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Quotations Archives
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About David — The Short Version At the age of 35, I sold my interest in two companies I had started with some friends, and began to explore more actively the questions that had been hanging around in the background of my life until that time: What is a meaningful life? How do I find and live what is truly important? How do I spend the time of my life in a way that seems worthwhile? And - how on earth do I go about finding answers to these questions? This active quest began 25 years ago, and this web site is dedicated to sharing some of the thoughts, feelings, hints, and guesses that have arisen along the way. Through all these years I have also come across many clues left by others, markings and signs left by those who have passed this way before. This site will therefore be a place to share the thoughts and feelings of those who have asked, and sometimes answered (at least for themselves) some of these life-questions. So, to anyone out there who finds him or her self on a similar quest, whether by choice or necessity, this web site is dedicated.
About David — The Long Version When I was 26 years old, I dove into the unknown waters of the entrepreneurial ocean, taking on the full-time duties of chairman and president of two fledgling companies—companies I had started a year earlier with three friends from college. (I saw no problem in starting two companies at once; I would just work eighty hours a week instead of the normal forty). After five years of round-the-clock effort, as I reached the ripe old age of 31, we had finally learned to swim in the treacherous currents of the entrepreneurial world. It seemed amazing to us at the time, but it had taken a full five years from that first plunge before we mastered the tasks we had undertaken. (Of course, this amazement might be related to the twin facts that [1] we were young and naive, and almost completely oblivious to the time it takes to accomplish anything in the real world, and [2] being extremely ambitious as well as young and naive, we had set very ambitious goals for ourselves.) Don’t let me skip over those five tortuous years too quickly. Contrary to what you might at first assume, those years could not be accurately characterized as a steady progress toward success. Rather, they were five years of hanging over the edge of a precipice, constantly looking down into the face of complete failure—of imminent, total collapse. (Unless, of course, one averted one’s eyes—which was not uncommon for any of us during this time). An image swimming into memory that begins to capture the experience involves five years of continuous effort without a break, without a pause, without even coming up for a breath of air. It was dangerous to surface, you see, for there were bankers and creditors constantly banging on the top of the pressure cooker, asking (not always politely) just what was going in that money-eating cauldron we had created. But after five years of hanging on for dear life, we were beginning to turn the corner. Metaphorically speaking (if the aquatic imagery will serve for one last round), having learned to swim reasonably well, we were beginning to put together a rowboat as we swam, and were learning how to keep it afloat. By the time I reached the age of 35, we had a fantastic success on our hands. We were starting to make substantial profits, and our prospects seemed almost unlimited. Our rowboat had grown into a decent-sized schooner. To mark this momentous accomplishment, I sold the majority of my stock in the companies and retired.
What Is There to Do When You Retire at 35? For a young man who had worked night and day for years, retirement seemed like an incredible luxury and a blessing. Having made enough money to be free of the need to work—if I managed the money wisely—I could now explore all those things I had had no time to even think about during the preceding years. I could read, travel, romance. I could do nothing for a while. I could sleep. (And sleep I did, staying in bed as late as I wanted each day.) As it turns out, there is an incredible feeling of freedom associated with being able to stay in bed day after day until you are ready to get up. Perhaps that’s why the French philosopher René Descartes stayed in bed till noon; it set his mind free to explore whatever thoughts might arise. But staying in bed every morning without a good reason also feels slightly decadent, as if one is placing oneself outside the natural human state, is setting oneself outside the normal human necessities. Perhaps that’s why the vice of sloth was created. (Isn’t that a great word—sloth.) In my experience of this state, as the weeks and then months rolled by, I began to discover that the model around which I had formed my image of retirement—that of an extended vacation—became less and less relevant. Slowly it dawned on me that a vacation is only a vacation when you are getting away from something. Retirement is quite different, for in retirement you have no external identity, no role in the world. There is nothing you are going back to which will give structure to your days, or a definition of who you are and what your life is about. Most ominously, you don't have an answer to that terrible “What do you do?" question. (This insistent, probing, demanding monster of a question pops up constantly: What do you do? What do you do?) If you don’t have a good answer, such as “Oh, I’m a lawyer—I’m just successful enough to take a long vacation,” then the moorings of your world begin to shift. You begin to feel the pressure to Do Something, to Be Somebody, from friends and family. (I quickly learned that many people in our culture simply do not know how to relate to, how to place in the social hierarchy, a person who has “retired” at 35.) After a few months in this environment, I began to consider another job, another career. However, I had already explored and eliminated several other career paths before my business days. For instance, educational administration was a field I had considered during college, so immediately after graduation I’d accepted a job on the administrative staff of my alma mater as advisor to fraternities and assistant to the dean of students. It was interesting, but after a year it was clear to me that I was looking for something different. I had also explored another career path before my entrepreneurial plunge—that of politics and government. If anything had seemed like my calling when I was growing up, this was it. Thus, in 1966, I pitched myself into Howard Baker’s campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate. And he won! (There’s nothing like that first successful campaign effort for a political junkie.) After the victory, I worked part time on Senator Baker’s staff while finishing a master’s degree in history and philosophy. Then, in 1968, I moved to the national scene and became the head of a division of Nelson Rockefeller’s campaign for president. (To keep things in perspective, I should convey that it was a very small division: my role was that of director of special groups, better known as “famous people for Rockefeller.” I wasn’t famous, of course. My role was to line up the endorsements of people who were.) During the campaign I met Dr. Henry Kissinger, Rockefeller’s foreign-policy advisor, and roped him into recruiting other famous scholars to provide endorsements for the campaign. (Notwithstanding all of these endorsements, Rockefeller lost. It almost seemed that the populace wasn’t paying attention to what all these famous people thought, or to the results of my labors. How could that be?) Anyway, when Kissinger became assistant to the president for national security affairs under a president he had not supported (isn’t it fascinating how these things work?), I joined his team at the White House as a member of the National Security Council staff. What an incredible experience for a young man of 25. I can’t say anyone paid much attention to my opinions about foreign policy, but I had a fascinating seat from which to observe how the presidency works and how foreign policy is made. After a year at the White House, as if riches were tumbling forth from the horn of plenty, I was asked to serve as campaign coordinator, chief speechwriter, and issues director for a candidate for governor in my home state. It was a hard decision to leave the White House, but I had a strong interest in running for office myself, and working in a campaign in my home state seemed like a good place to start that process. When my candidate won, I had another wrenching, life-changing decision—whether to accept a position on the new governor’s staff or to take the entrepreneurial route described above and attempt to make my fortune. (Political power or wealth, which should an ambitious young man pursue first?) As you already know, I chose to seek my fortune first. Needless to say, however, such a strong interest in politics and government did not just disappear during my entrepreneurial days. In 1972 I was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents (the ninth-largest system of higher education in the country), and by the time of my retirement I had begun to serve in leadership positions on the board. Further, as we started to turn the corner in our business ventures, I became involved in numerous civic organizations and worked in several political campaigns. (I had to find something to do with those extra twenty to thirty hours a week that had been freed up as I cut my business week down to only fifty or sixty hours.) Anyway, by the time of my retirement these political experiences had led a number of people to encourage me to run for public office, including serious encouragement to run for mayor of Knoxville. (Several friends even urged me to undertake a race for the U.S. Senate.) All these political ambitions finally coalesced in 1978, when a good friend announced his gubernatorial campaign. I threw myself energetically into the campaign, and after a long and tough battle my friend won the race. As 1978 drew to a close and my business retirement was becoming a reality, I was asked to join the cabinet of the newly elected governor. Now, I would like to think that the above list of achievements is not bragging—not mostly, anyway. I would like to view it as a way to give you, the reader, the context of what was to happen next, and thereby to explain my special interest in the story I am about to tell. What I hope to convey is that I had considered a number of career alternatives for my life, and I seemed to have several promising choices. But because of these early experiences, by the end of 1978 I had begun to develop a sense that neither a career in politics nor a career in education was the right path for my life. The why of this feeling wasn’t clear, but the feeling was strong, so an inclination was growing to honor it. I therefore declined the cabinet position and took on the mantle of retirement. I hadn’t traveled far into this unknown territory, however, when I began to realize that if I wasn’t going to take a regular job—at least for a while—then I had to find a definition for my life that seemed meaningful and worthwhile. I had to have a reason to get up each morning that seemed meaningful, at least to me. As a way of filling this vacuum, the idea of exploring some of the important aspects of life that had been pushed aside during the preceding ambitious years began to emerge. I began to spend more time on relationships, both fraternal and romantic. I traveled extensively, marveling at the incredible diversity of both people and places that this earth of ours is home to. I read many books, exploring the fantastic world of images and ideas that we human beings have constructed for our enjoyment and edification. I renewed my acquaintance with an earlier love, philosophy. I spent a lot of time with a new acquaintance, the psychology and philosophy of the Swiss thinker Carl Jung. Finally, I began to explore the meaning of that age-old admonition of Socrates and the ancient Greeks: “Know thyself.” And I contemplated what it meant that Solomon, when asked what he most wanted, replied “Wisdom”—and that all else he received in life came to him because he made this lady his primary purpose and goal. As I began these inner explorations, one day in 1979 I found myself in a workshop at the Jung Institute in Zurich. The day ahead was devoted to, of all things, fairy tales. Now, when I was growing up fairy tales weren’t very big in my house, and they certainly were not considered relevant to an adult’s life. So what could this possibly have to do with my quest? On that fine spring day in Switzerland, I was not really looking forward to the program. Maybe I should just go and explore the beautiful Swiss countryside, I thought to myself. But before I could make my escape, things took a turn for the worse (at least it seemed so from my perspective at that moment). It was announced that Marie Louise van Franz, the world expert on fairy tales who was supposed to conduct the workshop, was ill. She was to be replaced by a man no one in the group seemed to know anything about. Not an auspicious beginning for an already uninviting day. As I sat there mustering my courage to walk out, considering whether I had enough energy to endure another attack of one of my old demons, the self-doubting voice that says “What will people think,” a quiet British man appeared who was to be our substitute leader for the day. Without much of an introduction, he began to read a fairy tale in a low, flat voice. It was a slow, uninspiring beginning. Since he had begun, however, I felt I was trapped. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He finished reading and began to ask about the possible meaning of the fairy tale for our lives. And the strangest thing happened. Under his quiet but skilled guidance, the room was soon bursting with energy, with ideas and feelings and personal connections pouring out of the participants. And the room remained vividly alive all day. It was a truly magical moment for many of the people in that room. Including me. A magical day with fairy tales? you ask incredulously. Yes, fairy tales. And before you rush to judgment about this experience, consider the fact that fairy tales have been used to shape the values and mold the lives of human beings since the time before recorded history began. This, of course, does not prove that these stories are relevant to our lives today. Nevertheless, after my day in Zurich I began to consider this question for myself. As I thought about it, I started to realize that stories had played a much larger role in my own life than I had supposed. For instance, the stories of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, of Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin, formed my early views about politics and government, about the interaction of principles and power. Stories from the Bible shaped my beliefs about what was truly important, about how I should act, about what the major issues of life would be. Stories about sports heroes, political heroes, and business heroes gave me my first images of what I thought I would be when I grew up. Stories, especially in movies, formed my early views about romance and relationship. Stories about real people closer to me—family members, family legends, people from my own town—provided models that made the possibilities and lessons much more real, more accessible; if these things could happen to people I was related to or people from my town, they could happen to me. At the next stage of my life, stories told among friends and schoolmates about what was “in” and what was “out” dramatically affected my values and beliefs. Also, in those teen years, stories of rebels—people who saw things in a way that differed from the conventional wisdom—made me aware of the problems of my world, and gave me models for how I might attempt to change things if I chose to try. These reflections on the importance of stories in my life led to the growing realization that my very identity—the person I believed myself to be—was in one sense the product of a story. In a way, my conscious identity was simply the continuing story I told myself about where I had been, where I was going, and what I was currently about. Isn’t it the same for you? The story we tell ourselves about our lives creates our conscious understanding of who we are and what our lives are about. (This observation does lead to several difficult questions, such as these: Can we simply decide to tell ourselves a completely different story, and thereby change ourselves? How does our internal story relate to the story others tell about us, and to the “real” external reality? What is truth, anyway? Hmm, maybe we’ll save those questions for later.) In the same way, it is the story others tell themselves about us that creates their conscious understanding of who we are. Consider the difference between the story that would be told about your identity by a person who likes you and the story that would be told by someone who is angry with you. Compare the two and you begin to get the sense of how your identity in other people’s minds is created by the story they put together about you—by the small selection they make from the large pool of available facts that makes up your entire identity. (Again, questions arise. Which of the two stories is really True? Which of the descriptions is really you? But these questions are getting us into deeper water than I can handle at the moment, so let’s take a look at the role stories play in the human community.) Exploring the Storytellers’ Legacy Another adventure during this period of my life was attending a conference in Boston whose title was something like “Storytelling, Myth, and Dreams.” For three days a group of storytellers told humorous and, more important, sacred stories to a small group of captivated listeners. As I listened to these stories of wisdom and compassion, I began to reflect anew on the role that stories have played in human culture. It became increasingly clear that as long as human beings have existed, there have been stories with us. In every land there have been stories of how the world began, of how each culture came to be the way it is—stories of the tribe’s relationship to nature, to others, to the gods. What was the purpose of these stories? Were they simply designed for entertainment on a cold winter’s night around the campfire? Were the teaching stories designed only to educate the young? Certainly everyone would acknowledge these two functions of the world’s great stories. But is there more? Do some of these stories still carry some hieroglyphic meanings that we somehow intuit, yet find it very hard to unravel? As I reflected on this question, I thought about the epic stories of India, of the American Indians, of Scandinavia, and of many other cultures, and I began to see that for many people in the past the answers to life’s most important questions came from their stories. Anyone who reads (or is lucky enough to hear told by a true storyteller) the Sufi, Zen, and Jewish teaching stories begins to see that many of these stories are designed to help people wrestle with the central questions of life. Or consider the great plays of the Greeks and Romans, and of Shakespeare. These plays create in me the distinct impression that I am in the presence of people grappling with life’s most fundamental questions. And if I bring to mind the numerous parables and stories in the Bible, I definitely feel that the storytellers and narrators are trying to convey what they have learned about the meaning of life. The more I thought and read about this aspect of story, the clearer it became that stories have always shaped the beliefs and carried the values of human culture. The great stories were constantly used by our forebears to help them understand who they were and what life was about. This is so much the case that one writer declared, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”1 This thought sounds strange at first. But as you think about it, consider the possibility that the world you see, the way you organize the information that arrives in your brain, comes largely from the assumptions you have already made—which are based on the way you have previously come to understand the world. Consider further that your prior assumptions and understandings arose to a great extent from the stories that molded and shaped you as you grew up. If you begin to consider the quotation in this light, its simple profundity is almost breath-taking. This thought arises in part from one of the crucial insights of philosophy in the last three centuries. The brilliant Scotsman David Hume, followed by the philosophical giant of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant, developed the idea that the world we see is not some hard, objective fact, but that what we see and experience is greatly determined by the assumptions and beliefs we hold in our minds at the moment of each new experience. We do not just record facts from the outer world. Our minds select the facts they want to register and organize them in a sequence that is meaningful to us, based to a great extent upon the current state of our understanding of the world and of ourselves. What we believe about reality at any given moment, therefore, greatly determines how we will experience and understand the next thing that happens to us. In this sense, the mind creates the reality that we see. This also means that another observer of the external world might well experience a different reality than the one we are perceiving. (As my ole grandpappy used to say, it’s enough to make a body wonder about “truth.”) As the conference in Boston progressed, several people asked if I was connected with the National Storytelling Festival. I kept replying that I had never heard of it. But I had already learned enough to know that it might be wise to discover the reason for this question. As it turned out, in a small town ninety miles from my home, a nationwide organization had recently been created to bring together the best storytellers from all over the country in a yearly festival. Yet I had never heard of it; I had to go to Boston to find it. This brings to mind the story of a young man from a small Polish town during a turbulent, dangerous period in Polish history.
It
seems that Abraham, our young hero, had had a dream. He had dreamed
that if he looked underneath the bridge in Warsaw leading to the
king’s palace,
he would find his treasure. The only trouble was, he lived many
miles to the south of Warsaw, and it was illegal for a Jew to make
this journey, on penalty of death. And he was a Jew. He therefore
tried to put the dream out of his mind.
So I thought of this story, I returned home to Tennessee, and I started attending the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough. And I found much treasure there. What kind of treasure? you ask. Well, by this point on my journey, the questions I had begun to wrestle with were, to be melodramatic, “What is the meaning of my life?” “What is the purpose of my existence?” “Does it really matter whether this person I think of as me is alive or not?” And as I have been relating, I was beginning to discover that one way to approach these questions, a way that has existed since the dawn of human culture, is through the wisdom of the storyteller.
The Mythological Perspective To enter into this realm of story, however, it is important to understand that the wisdom is by no means limited to fairy tales. In fact, there are other, more elaborate stories that have served as the foundation stones, the building blocks, of all the great cultures the world has known. Sitting in a studio loft in upper Manhattan, I spent many days listening to a master storyteller, Joseph Campbell, tell the great myths of human history and describe in detail their impact on human culture. The legends of King Arthur, and how these great myths of the late Middle Ages gave rise to the Renaissance—and to much of modern Western culture as well. How Hindu and Buddhist myths gave rise to the culture of India, and how these stories radiated out to influence the beliefs and values of the surrounding world. How the American Indian myths shaped the world in which these marvelous tribes lived out their lives. How the telling of her visions by the medieval saint Hildegard of Bingen gave listeners a powerful and fresh experience of the Christian message, helping to renew its vitality. And in modern times, how James Joyce attempted to capture in his novels the mythmaking and myth-created nature of humankind. And much, much more. On the personal side of this unfolding journey, I had also begun to learn that the road along the path of inner exploration takes many a sharp turn, often doubling back on itself. At least that seemed to be the path for me. And doubts were a natural part of the territory to be explored. Often after my excursions into the world of stories and myths, I would return to my daily life and wonder anew whether that other world really had anything to do with real life—with my questions. How many times I asked myself, Can these stories really help me find the path to a more meaningful life? Are they truly relevant to my life today as I wrestle with the issues of how to live? Can these stories, in our modern world, really help me answer this “meaning” question for myself? Such questions were especially relevant for me because the old stories, the myths that had guided humanity for much of its existence, were given little attention or respect by most of the people I knew. In fact, in my world the old stories were usually encountered only as boring schoolwork, to be escaped as quickly as possible. As I continued my explorations, however, I began to have a new perspective on my doubts. Doubts were not to be ignored, but at the same time they were not to be given too much power or control over one’s life. In fact, doubts could be valuable allies on the journey. All that was required was to begin examining the doubts themselves. Where did they come from? Did they arise out of a deep wisdom, or were they simply the voice of fear—the part of me that resisted all change, the part that feared anything new? Through such questioning the valid concerns seemed to become more solid, and the fears tended to diminish in strength. (The fears would seldom disappear completely, however. I could usually find them lurking around in the shadows, waiting for a weak moment to reassert their position.) Living for a time with the possible value of story and myth in my heart, weighing it against the doubts, I began to consider the fact that there are stories and then there are stories. Many stories, especially in modern times, seem designed strictly for entertainment—to help us escape for a moment from our troubles. The main value of such stories is to deaden us to the pain we feel within ourselves, or to the horrors we see in the world about us. In addition, many modern stories are simply selling a point of view. And some are providing a useful but temporary emotional release. Thus, if I doubted the wisdom of the old stories—if I didn’t always see their relevance—perhaps I was viewing them in the light of these much more limited modern versions, rather than looking beneath the surface for their deeper, hidden meanings. Perhaps if I would only consider the old stories afresh, I would truly find help in the struggle to make sense of my life—especially if I resisted the assumption that the old stories, like most of the new, were created mostly for entertainment or escape. As you have gathered by now, I decided to explore this path. As for your decision, if you are hesitant, if your intellect would like a little more convincing that there is a treasure to be found, consider the argument provided by Carl Jung. He proposed that the old stories arose out of a fundamental set of images that are shared by all humanity. These images, present in our unconscious at birth, are as much a part of our birthright as our physical features or the numerous instincts we observe in all humankind. To better understand this concept, think for a moment of the instincts we see in animals—for instance, the ability of migrating birds to fly alone thousands of miles to a particular location without ever having been there before and without ever having been shown the way. Consider how some birds raised by humans, never having seen a nest, can build a nest just like the rest of their species—on the first try. Think of the fact that some male animals will spontaneously perform the mating dance of their species even though they have never seen it before. Consider how new parents of many species will begin to care for their young just as their forebears did, even if they were not cared for in this way, and even if they have never seen these methods of caring performed. In this context, Jung suggested that just as instincts are with us at birth, so are some of our fundamental images of what life is about and of how we should live. In this context, the great stories and myths have endured precisely because they capture the collective wisdom of humanity, are the repositories in which are stored for this language-based creature called “human being” some of the answers to the riddles our collective past deposits in us. Because of this, in the great stories and myths we find lessons that speak to our shared human needs and aspirations, distilled into entertaining events and moving drama to capture our attention and touch our souls. In my own journey, as I considered the potential value of these stories in my quest for meaning, it became increasingly clear that there are truly those certain stories, stories handed down from generation to generation, first by word of mouth, then by pen and press, that have fired the imagination and stirred the soul—stories of a particular power that have fascinated and entranced generations of adults, and yet carry meanings that are not immediately clear. More and more these stories came to seem like great buried treasures, hidden beneath the path we tread each day. Thus, if I wanted to engage in a quest for meaning, the opportunity was closer at hand than I had supposed. I had only to dig down a little in that old, familiar path, and I would begin to uncover the treasure to be won. It was a chance I was more than willing to take.
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Copyright
2005 by David White |