Composing a Further Life

niche for those interested in participating part-time, often as consultants, as Ruth Massinga and Michael Crowe continue to do.
    “People of accomplishment naturally worry about what lies ahead in their own lives after retirement. CEOs think of politics as a way to go. They think of the foundation route. They start giving money to important social causes. This is important to make their lives full. I think of these goals as a kind of tripod—government service, involvement in academia, say a college trusteeship, or philanthropy, a board seat on a respected foundation. They start off with money, and they ask, What the hell does all this mean? How do I really establish myself as a person of achievement where people will say my work did change the world in some way? They are convinced that they are as good as they need to be.
    “I often think of the enormously wealthy Boone Pickens, who has made huge fortunes in oil. He is approaching the end of his life, so he announces that he’s going to pile lots of money into clean energy. Some people may, you know, fund new buildings and insist that their names be on them, but they’re extending their own lives in many cases, aren’t they? So there’s a selfish aspect to it, and then there is an idealistic aspect, where it’s ‘Gee, I’ve got to do
something.’
    “I think the factors are: ‘I’m not going to be bored by golf for the rest of my life; I’ve got to do something new; I don’t know what it would be.’ There’s a boredom factor, plus extending their lives, plus somehow transmitting to the next generation something of value. Also, I do think the religious thing is a factor with many people, even if they don’t go to church—the Day of Judgment. Maybe it’s not about going to hell or heaven, but that there will be some sort of a judgment made on your life. ‘What did your life mean? What did you do?’
    “Going back to legacy effect, what are we about? Maybe your idea of legacy has a profound basis in biology. If we’re just another animal with no function in the world except to transmit genes, is that the story of what we transmit? My values will not necessarily pass on to my children. My children have no serious interest in what I’m doing. They say, ‘Dad, you’re a good guy.’ But they quickly go to sleep if I raise issues about blacks in higher education, the nature of justice, the loss of bird habitats, or the future of higher education—things I care deeply about. I’m not transmitting anything but a general attitude toward life and what one does in life other than eat donuts and go to dinner parties. They have their own agendas—goals that may be more important than mine.” Ted’s other consuming interest is in birds, where a variety of altruistic behaviors have been observed that play back in his thinking about social issues. “In these huge colonies of murres up in Newfoundland, I’ve seen birds that have adopted three little chicks that don’t belong to them. This has nothing to do with transmitting their genes, yet they do this.”
    “Your kids like your hobby,” I said, “but that’s how they see it, it’s your hobby.” On reflection, it struck me that it would be more accurate to say that they
respect
Ted’s work and he respects the choices they have made. At one point in the conversation, when he was speaking about how often the children of wealthy families become playboys and contribute nothing to society, he described his family as all engaged in doing things that he regards as
worthy
, a description that has stuck in my mind, shorthand perhaps for
worthy of respect
—including the possibility of goals more important than his own. Ted is married to Mary Cross, a talented photographer, and they have a blended family of five daughters. One is a psychotherapist who also teaches at Yale. Another, who was widowed fairly young, majored in mathematics at Harvard and founded with her cousins a successful data storage and information delivery company, in addition to serving on nonprofit boards. Of his stepdaughters, one is a nurse practitioner, one is a lawyer, and the third has just finished her Ph.D. in psychology. Although his main focus has been on racism, he referred frequently to the barriers women have had to overcome and has clearly given thought to the problem of sexism.
    “You know, the theory of [Richard] Dawkins is that we’re only here to transmit genes,” 1 he said. “It’s a most powerful biological