Creativity (30 page)

T
HE
S
OURCES OF
M
EANING

According to Erik Erikson, the last psychological stage that people confront in their lives is what he called the task of achieving integrity. What he meant by this is that if we live long enough and if we resolve all the earlier tasks of adulthood—such as developing a viable
identity
, a close and satisfying
intimacy
, and if we succeed in passing on our genes and our values through
generativity
—then there
is a last remaining task that is essential for our full development as a human being. This consists in bringing together into a meaningful story our past and present, and in reconciling ourselves with the approaching end of life. If in the later years we look back with puzzlement and regret, unable to accept the choices we have made and wishing for another chance, despair is the likely outcome. In Erikson’s words: “A meaningful old age…serves the need for that integrated heritage which gives indispensable perspective on the life cycle. Strength here takes the form of that detached yet
active concern with life bounded with death, which we call wisdom…”

The notion of integrity connotes the ability to tie together, to relate to others outside oneself. Erikson thought that the perspective of an older person is based on a new definition of identity, which could be summarized in the sentence “I am what survives me.” If toward the end of life I conclude that nothing of myself is likely to survive, despair is likely to take over. But if I have identified with some more enduring entities, my survival will provide a sense of connection, of continuity, that keeps despair at bay. If I love my grandchildren, or the work I have accomplished, or the caus
es I have championed, then I am bound to feel a part of the future even after personal death. Jonas Salk calls this attitude “being a good ancestor.”

In our study, we did not pursue directly the question whether and to what extent our respondents had achieved a sense of integrity about their lives. But answers to one question shed some light on the issue of what entities serve as the kernel for the identity of this sample, the kernel around which a sense of integrity is likely to develop. The question was “Of the things you have done in life, of what are you most proud?” This question is certainly not ideal for studying integrity, because several respondents felt put off by the word
proud
and others were not too happy about singl
ing out a particular accomplishment as the source of their greatest pride. Nevertheless, people by and large answered the question in a way that suggested they were thinking of the most meaningful, important thing they had done in life and therefore of their main link to the future.

Categorizing the answers was very simple, since all of them were basically of one type. As we would expect in a group of such successful people, what they had achieved in their professional life was the first kind of answer. About 70 percent of the accomplishments mentioned as sources of pride had to do with one’s work. Surprisingly,
however, 40 percent of the women and 25 percent of the men (a good 30 percent of the whole group) mentioned the family first as what they were most proud of. These are some of the reasons two men give for their answers:

As the second excerpt suggests, pride in family is often combined with pride in work. One could even conclude that although the family was mentioned first in this answer, its importance is subsidiary to that of writing and teaching. It sounds almost as if the family matters primarily because it enables the writer to concentrate all his energies on his task. In fact, family and work are usually so inextricably related that it is difficult to say from a single answer whether fame and accomplishments are valued because they enhance the family’s well-being, or the other way around. It
is striking, however, that no other themes intruded on this simple duality. In the last years of the twentieth century, among sophisticated people of supremely high achievement, one may have expected a greater variety and more eso
teric topics on which to build a life’s narrative. It certainly appears to vindicate Freud’s deceptively simple answer to an inquiry about the secret for a happy life: “Love and work,” he said, and with those two words he may have run out of all the options.

In looking more closely at the answers, another interesting pattern appears. Some of the respondents—about 70 percent of the 70 percent who mentioned work first as source of pride—speak primarily about extrinsic reasons for feeling proud, such as the great contributions they have made, the recognition and prizes they received, their renown among colleagues. The remaining 30 percent emphasize intrinsic reasons—the cultural advance made possible by the accomplishment or the personal rewards of a difficult job well done.

The physicist John Bardeen, although mentioning extrinsic reasons, emphasizes more the intrinsic importance of what he had been working on:

The more extrinsic responses tended to dwell on the number of copies the person’s books have sold, on the directorships of large research organizations he or she held, on the canvases displayed in important exhibitions—in other words, on the highlights of a job résumé. The economist George Stigler has a refreshingly direct answer to the question:

Every other Nobel Prize winner, however, gave reasons that were intrinsic. Perhaps among these individuals who are so close to the top rungs of achievement in their fields, only those who have reached the highest stages can afford the luxury of playing down the importance of worldly success. But a closer look at the answers suggests that it is unwise to place too much weight on the answers to this single question. The reason becomes evident when we realize that almost 40 percent of the men gave responses that were coded as intrinsic, whereas none of the women did—every single
one of them talked about the pride they felt in the extrinsic aspects of their contributions.

Yet these women enjoy their work, are in awe of its importance, and are much less interested in the fame and power it might bring them. It would be difficult to find a male scientist as much in love with his work as Vera Rubin, an artist as committed as Eva Zeisel, a historian as excited by his craft as Natalie Davis. So why did the women tend to emphasize external success in their answers to the question about pride? Probably because women have a much more difficult time gaining recognition than men, and therefore when they get it, it means more to them. In any case, this contradi
ction illustrates the important point that trying to interpret a single answer out of the total context of what we know about a person can be deceptive. Isabella Karle, who at first gives a rather extrinsic response, in a different part of the interview, sounds definitely more interested in the intrinsic aspects of her work:

Following the ins and outs of our respondents’ answers to the question about pride, we conclude that, like the rest of the world,
they also stress in their personal narratives the twin themes of work and love. These are the sources from which they build a meaningful story about their pasts and a bridge to the future. The fact that they were lucky in having achieved a greater renown than most people get for their efforts does not seem to make much difference. There is no evidence that being awarded one or two Nobel Prizes gives a person a greater claim on wisdom or a surer defense against despair than having lived a full life as an honest plumber and parent.

F
ACING THE
I
NFINITE

At the time of the interviews, all of our respondents were still actively involved in family and work projects that reflected the main themes of their lives. But often their interest had broadened to include larger issues: politics, human welfare, the environment, and occasionally transcendent concerns with the future of the universe. Interestingly, in entering the last decades of life, none of them appears to have embraced an orthodox religious faith. Fear of death did not loom large; certainly not enough to send them to seek solace in a faith that had been alien at an earlier age
. Those few who, like sociologist Elise Boulding, had strong religious foundations to start with continued in their beliefs. Yet even when a ritualized faith was missing, a broader faith seemed to be much in evidence: a faith in an ultimately meaningful universe, which imposes requirements of awe and respect—and curiosity—on men and women.

Perhaps the closest anyone has come to a conversion experience is the pediatrician Benjamin Spock, who has been taken to task by religious fundamentalists and preachers such as Norman Vincent Peale for having introduced permissiveness into American child rearing and thus corrupted the national character. Now in his nineties, Spock is writing a book on spirituality. But his understanding of spirituality is a far cry from that of institutionalized religions:

All through her adventurous life the ceramist Eva Zeisel has tried to help the disadvantaged and has used her artistic gifts in part to advance left-wing causes that she sincerely believed would make the world a better place to live in. Now in her eighties, she looks at her past with objective eyes and, while not regretting anything, is no longer sure that her motives were the wisest. Although, without regrets or despair, she finds that the only thing she can absolutely rely on is the work she has produced, and perhaps the old goal of “doing good”—although she is less sanguine about that: