I didn’t go straight home last night from my business trip from Toledo, Ohio. I had a few things to do first. I had to watch Steve Jobs die. And I had to finish reading Atlas Shrugged. Oh, I’m gonna blog all day long about Ayn Rand, and I’ll blog about Atlas Shrugged, and literature, but today, let’s talk about the tree outside of my window at my Marriott hotel. I went to bed, looking at the wind shake the tree, and it was shadows and wind and light. It was very pretty and soothing.

In the morning, it was also pretty with sunshine, soothing with dawn. Someday, I’ll be dead, and I won’t be able to look at the trees any more. Both Ayn Rand and Steve Jobs, their days of tree-gazing are over.

In the hotel, I watched the Steve Jobs Stanford speech. Yes, I should have been writing, or working, or doing all the things that fill my days, but I knew this moment wasn’t going to come around again. Let’s be clear, I am not an Apple guy. Microsoft all the way. I enjoy the freedom of PC’s to the imperial chains that Apple has. Don’t get me wrong, love Apple products, but I’d rather go ghetto than be imprisoned in pretty graphics and smooth userability by the man.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Steve Jobs is one of those guys Ayn Rand would have drooled over. True story. Come on. He was an entrepreneur. He was driven. He was a captain of industry. He followed his dream.

Now he’s dead and all over the news. The Marriott Breakfast Woman, all capital letters, said she was tired of hearing about him. Is she following her dreams? Am I? Am I hungry and foolish?

I never did foolish well. I was too busy getting stuff done for foolishness. And hungry? I learned early to feed myself so I didn’t have to take chances on asking anyone for food. So I haven’t been hungry and foolish, but I want to be. I long to be.

The problem is, I have kids now, and kids need structure and a stable environment. Especially the James-Bond-Super-Villains-Posing-As-Little-Girls I’m trying to raise. Or is that what I’ve been told? Maybe the forces of nature would do better if there were more chaos. I don’t know.

This is the year of discernment. By August, 2012, I am going to wrestle the truth out of God and I’m going to know what the next thing to do. It’s probably not going to be the 9 to 5 I’ve been livin’.

From Firefly, Wash would say, “I am a leaf on the wind.” I am going to be the leaf on the wind. I am not going to cower with the other dying leaves in the gutter. I refuse. And if I die penniless, well, every writer needs to die penniless. That’s part of the deal.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish. In the end, scream it out loud, we all die. Every single one of us.