Our Pieces of Peace
Kim and I differ greatly in some ways and are very much alike in others. If I had to define the demarcation, I would say that we differ in the things that motivate our souls, but are very much alike in the things that motivate our hearts. Let me explain that a bit. I am choosing to define soul as that which most defines how we choose to spend our time on this earth and what gets us up in the morning. The issue of heart goes to the sense of how we treat others and the issues that govern our interactions and our philosophy of living. That may be clear to me and very confusing to you so I will try to explain that better through example.
This morning, Kim and I are pursuing different tasks even though neither of us is required to do what we are doing. We are both “retired” and could choose to while away our days reading, observing nature and watching an occasional movie. But other than choosing to do that as a form of rest from something else, that would quickly become a boring existence for most of us. We all need something to get up for in the morning rather than to go from physical repose to mental repose. Kim gets up to take care of Betty. Caretaking is important to her and pets are the fortunate recipients of her care (as am I somewhat). Other than that, when I asked Kim last night what she was planning on doing today, other than an errand or two, she said she would be practicing her music and singing for a Singnasium gala performance she is participating in in the coming week. Singing and dancing is Kim’s outward expression of joy and she has been captive to it for her entire life. Everything she has done in life revolves around singing and dancing (these days with a decided emphasis on singing since her joints have had their run but her voice is as good as ever). I first figured this out when I learned that she was caught in Kindergarten in the girl’s room singing and dancing during nap time. Rather than rest, her drive was to entertain herself in the bathroom by performing to no one in particular. That is a telling dedication.
Years ago my oldest son said he wanted to be a cartoonist. He did make an effort to take some art classes to learn how to draw better, but other than that, I was pretty convinced that his focus on animation was really just an expression of his liking cartoons. Who doesn’t like cartoons when they are a child? I struggled for a way to determine and discuss whether this was a passing fancy or a true calling. I happened to go to a symphonic concert (string quartet) that I found somewhat boring. While I was sitting and listening I noticed a young boy about the age of my son who had a thick notepad in his lap on which he was drawing cartoon figures. He would draw one and then flip the page and draw another. Sometimes he would finish the first and sometimes he would end it mid-drawing and move to the next. He did this over and over again without pause. That was my example of someone who was driven to draw cartoons and would likely become a cartoonist.
Passion is something that is quite visible when you happen upon it like that, and passion is what makes for success or at least fulfillment, by my estimation. That boy had a driving passion to draw and he did so almost compulsively. There was nothing casual about it. I didn’t know Kim in Kindergarten, but that story of her singing in the bathroom told me that that was her passion and to my knowledge she has never not been passionate in its pursuit. At one point she paused performing in favor of the steady work of being a drama teacher at a private girl’s school. She had followed her summer-stock theater friend Matthew down that path and did it for several years. Then, as she approached the age of forty, she decided to give up teaching and go back to the rigorous life of pursuing performing in the musical theater while taking on numerous survival jobs to pay the rent. That was clearly a tougher path from a lifestyle perspective, but her passion for performing drove her to do it. Meanwhile, Matthew went on to become a school headmaster and developed what I imagine must be a passion for education with a more muted ongoing interest in the arts.
So, today while Kim spends he day rehearsing by herself for her upcoming online performance, what am I to do? When people ask what I do these days, I tell them I do several things. This is the portfolio theory of life, where one substitutes a panoply of interests for some all-consuming driving passion. I had that passion for finance and business-building for many years, but in retirement have chosen to diversify. Diversification is a wonderful risk management tool, but most people will also tell you that you can’t get rich diversifying. As it is in investment management, so it is in more general life. I no longer strive for greatness or “wealth” from my activities. I strive for fulfillment and satisfaction of accomplishment. You see, my passion is really about achievement. I am a classic achievement junkie, not for any stated goal, but for general feel-good. I don’t think that is terribly original for this stage of life for Type A personalities, but I have noticed that some friends are less driven to do that than others.
Take the examples of my two ex-partners Bruce and Terry. Bruce is a brilliant financier who was as much a deal junkie as I knew on Wall Street. He is brilliant in finance, but I somehow sense that he is less than passionate about it. He has chosen, in retirement, to stay away from it where and when he can. It almost feels like he wants to achieve things in any area but finance, as though he is ashamed to continue at it. And then there is Terry, who always struck me as a man of vast interests and someone who only dabbled in finance as a necessary evil of his work. In retirement, Terry is choosing to stay engaged in financial affairs and seems to be embracing it more than he ever did in his work. Terry will lecture in my course on Advanced Corporate Finance in a few weeks and Bruce has chosen to stay as far away from it as possible. I find their respective paths to peace quite enlightening about who they are.
Meanwhile, I use my teaching as a mechanism to stay connected to finance and to people I have gathered over the years as friends in that arena. Today I am preparing my lecture for tonight and trust me, lecturing on a topic or three hours for fourteen weeks in a row requires a significant dedication that must be passion-driven since I certainly don’t do it for the money and given my ten years of teaching, I doubt I do it for the teaching either. I must have a passion for finance as a subject since I am working to stay connected to it. My expert witness work bears further witness to that fact. But there is nothing about my engagement in gardening that is connected to finance. There is no financial reward for gardening, and as a form of exercise I could save money by buying a simple gym membership and using it. So, what is the common thread? I suspect it is that like Kim and singing, I am passionate about achievement. I want to always do things that allow me to stand back and admire my effort. I get that in teaching. I get that in gardening. I get that in writing. Those are the pieces that together form my peace.