At his Stanford University commencement speech, Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar, urges us to pursue our dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself.

The pundits of Silicon Valley have a term for Steve Jobs’ charisma: the reality distortion field. But the truth is, most of us like living in Jobs’ reality, whereexquisite design and sheer utility make for some addictively usable tools.

Jobs’ famous persuasive power was equalled by his creativity and business brilliance — apparent in legendary hardware and software achievementsacross three decades of work. The Macintosh computer (which brought the mouse-driven, graphical user interface to prominence), Pixar Animation Studios (which produced Toy Story, the first fully-3D-animated feature film), the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad all owe credit to Jobs’ leadership and invention.

Jobs battled a rare form of…