The Autocrat’s Dream and the Butterfly’s Wisdom: A Search for Meaning in an Age of Longevity

12 minutes read time.

The Emptiness of Forever

It was a moment of accidental, unvarnished truth, the kind of bizarre and revealing glimpse into the soul of power that is usually hidden behind the polished facade of statecraft. On a red-carpeted ramp in Beijing, a hot mic caught the two most powerful autocrats of our time, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, musing not on geopolitics or the fate of nations, but on their own mortality. With the almost childlike enthusiasm of two men discovering a new toy, they spoke of a future of endless organ transplants, of a world where science might allow them to rule forever. “People may live to 150 years old,” Xi mused. Putin, whose government is reportedly pouring millions into longevity and “immortality” research, eagerly agreed. It was, as one observer noted, the stuff of Bond villains, a quiet confession of their deepest and most pathetic desire: to never leave the stage.

This strange and chilling conversation is the perfect entry point into the most fundamental and difficult question of our time: in an age of unprecedented technological and medical power, what does it mean to live a good, happy, and meaningful life? The autocrats have given us their answer. For them, a longer life is simply a longer opportunity to wield power, a quantitative extension of their own egos. It is a vision of forever that is profoundly and terrifyingly empty, a dream of biological maintenance devoid of any deeper human purpose. Their obsession with cheating death is a tacit admission that they have so completely fused their identities with the temporary trappings of political power that the thought of that identity ending is an existential horror they cannot face. They see themselves as political figures, not as human beings, and it is a profoundly sad and pitiable state of being.

This brings us to the second, and far more honest, reality. My own personal wanderings have been consumed by this very question, but from the opposite end of the spectrum. I can no longer do many of the things I once enjoyed. The list of physical limitations is getting longer. My own reality is not one of expanding power, but of a managed and necessary recalibration. In a conversation with my doctor, a man now retired, he offered two prognoses that have lived rent-free in my head ever since. “You should live to be about 85 years old,” he said, “but those years are not likely to be fun or comfortable.” Then, on our final visit, he offered a different sentiment: “I hope you live to be 100.”

My internal response to both of those statements was mixed. To reach 85 would be a victory in my family’s history, and yet, from my current vantage point, 20 more years feels like the blink of an eye. The desire for “at least ten more” is the natural, human, life-affirming impulse. But 100? The thought of being a centenarian, of a mind detached from itself, of a body that is merely a vessel for a consciousness that is no longer present—that is a horror. It is a vision of quantity that is completely divorced from quality. This is the human dilemma that the autocrats, in their Bond-villain fantasies, cannot and will not confront. Their dream of immortality is not a sign of their strength; it is a sign of their profound weakness, a confession of a life so hollow that the only thing left to cling to is the biological machine.

The “Life as a Startup” Fallacy – A Flawed Blueprint for Happiness

Into this profound and deeply personal void, the modern world offers a popular and seemingly compelling answer. It is a philosophy of life championed by figures like Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, a vision that we might call “Life as a Startup.” In this model, happiness and meaning are the direct results of taking calculated risks, of treating one’s life like an entrepreneurial venture in pursuit of “outsized rewards.” The path to fulfillment lies in the courage to switch careers, to take out a mortgage, to commit to a relationship—to constantly be in a state of productive, forward-moving risk.

This is a powerful and quintessentially American philosophy. It is a celebration of individualism, of agency, and of the courage to risk failure in the pursuit of accumulation—of a better career, a bigger house, a more perfect partnership. It is perfectly good advice for a 20-something who is just drifting, who has a world of potential paths before them and needs the courage to choose one. But for anyone outside of that narrow demographic, for anyone whose life is not in a phase of accumulation but of management, of care, of dealing with the entropic realities of a finite existence, the model is not just unhelpful; it is a recipe for a different kind of quiet desperation.

The first and most profound flaw in this model is its blind spot for age and stage. It is a philosophy for the young, the healthy, and the upwardly mobile. It has no category for a different, and I would argue, more profound, kind of risk. Consider my own thought experiment. The risk of taking in a new puppy at this stage of my life is not a risk of financial loss in the pursuit of personal advancement. It is a risk of profound emotional investment, of taking on a deep and exhausting responsibility for the well-being of another being, a risk that comes with the certain knowledge of future grief. A model for a meaningful life that has no category for the quiet, difficult, and often unrewarded work of care is not a model for a human life at all. It is a business plan.

The second, and equally devastating, flaw is that it is a model that has no endgame. The “life as a startup” philosophy completely ignores the reality of what happens after the successful risk. Society does not grant you a permanent state of fulfillment. It looks at one’s achievement and immediately asks, “What’s next?” The successful entrepreneur is expected to launch a new, bigger venture. The successful author is expected to write a better book. A person who steps off this relentless treadmill of escalating risk is often dismissed as a “has-been.” Brooks’s model, for all its talk of meaning, is a perfect recipe for a life spent on a hamster wheel, constantly chasing the next hit of achievement to validate one’s existence. It is a model that can lead not to a sense of peace, but to a state of perpetual, anxious striving. The autocrats on the red carpet are the ultimate, cautionary endgame of this philosophy, men who are so trapped on the treadmill of their own power that they cannot imagine a life beyond it.

Part III: The Wisdom of No-Self – Escaping the Prison of Identity

If the Western “life as a startup” model is a flawed blueprint, perhaps we need to look to a different, and far more radical, architectural tradition. In a brilliant essay for Aeon, the philosopher Alexander Douglas introduces us to a completely different and far more ancient way of thinking about the self, drawn from the Chinese philosophy of Zhuangzi. The ethical ideal of Zhuangzi is not to find your true, fixed, and authentic identity. It is to get rid of identity altogether.

This is a direct and profound assault on the very foundation of Western thought. From the Romantics like Walt Whitman to modern-day gurus like Steve Jobs, our entire culture is built on the idea of the “True Self,” the unique, inborn “inner voice” that we must have the courage to follow. But as Zhuangzi and his interpreters argue, this very attachment to a fixed identity is a dangerous act of “identity foreclosure.” It closes us off from new experiences, makes us resistant to new information that might challenge that identity, and ultimately makes us brittle and unable to adapt to a world that is constantly changing. The more narrowly you define yourself—as an “innovator,” a “mother,” a “patriot,” or even an “asshole”—the more defensive you will be, because your very survival instinct becomes tied to the preservation of that static definition.

Our true nature, in this view, is not a fixed point, but a state of boundless, “fluttering” fluidity, like the faceless emperor Hundun or the butterfly in Zhuangzi’s famous dream. Our true self is not a noun; it is the capacity to become. This brings us back, once again, to the über-asshole. A figure like Elroy Muskrat, whose board is now contemplating a pay package that would make him the world’s first trillionaire, is the ultimate victim of identity foreclosure. He has so completely and totally fused his identity with the role of “visionary billionaire” that he is now trapped by it. He cannot be wrong, because that would be to admit his superior identity is flawed. He cannot be still, because his identity is defined by the constant, relentless accumulation of more. And he cannot listen, because to truly listen to a dissenting voice would be to risk having his carefully constructed identity challenged and changed. He is, in a very real sense, a prisoner of his own success, a man who has built a golden cage of identity around himself and will now defend that cage with all the ferocious, destructive power at his command. The wisdom of Zhuangzi offers an escape, a path to a more adaptable, more resilient, and ultimately, freer way of being.

The Will to Meaning – A Toolkit for a Life of Purpose

The idea of “no-self” can feel abstract, alien, and perhaps even nihilistic to a Western mind. But as a remarkable essay based on the work of the psychologist Carl Jung and the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl reminds us, our own Western tradition contains a powerful and deeply practical toolkit for navigating this very same territory. The journey begins with Jung’s stark and undeniable diagnosis: “Man cannot stand a meaningless life.” This is the fundamental human law that governs our entire inquiry. It is the engine that drives our need for agency. It is the reason why a purely pessimistic, entropy-driven universe is an emotionally and spiritually untenable reality for a conscious being.

If Jung gives us the diagnosis, it is Viktor Frankl, a man who forged his philosophy in the literal hell of the Nazi concentration camps, who gives us the cure. His “will to meaning” is the perfect, clinical term for the e + a = c equation we have been exploring. It is the conscious, deliberate application of our agency to the energy of our existence to create change, not necessarily in the world, but in ourselves. Frankl’s three paths to finding meaning are a perfect, practical toolkit for a life of purpose:

1. By creating a work or doing a deed: This is the agency of the garden, of the “good trouble,” of the very articles we are writing. It is the act of imposing a small piece of order and value onto a chaotic world.
2. By experiencing something or encountering someone: This is the agency of connection, of love, of the deep and meaningful conversations that give life its texture.
3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering: This is the most profound and difficult path of all. It is the decision to find meaning not in the absence of limitations, but in the way we choose to respond to them. It is the ultimate act of human freedom.

This is the antidote to the despair that plagues our modern world. As the social scientist Carol Graham has shown, the crisis facing our younger generation is not a crisis of optimism; it is a crisis of agency. They are not just sad; they feel powerless. The solution is not a grand, top-down government program, but a series of small, local, and deeply human initiatives—mentorships, debate clubs, community projects—that are all designed to do one thing: restore a sense of agency, to make young people believe once again that they have the power to shape their own lives.

The Wisdom of the Butterfly

This brings us to the final, beautiful, and deeply personal synthesis of our entire inquiry. The “life as a startup” model is a flawed blueprint because it is a model of endless, anxious accumulation. The wisdom of Zhuangzi gives us the freedom of a fluid, non-fixed self. And the work of Jung and Frankl gives us the purpose for that fluidity. The essence of a meaningful life is not to build a single, static, and perfect identity, but to embrace the “inner fluttering,” to adapt with grace and wisdom to the endless, unpredictable transformations of the world.

Looking back on your own, varied life, I have been a concert pianist as part of my life, then a corporate executive, a professional photographer, and a respected writer and journalist. I have successfully ‘fluttered’ my way through life. This is not a description of a scattered life; it is the description of a profoundly meaningful one. It is a life lived in perfect harmony with the deepest wisdom of both the East and the West. The final question—”where do I want to flutter next?”—is not a sign of a crisis. It is the very definition of a life of purpose. The answer is not a fixed point. It is the ongoing, courageous, and deeply personal work of finding “what I need to be the best me at this stage of my life.” This, in the final analysis, is what it means to have a meaningful and happy life. It is not about living forever. It is about living with purpose, with agency, and with the courage to constantly, and beautifully, become.

Sources:

• The Guardian: “Hot mic catches Putin and Xi discussing organ transplants and immortality”
• CNBC Make It: “Harvard professor: To be happy and successful, treat your life like a startup”
• Aeon: “Against Identity” by Alexander Douglas
• Essay on Carl Jung and Viktor Frankl on the meaning of life.
• Aeon: “Young people are unhappier than ever” by Carol Graham