Living Dangerously - Issue 35

We're still feeling the effects of the '90s, which were the '60s turned upside down. Hoping to make sense of an era in which free love has become free money, I went to see Wavy Gravy -- that bad boy of the '60s, who is now in his sixties. I asked him for his thoughts about leadership in an upside-down world. When I heard him say, "We are not what we eat -- we are what we don't shit out," I knew that I was finally hearing the Truth.

There aren't many people who are worth nominating for a Mount Rushmore of prosperity leaders (as opposed to scarcity leaders, of whom there are many), but Wavy may be one. After visiting Wavy, I went to see a man of our own time -- a survivor, a tycoon who has overcome a fall of titanic proportions and who is now making wise use of his wealth. From this man, I got a brief introduction to Winston Churchill and a more in-depth introduction to Elizabeth I -- England's greatest leader, who ruled that country during nearly five decades of good times.

Wavy was a leading voice during another period of good times -- one that people thought would never end. His home, in Berkeley, California, is festooned with rainbows and chimes and peace dolls and love beads -- the PalmPilots and IPO plans of a once-young-and-restless generation. There are shrines to gurus who have died and taken the soul of "the revolution" with them. Did Wavy and company pin their hopes on social justice, only to present those hopes in the least sustainable packages: sex, drugs, and rock and roll? And what really persists?

Most type A people today would pull an F in "Prosperity Studies." They are the kind of people who, after they get rich, continue to work harder and harder. And after they stop working, they furiously build second homes and investment portfolios. Very few of us are smart about good times. Why? Maybe because Wavy is right: We are not what we eat -- the first-class vacations, the Porsches, the multiple properties that we buy. We are whatever ends up in our belly after the big ideas and the big money have passed through our system. What remains? Can you stand to think about that?

You'd better: It's your gut, baby. What if the good times never end, and what if all that remains is a pile of receipts? Do nondeductible expenses constitute a legacy?

I wanted to look at the face of leadership, postcrap. So, the next day, I went to see the tycoon. He's one of those leaders who used to think that good things happened to him because he deserved it. In a way, he did deserve it. He is brilliant. He loves risk. He invests in his dreams. He built a huge company, and he invested in many others. Then came his humbling -- bad decisions, lawsuits, bouts of bad health. What did he find at the bottom of his gut after everything else that he had taken in had passed through him?

He talked about what stayed in his mind. Knowledge persists -- that and loyalty. He talked about what he no longer has time for. Yes, he takes vacations. Yes, he sees movies and reads books. What he doesn't have time for is anything that won't last. Everything that he eats has to feed him deeply and for a long, long time.

He is coming to grips with his legacy. For him, prosperity is an opportunity to think big and take big risks. He believes that it's time for business to assume responsibility for the work that government is screwing up. Big money should be invested in projects with big consequences for issues like health and education. He maps out his actions in the way that armies map out raids. An action at a local school, for example, enables him to capture knowledge about distance learning that IPO documents can't teach you. Knowledge is the one scarce resource on the planet, he argues, and distance learning is a way to spread knowledge capital. What if we have the tools to cure hunger, poverty, heart disease, stroke, and cancer -- but lack the know-how to use those tools?

We were sitting in his magnificent library. That he even has a library sets him apart from most high-tech pashas. One boomtown home was built out of concrete so that it could be hosed down -- for the convenience of its owner's dogs. But this man has actually built himself a mini-university.

"The leader I most admire is Churchill," he said. "Churchill had the courage to lead people in uncertain directions. He had the strength to see the future and to take action. There was one leader who had a chance to be the Churchill of our times: William Jefferson Clinton. He came to power after the Soviet threat ended and when the economy was about to boom. He could have rescued Africa and given birth to peace. But he wasted the opportunity.