last productive weeks of the year top the list of worst times. Still I’ve been far sicker than this and survived. All things considered this wasn’t all that bad – just weird, and lingering. It has kept me from being able to focus as much as I would like though. Most of the time I just want to curl up under a warm blanket and sleep but when I do lay down, I’m restless. I’d have taken Nyquil but I can’t stand the thought of losing all those hours of the waking day to Sleep Berry punch, as I like to call it.

On Monday, when it had officially been a week since my cold symptoms started and I was still passing out from exhaustion, I was persuaded to go to the doctor. I filled out forms. I paid the co-pay. I read Men’s Journal while waiting for my Word with Friends partner to make their move. I held my breath while other patients coughed plague germs into the tiny room.

“Buddha, please don’t let me catch malaria or something worse from this waiting room” became a running mantra in my head.

At last they took me in to my own personal room. They checked my blood pressure, pumping up the restrictive armband until I thought for sure my veins would collapse. Temperature normal. Heart rate good. Light in the eyes trick, done. Weight check, yeah I know. Really? When was the last time you checked your scale again. I thought so. Shut up. What did I just mumble you ask? Never mind.

I sat down on the crinkly paper, feeling like a little kid, and tried to think up a word that would get me over 50 points, something sleek and hip, like FAQIRS laid out on a triple word score. My doctor, an amiable, good-natured sort, came in with a smile and set about his usual routine. He let me ramble on about what I thought my issues were, as gleaned from friends, television, Web MD, and raw specualtion, all while pleasantly nodding. He looked up my nose, in my ears, put the stethoscope to my chest and back, gazed down my throat, and clucked a few times. He pressed on my face, my chest, and my stomach, stopping short of putting his finger up my backside.

“So what is it?” I asked. “A cold? Allergies? Should I be worried?”

“None of the above.” He smiled. “A virus, that’s for sure. I don’t think there is anything to be worried about, but we’re going to do blood work to be certain.”

I fought off the cold sweats that were returning. A virus? What had I contracted now? Has the zombie virus which has dominated so much of my writing as of late somehow worked it’s way off the page and under my skin? Some days a writer’s imagination can be a curse as well as a blessing.

“I am fairly certain with sleep and Advil this will pass in a few days,” he said. “I just want to make sure. I will have the nurse come in and take blood. We’ll call you tomorrow with the results.”

He left, the nurse came in, and soon I had a needle in my arm. Two vials of blood later, I was on my way. No cookie. No orange juice. Nothing but the pinch of the bandage in the crook of my arm making me wonder how junkies do it. I couldn’t watch as she put the needle in. She teased me that I was holding my breath before she even got the syringe ready.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I checked my phone all day yesterday to see if they had called. By last night when I hadn’t heard anything a little part of me was concerned. Was that a good or a bad sign? Maybe they found something and were double checking it before telling me I had indeed contracted HerpaGonaSyphlAids and needed to come in to get more tests. Was there something so evil hiding in my system that they didn’t even have a name for it?

I put it out of my mind and carried on with the business of working while sick and trying to focus on writing when your head feels like it’s wrapped in pain inducing cotton balls. Who manufactures such terrible engines of suffering? Surely not SC Johnson, the family company? I was well into my morning work routine when the call came in. I pressed pause on my Skrillex live set and answered.

“This is Dr. Rand’s office calling about your blood work,” the woman informed me.

“Yes?” I said, sounding like an overly eager tourist waiting to visit the wreckage of a natural disaster site.

“Everything looks normal.” She sounded so nonchalant as she informed me. I wondered if that takes practice, you know, in nursing school. Still I appreciate her being straight to the point. People use the term LOL all the time, to such a degree that it has practically lost all meaning, but that’s what happened next. For the first time I can recall in a long time I literally laughed out loud, giddy with relief.

“Your liver is working a little too hard but that is just because you are overweight. You will want to go on a diet after the holidays.”

I thanked her and went back to the business of living, safe in the knowledge that although I still am not one hundred percent back to health, I will be soon. I’ve lived a wild life, far too wild to go into on a public blog. Yes, there is that censorship I was worried about. The path of excess has lead me to an upscale neighborhood of self-reliance and hard earned common sense, trickled down the hill from the palace of wisdom. The views not bad and I’m allowed to visit the palatial grounds whenever I feel like making the heady climb. Most days I don’t. Given my circumstances, and my behavior, I could easily have contracted a number of unpleasant, and in some cases incurable, diseases when I was younger. I am grateful I have not, for both mine and my wife’s sake. It is a wonderful feeling and I am grateful beyond words for my good fortune.

It’s also a nice feeling to know that I will be able to tell anyone who gives me a hard time about my appearance that I am on doctors orders not to beginning curtailing my intake until after the seasonal goodies are long in the rear view mirror. Until then I am getting my fair share of pumpkin pie slices, gingerbread, and egg nog.

For now I think I will start with a nap followed by a game of online Scrabble.

So, after nearly five years, it was time to do something useful with this site. In that time I have fallen in love with Word Press and thought it was the best thing for the site really. A lot of people talk about using their blog to ensure that they write every day, but I’ve been doing that for so long now that it really isn’t an issue.  While the quality of what comes out may be questioned, the creative soup always flows. If you know me then you know I don’t understand or believe in writer’s block. If I ever get stuck on one piece of writing I either push through or switch to something else and come back when the spark hits again. Aspiring writers make a note  of that. It’s great advice. Always be writing in your head. For me that habit became ingrained when I used to blog for Gawker on their unruly and unforgiving CMS.  I’ve actually been working exclusively in Word Press now for the entirety of this year.

With the tiniest bit of scrounging around I found this amazing theme you see now, installed it in about five seconds, and viola… a new site, a new day. So, now what?

Well, I guess that depends on my mood. I’d like to use this blog to talk about the writing projects I am working on – maybe keep myself inspired to keep cranking out pages. So there is that. But the truth is when I am writing new material I don’t tend to share much of it until it is “read ready” – if you know what I mean. I will have to see how that goes. I noticed a few other writers I like will share pages on their blog before they are done. I admire that, but I am not entirely sold on the idea of emulating their example. Certainly I can use the blog to speak in greater detail about how my movie ‘Humans Versus Zombies” is coming along. I think I will save that for a post of it’s own in the next few days.

In addition I will more than likely use the site to talk about my thoughts and feelings on a wide variety of topics that impact my life – from topical news to my Buddhist studies to observations on life, yearnings, dreams, travels, and maybe even what new deliciousness my wife and I ate this week at some food truck or hip L.A. eatery.

Blogs are scary. I’m not gonna lie. It’s why when I created one on Blogger (a few years back) I ended up going back and deleting all the posts. It’s strange to have all my thoughts and ideas floating out there for anyone to read, exciting in many regards and equally terrifying in others. Having people that know you combing through what you wrote about whatever hot button issue you were passionate at the time before any of us had the facts can be a great lesson in humility – a painful one too. I haven’t always liked what I had to say later on, and that has kept me from repeating the mistake. Let’s hope that isn’t the case moving forward.

May this blog be a safe place for me to pour out the most trivial musings my heart dreams up as well as the deepest parts of my soul for many years to come. Thanks for reading,

Devan Sagliani