I am reading in this new book, Beyond Success: Building a Personal, Financial, and Philanthropic Legacy by Randall Ottinger where it says a Wealthy Person goes through a transition from "Success to Significance." What he or she creates in doing so is a Moral Biography. I can't help imagining a Peanuts cartoon with Lucy at her lemonade stand with a sign, "Moral Biography $.50." My sense is that you as a successful person should not settle for some gimcrack Horatio Alger style moral biography that you might write yourself, or delegate to your Corporate Spin Doctor or Personal Publicist. Look at the mess Porter Novelli made in their Moral Biography of Wade Dokken. My suggestion is that if you want a Moral Biography that stands up to scrutiny you need a first rate Morals Tutor, with a Minor in Augustan Satire. And I do work cheap. All that motivates me, candidly, is my desire to heal you. Unless we cure what ails you it might spread. Don't let your Moral Biography turn into a Self-Satire or Case Study in a Philosophy Class in moral theory, or an an addendum to a class on The Great Gatsby or Veblen's Theory of The Leisure Class. You got to understand that your Text is not the first book ever written, believe it or not. Some people study books. I mean they are actually educated in the liberal arts, the arts of liberty. They love to dissect these Songs of Myself written by or about fallible human creatures in pursuit of Significance. The whole blessed history of Satire is about that. Read, for example, The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal imitated by Samuel Johnson before penning your asinine Moral Biography, or hiring it done by some Grub Street Hack. Come to me in all humility and we will get it done for you in a way that will stand the test of time, like story of Christ on the Cross. But first, friend, the scourging.
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