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Lot Essay
This remarkable letter reveals Steve Jobs as a poetic and restless teenager, shortly after his return to the Peninsula following his departure from Reed College and his stint working at the All One apple orchard. The envelope bears no return address, a small but telling sign of his unsettled living situation. Though nominally back at his parents’ home in Los Altos, he moved fluidly among friends’ houses, including that of his girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan. In the letter he notes that he is “living on a farm in the mountains between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz,” a remark that aligns with accounts placing him in a rustic cabin somewhere off Highway 17.
The recipient, Tim Brown, was one of Jobs’s best friends at Homestead High School in Cupertino, and their friendship endured throughout Jobs’s short but consequential life. Brown had written to him about Zen Buddhism, and Jobs is clearly sympathetic and curious: “we can come up here in the mountains together and you can tell me your thoughts and feelings, which I did not fully understand from your letter.”
Jobs’s phrasing throughout the letter reflects the spiritual and literary influences that were shaping him at the time: Buddhist thought, the spare poetry of Hanshan, elements of Hindu philosophy, and even the cadence of American verse refracted through the music he admired. It begins, “many mornings have come and gone / people have came and went / i have loved and i have cried many times. / somehow, though, beneath it all it doesn't change - do you understand?”
He continues by stating his intention to go to India—presumably as soon as he can afford it—and his hope that he can attend Kumbh Mela, the massive Hindu pilgrimage. Jobs would miss Kumbh Mela, but he did arrive in India later in 1974 and spent about seven months there, living extremely simply and exploring Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. This experience would stay with Jobs his entire life. Decades afterward, he would credit the sensibility he encountered in India as central to his creative life and to the simplicity and utility of Apple products.
Jobs ends the letter with a paradoxical flourish: “i will end by saying i do not even know where to begin. / shanti / steve jobs.”
Friends have long noted that Jobs almost never wrote letters. If he did, those letters were more often typed or printed. That he chose to write at such length—and with such vulnerability—to Tim Brown underscores the depth of their bond. Autograph letters by Jobs are virtually unknown; no others of comparable intimacy or biographical resonance have appeared on the market.
Since this letter was brought to the public eye in 2021, it has been extensively written about including in the Times of India, Business Today, and Hindustan Times.
The recipient, Tim Brown, was one of Jobs’s best friends at Homestead High School in Cupertino, and their friendship endured throughout Jobs’s short but consequential life. Brown had written to him about Zen Buddhism, and Jobs is clearly sympathetic and curious: “we can come up here in the mountains together and you can tell me your thoughts and feelings, which I did not fully understand from your letter.”
Jobs’s phrasing throughout the letter reflects the spiritual and literary influences that were shaping him at the time: Buddhist thought, the spare poetry of Hanshan, elements of Hindu philosophy, and even the cadence of American verse refracted through the music he admired. It begins, “many mornings have come and gone / people have came and went / i have loved and i have cried many times. / somehow, though, beneath it all it doesn't change - do you understand?”
He continues by stating his intention to go to India—presumably as soon as he can afford it—and his hope that he can attend Kumbh Mela, the massive Hindu pilgrimage. Jobs would miss Kumbh Mela, but he did arrive in India later in 1974 and spent about seven months there, living extremely simply and exploring Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. This experience would stay with Jobs his entire life. Decades afterward, he would credit the sensibility he encountered in India as central to his creative life and to the simplicity and utility of Apple products.
Jobs ends the letter with a paradoxical flourish: “i will end by saying i do not even know where to begin. / shanti / steve jobs.”
Friends have long noted that Jobs almost never wrote letters. If he did, those letters were more often typed or printed. That he chose to write at such length—and with such vulnerability—to Tim Brown underscores the depth of their bond. Autograph letters by Jobs are virtually unknown; no others of comparable intimacy or biographical resonance have appeared on the market.
Since this letter was brought to the public eye in 2021, it has been extensively written about including in the Times of India, Business Today, and Hindustan Times.