Buddhist Marketer

Inelasticity of self

I had an eight hour conversation yesterday with an M&A veteran who has made me question my desire to become a scholar.

“Don’t confuse your unhappiness with being a major with a lack of desire to fight the battle.  You have passion for the war.  This is a good thing.  But you are meant to be a general.”

Oh, ouch! The truth.  How often have I considered the people above me on the food chain to be total morons?  “I could run this business better than they can,” I would tell myself, scanning their grammatical errors on a powerpoint and critiquing their presentation skills let alone ability to select an outfit.

“Your subject matter expertise in internet technologies, your intelligence, your presence, your credentials:  you would have venture capital and private equity firms slaughtering each other trying to get you.”

I like how this sounds, I think.  Suddenly the infinity pool, the last-minute trip to Zanzibar, the closet dripping with haber-dashingly badass suits reappear on the set of What Anittah’s Life Could Look Like.  I did always like badinaging with c-levels over dinner.  There always has been a part of me that very much enjoys the politicking that happens amongst smart, confident people in the upper echelons of corporate America.

But it was taking me too long to get there, and I was exhausted by the politicking amongst all the mediocre, one-dimensional people on the B-list.

“This PhD business is just a cop-out.  Go get a JD/MBA, and only from Harvard or Stanford.  You’ll have three summers to intern.  Do one at Kleiner Perkins, one in M&A at Goldman — and demand M&A, none of that other bullsh– and maybe at a law firm working on a deal one summer to see that side of things.  Work for five years in M&A and mark my words, you’ll be a general.  You will be the CEO or, worst-case scenario, a chief strategy officer.  Or if you prefer, you’ll be a vc or at a private equity company and you’ll tell your portfolio how to run their businesses.  Believe me, if you were running [large .com], you’d have done a much better job than [well-known CEO].  And I’d say that in front of [person in question]; [he/she] is a friend of mine.

“You have what it takes.  You are smart and passionate with presence and credibility.  You care deeply about the war.  And let me tell you something else –”

Good God, there’s more? I think, scrambling in my head and fighting the idea of having to take the damned LSAT and GMAT –

“No one who has been truly successful has been without insecurity.  Self-contentment is the enemy of productivity and drive.”

This is not a conversation that my personal coach would be happy about, I think to myself, taking a hungry gulp of my Egyptian lemonade.

===

A few years ago I was on a sixth or seventh date with a very curious human being.  He was one of those people that I had to date from a cultural-anthropology perspective.  I collected data and played the part that he clearly wanted me to play:  that of an insipid and happy white woman with blonde hair.  And it was very clear that actual talking would not be on the agenda:  he spent tens of thousands of dollars on a sound system in order to listen to pop music. Audiophilic for Casey Kasem’s Top 40?  Really?

One night, as usual and per his request, I’d worn the kind of outfit that, as I glided through the dining room, made men stop mid-sentence or -chew despite the searing glances from their companions.  An entire table of bankers went silent as I walked by.  During dinner in our snuggly corner booth, I’m in character and giggling at one of his inanities.

“Oh, you’re such a happy little thing,” the set of beautiful new teeth that he paid dearly for said to me.

Oh my God, I thought to myself.  This man has no idea who I am. He’s been completely snowed into thinking that the woman he’s requested I be is actually me.

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Writes Ann Foerst, former theologian and research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, in the May-June 2008 Spirituality & Health’s “The Real Reason For Sex“:

… what makes humans unique among living creatures is that we are constantly telling stories about who we are, what we’re doing, and what we should be doing.

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Have I not worked incredibly hard and travelled this far on my journey to get out of the business of aligning my activities towards the goals and interests of the Other?

Is not the whole point of guild membership the ability and freedom to pursue a course of action and line of inquiry that is relatively unfettered by the needs of outside parties?

“Oh, I have no doubt that if you go into academia, you’ll have a flurry of productivity and become the president of a top university if you want by the age of fifty.  But you will grow bored.  Universities are very slow to change, and you are temperamentally impatient.  But the other path means that by the age of fifty you’ll be worth $100MM.  Mark my words.”

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Matty Charles & The Valentines’ Mama, I Don’t Want To Go Insane just started playing on my iTunes:

I’ve been looking for an answer / in every drop of wine / and the whiskey shines like gold / but there’s no way / it could ever keep my heart from feeling lonely all the time / oh mama I don’t want to go insane

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Being confronted with a difficult juncture such as the one that, prior to yesterday, I was unawares existed, makes me feel like this:

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This from my old man this morning: “There was this farmer, see, and I always liked how straight his rows here.  Always admired that, corn neat and orderly far as the eye — anyway.  So I asked him how he did it, and he says, he says, ‘Well, I just look off into the distance at a far tree, and I point my tractor in that direction.  And if I do that, I won’t be able to help it, I’ll stay on course, and my rows’ll be straight.’”

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For those of us with zscores > three, paths forged by those who have come before are unlikely to suffice, yes?  And anyway:  I have been in the service of other people my entire life.  Meeting their needs.  Being who they want me to be.  This happy little thing is tired of it.

Anittah, Are You Being Served?

If I decide to chase a hundred-million-dollar-dream, the likelihood of me serving me gets closer and closer to zero.

ANPhD:  game very much still on.