In Search of Ozymandias

We have to learn to dream again.

Two groups of people experience freedom in our society: those with abundant wealth and those who unplug and need very little. Everybody else needs to function in the matrix of their obligations. For better or worse, wealth has become the path to having both freedom and influence.

Getting wealthy requires that we master abstractions such as technology, language, and money. Life starts revolving around ideas, symbols, data, and narratives. We dream about what wealth will do for us and rarely consider what it demands. How will the path shape us?

I worry that getting wealthy requires such focus and alertness that it robs us of our ability to get lost in dreams. I worry the potential of our collective wealth is trapped if we disconnect from the source of deep inspiration. I worry that without dreaming beyond death, we will vanish without a trace.

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Divine dreams

In 1821, the British Museum received a statue of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, called Ozymandias in ancient Greece, which had been made some three thousand years earlier, around 1250 BC. Before the monument arrived in London, it inspired one of history’s best-known poems, Ozymandias by Percy Shelley (see this Cultural Tutor thread for more background).

Two hundred years later, Ozymandias was the title of a celebrated episode of Breaking Bad, the iconic show about teacher-turned-drug-lord Walter White (Bryan Cranston did a haunting reading of the poem). The episode depicts White’s downfall, his loss of his family and empire. White ends up alone and on the run. “I am the danger” no more.

The lesson couldn’t be simpler, right?

The king of kings? Dead. His empire? Lost. Even the greatest egos will fall, their ambitions destined to be crushed by the forces of fate. All empires will be swallowed by the eternal desert. What remains of human hubris is nothing but a ‘colossal wreck.’

But what if we have the lesson of Ozymandias all wrong?

Percy Shelley, Ozymandias

The statue at the British Museum.

It’s true, Ozymandias is no more. But something remained of his reign. Think about that for a second. The stone-faced memory of Ozymandias emerged like a haunting spirit from another world after three thousand years. What do we make today that could possibly be dug up from nature’s grasp in three thousand years and, on top of that, inspire a future generation of creatives?

Practically nothing.

You’ll say this is because we no longer serve rulers who mistake themselves for living gods. I agree, but I fear it’s also because we’ve lost our ability to dream beyond death.

We simply can’t imagine humans digging through the sand millennia from now. The world has been changing too quickly, too dramatically, and too unsustainably for things to continue as they are. What is humanity’s fate even a few centuries from now? The range of outcomes seems to include apocalypse, interstellar utopia, and replacement by artificial intelligence. “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads,” Woody Allen once joked. “One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

Even without being a doomer, your vision of the future is unlikely to be ‘kind of like today’.

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Mortal nightmares

Upon the death of a pharaoh, the Egyptians sacrificed servants to ensure a continuation of royal comforts and companionship in the afterlife. It’s easy to feel shocked and mock an ancient belief system. But consider that Ozymandias enjoyed at least a metaphorical afterlife when we appeared to our culture. It’s more interesting to turn the question on its head: what will future generations think of our present delusions?

In The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker explores the terror of death as a key motivating force. He describes the human condition of being a “self-conscious animal” as “ludicrous, if not monstrous” because it forces us to confront the knowledge of one day being “food for worms.”

This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression— and with all this yet to die. — Ernest Becker

This, he argues, leads to a focus on our “symbolic selves”, rather than our mortal physical ones. In our efforts to transcend mortality, we engage in “immortality projects”, acting out our culture’s hero system which offers a path of meaning beyond the shortness of life.

But our culture has discarded its myths and severed its ties with the divine mystery behind the veil of the world. Instead, we are busy lifting ourselves on the pharaoh’s throne. Why worship an invisible deity when you can serve the tangible self in the mirror in front of you? Every day is a holy day when you can treat that idol to another round of bliss. No animal sacrifices required, all major credit cards accepted.

This worship at the altar of self inevitably fails, for we are not just flawed but mortal. And without a symbolic afterlife to transcend the biological clock, our world ends when we last close our eyes. We’ve reduced our lives to a blink of the universe.

No wonder we feel like we’re always running out of time. No wonder sleep has become a burden to be optimized. No wonder we are afraid to close our eyes and dream of the timeless beyond.

Waiting to wake up from his nightmare.

We could have been Ozymandias

What happens if a culture discards its myths and its members can no longer become “heroic contributors” whose actions transcend their lives? People seek new means to escape the terror of death. They find the means to distract, forget, and numb themselves. Becker summarized it as “drinking, drugging, and shopping” and a flight into the drama of the trivial.

Paradoxically, death can even make wealth terrifying. That delightful dream of being on top of the world will end all too soon. I can think of a few games the wealthy play to avoid this terror:

The game of hope: outwit death by betting on science. Let the protocols of longevity and Dr. Andrew Huberman become the saviors of your wilting avatar. The sci-fi series Altered Carbon plays with this idea: people switch between bodies like suits and those who can afford it can practically live forever. Not only can they compound their wealth forever, but their children plot to murder them because immortality ruins the natural rhythm of succession.

The game of distraction: go all in on hedonism, consumption, and status games. Buy another boat, throw a bigger party in an even bigger house. Escape the haunting inevitable until you slip away in your sleep — hopefully before waking up to the hangover of a meaningless nightmare.

A special case of distraction is the game of more, also known as ‘number go up’. Almost by definition, the self-made wealthy are very good at this (leaving aside the merely lucky). And even though the marginal value of earning another dollar declines to zero, the game remains an interesting distraction. It doesn’t fill the void and occasionally might feel like an addiction. But it’s still better than contemplating death. Might as well keep playing.

Finally, there are secular games of legacy like children, charity, and teaching.

Children remain our society’s connection to the future. But consider for a moment our relationship to the past. If life is too busy to tend to the memory of our ancestors, what should we expect from future generations? Should I not expect my children to be even more distracted, immersed in virtual reality, and infinitely engaged by AI? The better engineers of distraction become, and the more we glorify the self, the more tenuous our tether to the future becomes.

And I’m all for sharing wisdom and charitable giving. But it still feels strangely unambitious? How is it possible that our aspiration peaks at putting one’s name on a hospital wing and taking the tax deduction?

No, three thousand years is a time of gods and we cannot conceive of it. There is no more room in our dreams for projects that echo the pyramids. We remain firmly anchored to the moment it takes to pick up and unlock our phones.

We could be Ozymandias if only we allowed ourselves to wake up and face the horizon.

Ozymandias: print by Nicolas Delort

There are some exceptions, of course. Some billionaires dedicate their money and lives to eradicating disease, bringing about technological breakthroughs, and unlocking creativity and innovation through patronage. Like them, I believe we should all allow ourselves to dream bigger. We may lack a pharaoh’s resources, but we can still strive to transcend our society’s myopia.

I’m not suggesting you hire a stonemason and turn your garden into a sacred space of immortal art (although, maybe?). No, today’s ‘vast and trunkless legs of stone’ are more likely to be cultural, technological, or interpersonal — enduring values, teachings, knowledge, and discoveries.

If we make life all about our mortal egos, we conjure up the enormous terror of death without the means of transcendence. Instead, we try to drown it — in pleasure, consumption, luxury, status games, entertainment, noise, drugs, sex, and any ecstatic or numbing experience that comes our way. Instead of building an immortality project, we waste our energy trying to never fall asleep and face what lurks in the dark. What is left after a life of seeking to escape? Nothing.

Contemplate the paradox of Ozymandias. Projects of vanity and selfishness may yet yield seeds of inspiration that endure through the silence of millennia. Every day offers a chance to transform anxiety into legacy. What we create, who we support, what we share, what we embody — all of this matters. We just may have to endure a little mockery along the way.

Refuse to let the sands of time swallow the memory of your ancestors. I’ve been guilty of this. I didn’t spend much time tending to the fading memory of the generations who came before me. I was too busy. It didn’t seem important or like a good use of time. Now, every time I visit Germany, I try to stop by the grave of my grandparents and connect with the wisdom and lessons of their lives. These visits tend to trigger deep conversations with my parents and strengthen our bond.

Contemplate who you deeply admire. I admire individuals who reach us from the past due to the strength of their vision, ideas, ambition, values, and wisdom. These people transcended their lives by contributing to something greater than themselves. Not just artists, innovators, and leaders who shaped history, but also teachers, parents, doctors, nurses, priests — everyone who tends to the flame at the heart of humanity.¹

We can all contribute to weaving the delicate thread of human life through time. It’s impossible to predict whether and how our contribution may endure, but it is worth the effort. Don’t allow yourself to get numb. Don’t lose yourself in games of distraction. Allow yourself to dream. Play with a little hubris. What if you could build a pyramid? What if your dream did transcend time?

And beware: if you can’t spot Ozymandias the idea in immortal stone, you may find Ozymandias the tyrant staring back at you in your bathroom mirror. One seeks to inspire you. The other will make you his slave.

Thank you for reading,

Frederik

1. Consider which companies you admire. Is it about competitive strength, profitability or return on capital now or the ability to endure, survive, persist, and reinvent? What kind of company would you create, if you could?