JULY 8: *&#@!!
Got the call: Turned down for disability insurance. Why? Because I am a self-employed home-based worker, unattached to any institution. Is everyone who is self-employed in such straits? My broker says he will take my application to Lloyd's of London, the insurer of last resort, the underwriter of Russian cosmonauts and Bruce Springsteen's voice. I should feel special to be in their company. So why am I pissed? Because I don't see why I should be considered a risk just because I am free from any damn company? Does that make me a menace to myself? But even Lloyd's is no done deal. I have to reapply and begin another wait. My Doubleday benefits run out on July 31. What if something bad happens after that and I'm still not covered? The broker says not to worry; he'll have me covered by the 31st.
I hope so.
JULY 9: The way down is the way up
At the management panel today, Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin blew the others away. No small act, since his fellow panelists included Andy Grove and Rupert Murdoch. Levin talked about integrity as the consistent element in all his products, from music to magazines. He said they had to appeal to the public, but also to people in the company. "If our people don't love the product, what good is it?" A vast change has transformed Levin since the terrible murder of his son Jonathan, a year ago. I recall another CEO who had lost his son. In his despair he called a friend, a scholar who was an expert on the story of Oedipus, the king who sleeps with his mother and is blinded for this act. This CEO drew a line going upward to show how strong Oedipus was before that tragic act, and then a line going down to show the king in his misery. "No, you've got it all wrong," my friend said to this man. "I'd draw the lines going exactly opposite. As a king, Oedipus did a lot of things he didn't really care about. After the tragic loss of his kingdom, Oedipus finally discovers what is important to him. Blind to the surface of things, he ironically sees in the clearest way, no illusions, no bullshit. Oedipus lived for 30 years in that state of clarity. What a terrific thing." I'm convinced one doesn't have to suffer to see, that questions of legacy can give leaders the depth they need to see without illusion. I feel I'm closing in on making these matters my "practice."
JULY 11: Cool
Put on my Nikes and ran to the Hemingway memorial. It's a black brook, and over it is a plaque with sentimental doggerel about how Hem wanted to be part of the free blue wind. The water flows cold and fast, and I dipped my fingers in it, my own private Nile in Idaho, and then I walked back up to the bungalow, getting spun up in the sky. I stopped and imagined learning how to be good, or better than good. I expect so much of leaders; how can I ask them to attain that height unless I attain it myself? So much of the genius of the country is here in Sun Valley this week, and all these people are doing is making better telephones or winning the war against Pepsi. Is this the last horizon for business? Or can leaders learn to spend their time in ways that justify their lives?
JULY 12: The blonde leading the blonde
The women's panel: a rare sight, beautiful faces staring back from the stage. No one had realized how deprived we'd been, having to stare at Bill Gates's dourness, until we walked in and saw Diane Sawyer in cashmere; Diane Von Furstenberg, her tummy only a puff like a brioche, in one of her classic 20-year-old dresses; Geraldine Laybourne, with her green-trim glasses and honey-blonde hair; and Katharine Graham, 81, looking like Queen Elizabeth I. The eyes feasted.
Sawyer began with a good joke: If a man says something in a forest and his wife isn't there to hear it, is he still wrong? My favorite line belonged to Von Furstenberg. Asked about the future for women, she explained that when times get tough, people will elect a woman. The French have a phrase: "Cherchez la femme." When life gets dark, turn to a woman. Maybe that's why dying men call for their mothers.
But they weren't there to argue the case for women atop organizations. Graham went so far as to say that women should not work and had no place on boards. "Boards don't do much anyway," she said.
This year Herbert Allen gave three slots away to noncompany presentations---on women, race, and management. Someone at the conference said that Allen doesn't want to be remembered as just a deal maker but as a man who quietly made a difference.
JULY 13: Who am I? Where have I been?
Back home. My book of airline receipts is so thick it looks as if there are still tickets left in it. Five cities in 10 days: Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Sun Valley, New York. Gathering ideas, reminding people (including myself) that I may be one lone player but I can still fill a lot of space.
JULY 29: Pressing the button
Had a next-to-last meeting with my designer, Paula Kelly. She has done a great job on my letterhead. Her logo is like a little AT&T globe, but it's my world. The red river, Rubicon, looks fetching on the page, a heart line, a blood line. I'm very happy. Now the last payment needs to be made, the ball-breaking estimates will come in from the printers, and we're off. Getting stationery is like printing one's own money--let me come to believe that, please, dear Soloist God. You who are singular, help all us little singulars believe that a being alone can make the world. Why on earth am I getting so holy?
AUGUST 1: Today I am one
Lunch with Burt, my favorite rabbi. He is going through the same watch-and-wait calendar with his wife as I am with Avram. We meet every three months or so and compare notes, travel, book lists. "Whom do you c
