The insecurities of older successful people

Success breeds ego. No two ways about it.

In a theme I should probably stop returning to, I was listening to Maron’s interview with Shatner, and it was a rough one.

Shatner kept doing what my old boss used to do:

Was he a good guy?

‘Good guy’ - what does that mean?

Are you happy?

‘Happy’ - what does that mean?

So you were gonna be a broadway guy?

‘Broadway guy’ - what does that mean?

The older boss I used to work for did the same - when I would ask questions, he would get on his high horse of wisdom, question the stupidity of my queries, and then impart some sort of guru-like philosophy that I bought for a short time, and then eventually came to see through.

That’s not meant to be as critical as it sounds - it’s just that in hindsight, I think it’s a harmful thing to the young and unitiated who take those words as gospel, like I once did.

Older successful people often seem to fall into this behaviour. The generous interpretation is that at a certain point of age and mastery, everything gels together in a zen-like soup where basic terms lose their meanings, and it all flows into one undivisible truth that can’t possibly be understood by the youngins until they too have earned it through years of hard work and experience.

The less generous interpretation is that they are struggling with impending issues of mortality and ego mixed with declining mental faculties, and can pull rank through imprecise gobbledy-gook that disciples can ponder upon and read their own meaning into for years to come.

Another part of that, I think, is that successful people are rarely good mentors. “Those who can’t do, teach” kind of thing. A good mentor is concerned first and foremost with adding value to another person’s experience - not safeguarding their own status. Good mentorship and teaching requires putting-aside of the ego in a way that successful people often cannot. Ego is often how they got there in the first place.

All I can say is that as someone who used to look to mentors for wisdom and guidance, that attitude is very frustrating. It’s part of why I stopped looking outwards for any guidance. God willing I make something of myself one day to be in a position for people to seek that type of guidance from me on something - I hope I’m a bit more generous with my responses.