Love in the Age of World Domination

Growing up by Default

I've been rereading parts of Caroline Knapp's Drinking: A Love Story, one of my all-time favorite personal memoirs. There are so many memoirs around these days, and half of them are fabricated a la James Frey and now even Augusten Boroughs. You've got to be careful who's story you allow yourself to be taken in by, affected by, and changed by. 

I came across this passage in Caroline's writing that has always held great meaning for me, now more than ever:

There’s something about facing long afternoons without the numbing distraction of any sort of anesthesia that disabuses you of the belief in externals, shows you that strength and hope come not from circumstances or the acquisition of things but from the simple accumulation of active experience, from gritting the teeth and checking the items off the list, one by one, even though it’s painful and you’re afraid....Passivity is corrosive to the soul; it feeds on feelings of integrity and pride, and it can be as tempting as a drug. If it feels warm and fuzzy, it is probably the [addictive] choice. If it feels dangerous and scary and threatening and painful, it is probably healthy.

Replace "long afternoons" with "long evenings" and this passage is so a mirror or my life that I want to throw something at it. It is absolutely the days that I wake up and make my bed and show up, and cross a few of those items off my to-do list that give me strength and 'build' me. In contrast, the days when I live in my head, when I chase after my passion de jour whatever it may be that day - more success, more love, more chocolate, whatever - there I am spinning my wheels, chasing my own tail, - and those are inevitably days of waste and 'unraveling'.

After all this time I should know better. And I do. But the knowledge of what I may have to lose or gain, does not help me; I still automatically go for the addictive choice. Its some kind of brain switch that some of us are born with, and we have to learn to cope with it.

And these addictions -they do work as anesthetics. They numb you from the messy business of life, and of growing up. Every time you escape from real life and go somewhere else in your head, you miss parts of your own life - the parts that are required to get you from point A to point B emotionally. The much talked about 'growth' in self-help books, which is so challenging yet so vital.

I'd spent most of my life waiting for maturity to hit me from the outside, as though I'd just wake up one morning and be done, like a roast in the oven. But growth comes from the inside out, from trying and failing and trying again. You begin to let go of the wish, age-old and profound and essentially human, that someone will swoop down and do all that hard work, growing up, for you.

Mean Street Shenanigans

These last few months my heart is with some of my friends who work on the Street, including at least a quarter of my MBA class. With more than $300 billion in write-downs and credit losses in under a year, banks are firing like nobody's business. Half of April's 23,000 layoff came from Merrill Lynch and Citi, both banks I have worked for. I know how capricious these places can be. What I am saying, though, is that we should keep some perspective. Bonuses are down by 10-25% this year but given that the average bonus is about 200K, how sorry do we need to feel?

This very funny article by the Shadow captures the spirit of the times:

Thousands of elite domestic and international MBAs with seven to 20 years of experience have been given their termination packages over the last year. They are "discovering" new teaching careers, "spending more time with their families," attempting to convince hedge funds that they have some inherent entrepreneurial spirit (NOT), or scouring the bones of smaller investment banks for a potential stepped down "rain maker" position.

This forced exodus from the financial services industry comprises more than investment bankers. It includes private bankers, fixed income salesmen and traders, equity/research sales, any and every CDS / CDO trader that can be found hiding, structuring gurus and your general overly paid, “it’s my birthright” type of slicked-back hair genius – both men and women. Though the female numbers are smaller, the fact that Morgan Stanley’s president Zoe Cruz was unceremoniously and publicly crucified by her male contemporaries, from above and below, does not bode well for the male/female ratio changing any time soon. The Shadow finds it amazing that despite the numerous class action law suits that have succeeded, chauvinism is still running rampant. The only thing that’s changed is these dinosaurs have finally learned they can’t expense lap dances.

What does this mean for our industry? Does our Wall Street microcosm really have much of an effect on Main Street and Hillary’s legion of white blue collar workers? Well, the fact is that it already has, and always will. The irony is that the ripples come from the outside in - which is counter to the natural order of things. That is, Wall Street crumbles from a speculative bubble that they created with their lemming- like clients - the latest being the credit debacle - and the hard-working stiff with a 680 FICO score in Tulsa can’t borrow money because the banks overreact with their underwriting standards. Or Joe Potato in Cleveland loses his job because the Wal-Mart cuts 25% of its work force to “contain costs” and then proceeds to immediately provide Chinese, Indian and Korean workers with new “opportunities” in their home country.

It is only many months later that the epicenter is affected with the dinosaurs attempting to sell their third homes and not finding bids, cutting back on the south of France vacations and Beaver Creek ski jaunts. They also come to the realization that the 8,200 square foot home they bought in Harrison has operating costs that they are suddenly becoming rather uncomfortable with.

So who is this dinosaur, really? Is he the legendary Theseus turned into a modern day Thersites? Probably neither. Other than wearing a bespoke suit and not really driving revenue to the extent he or she should, this individual did more process work than deal-making, interfaced with customers peripherally, and manifested hubris in its purest most unattractive form because he went to Yale, Wharton or Stanford. Sure those hallowed halls help you get jobs, but my god man; it isn’t a lifetime meal ticket!

Now many of you were ultra-hard workers and life is sometimes unfair, but the world is large and flatter than ever. Instead of searching in this corner of the world, expand the flight of your search. Dinosaurs can become eagles once more. Just not in Manhattan.

Forgiveness

I thought of all the bad luck,
And the struggles we went through
And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside loves open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?

Yeah what is that - when we have all we ever wanted, and we are reasonably content, what makes us beg for some undefinable "more"? Is it fear, fear of the unknown, fear of actual real happiness that somehow feels foreign and scary because you are so defined by turmoil and drama, the only two states of mind that you are really familiar with?

The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, Im learning again
Ive been tryin to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think its about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore

One's will is a capricious thing. Sometimes it pursues its object and wild animals couldn't hold it off. Other times it wants to take a nap, exhausted from trying to figure out things for which there simply are no answers. As for "scattered" thoughts, a mind such as mine that is capable of thinking Yes and No presicely at the same moment... well eventually that leads you to a place of backtracking and flip-flopping, half-truths and white lies, and a tremendous loss of credibility.

These times are so uncertain
Theres a yearning undefined
And people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age?
The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
Theyre the very things - we kill I guess
Pride and competition
Cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us
You know it doesnt keep me warm

Love in a graceless age - perhaps this blog would be renamed - these are indeed different times, things change fast, doesn't seem like love survives long in graceless places. Even innocence has caught the last train out, and there's nobody left on the platform to take the blame. Trust and self-assurance, twin virtues, but easily annihilated by a lack of consistency and integrity.

Ive been tryin to get down
To the heart of the matter
Because the flesh will get weak
And the ashes will scatter
So Im thinkin about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you dont love me

Everyone gets old, everyone dies. So ultimately it probably is about forgiveness, but I am not there yet. For now, I am just trying to keep me one disaster less.

(lyrics from Heart of the Matter by India Arie)