The Endgame

Newsletter #17 - Ambition at eighty

This newsletter looks at issues and events from the endgame point of view. The endgame is a chess concept. In the endgame only a handful of pieces are left on the board. Few moves remain. Victory or defeat is close. Player options are limited and diminishing. Zugzwang is a particularly important aspect of the endgame. It is zugzwang when a player’s only available moves will worsen his position.

Toronto, March 26, 2023

Ambition at eighty

Is it okay to be ambitious at eighty? What’s the point? Fuhgeddaboudit, put your feet up, grab your golf clubs, fire up Netflix, fix a martini, whatever... You’ve got nothing to prove (or so you say). And, by the way, ambitious for what?

Statistics Canada says the life expectancy of an 80 year old male living in Canada is a little under eight years. It’s about ten years for women. (The calculation details are complicated – e.g., see here.) These are averages. You might die tomorrow or live to a hundred: that will only affect the average infinitesimally. It reminds me of what Geoffrey Willans said about the safety of air travel in his 1954 book Fasten Your Lapstraps. If your plane crashes it will make the safety statistics slightly less reassuring for the next guy, and the chances are he won’t notice.

So you’ve got time, geezer. Although, needless to say, Statistics Canada is silent on the most important points about your life expectancy. How are you going to feel during those last few years? How much of your time will you be spending in hospital emergency rooms?

Ambition is objective-neutral. It drives people to the heights and the depths. You can want to conquer the world or conquer cancer. Genghis Khan was ambitious. His 13^th Century wars of conquest caused the deaths of 40 million people, 11 per cent of the world’s population.

A certain mid-20^th century German Chancellor was ambitious (mindful of Godwin’s law, I will not name him). Nelson Mandela was ambitious. Steve Jobs was ambitious. Fill in the blanks with your own favourite names.

Some people are born ambitious; some have ambition thrust upon them; many could care less. I don’t think many people are born ambitious, but you have to watch those who are (generally they are easy to identify). They will save the world or kill us all.

Fewer still have ambition thrust upon them. (How would that work? Nagging mother?) Most people are in the don’t give a fig category. They will have routine goals—make a living, buy a house, go on occasional vacations—but they’re not ambitious. They don’t want to suffer the torments of hell trying to become king of the world. They want to relax. Their big achievements, if there are any, will be accidental.

Those born ambitious are seldom if ever satisfied. Even if they are successful, very successful, they want more—more money, more territory, more fame, more praise, more followers, more everything. Failure is what they fear. Failure leads to bitterness and anger. Terry Malloy (played by Marlon Brando) put it well in On the Waterfront:

It's easy to pity the octogenarian born-ambitious who continue to struggle. It’s easy to be comfortable with your own wise acceptance of fate and the limitations of old age, and to pooh-pooh the path chosen by those who refuse to give up. What are these striving seniors doing anyway? Why are they bothering? Don’t they understand? It’s time to take it easy.

But some octogenerians don’t want to take it easy. They still have hope. They still think they can do something. They still believe in possibility. They still think lightning might strike. A best-selling book, perhaps? A piano recital at Carnegie Hall? Dream, dream, dream...

P.S. My new book is Antisemitism: An ancient hatred in the age of identity politics.  You can get it at the usual places.