From the South of France to the Hudson Valley: Why I Read, and Why I Write
by Randy Kaufman, with research assistance from Dustin Lowman
“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”
Age 14. I’m lying on a beach in France, in the middle of a vacation with my French exchange family. My head spins from the recent pig barbecue in their yard, the very smelly cheese, and my inability to understand a single word of what they say to me. Surely, this wasn’t the French I studied in High School.
In front of me sits an open paperback — a mammoth volume, Stendhal I believe, my eyes tracing across its pages. To my right is another giant tome, a French-to-English dictionary. Every so often, my eyes snag on a word in the Stendhal, I circle it, and then flip through the dictionary to figure out what it means.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. No one has asked me to. My parents didn’t make me do it as part of some broader life lesson. Something in me wants to. It might be an escape from circumstances alien to me at such a young age. Or maybe it’s because French seems so full of romance, or because Stendhal seems so full of wisdom. Whatever the motive, the sun traces its arc through the sky, and I keep on reading, translating, digesting.
Age 19. I’m at Middlebury College, laboring over a philosophy paper. Plato, I’m sure. My professor is the type (does this type still exist?) who institutes strict word limits — and when I say strict, I mean strict. For the Plato paper, our limit is 400 words. Sure, no problem: Explain the inner workings of Plato’s ideas in 400 words.
It being prehistoric times, I’m working on this device (do these devices still exist?) called a “typewriter,” which is unfortunately not equipped with a “backspace” or “delete” function. My roommate and I slather our papers with whiteout in the rare event of a typo. I count my words by hand, and when I’ve gone beyond the mark, I start from scratch.
Age 26-41. I grow obsessed with work — first at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, then at J.P. Morgan, then at Fleet Bank. I don’t read. I don’t write. Well, I write certain kinds of things — business memos, correspondence, pieces of writing devoted to corporate mergers...nothing devoted to matters of the heart.
In the moment, I don’t realize the effect this has on my wellbeing.
Age 42-60. The older I get, and the harder life becomes, the more questions I have. Why do such a small handful of people turn into world-shaking entrepreneurs? Why, despite the insistence of old-fashioned economics textbooks, are humans so committed to behaviors that really make no sense in this supposedly “rational” world in which my Econ profs taught me existed? Why are people so reluctant to invest with purpose? Why do they often seek more and more, when all they really need is enough?
And as I enter the worst decade of my life, why have economic crisis, breast cancer, and divorce befallen me in the same decade? Much more importantly, how in the world will I find the strength to persevere through these challenges?
Like many people, I didn’t find myself with more answers as I aged. I found myself with more and more questions, and a much deeper need to investigate great thinkers’ efforts at answering them.
I return to books. I generally read over 30 books per year, on paper, on my Kindle, in audiobooks — however I can get them. I suddenly have a bottomless appetite for wisdom. It’s what gets me through my decade of disaster. It’s what causes me to rethink my approach to wealth management, from the sheer accumulation of capital to capital in service of happiness. It’s what caused me to strike out on my own, start Aker Advisors, and begin the long process of reflection.
Age 61+. I’m writing again. More than ever. Because I work independently, I can write whatever I want, whenever I want — even when it’s a hard-line stance. As I recover and analyze my experiences, I realize I’ve seen a lot of life — a lot of intense, difficult life, as well as a lot of wonderful joyful moments and great adventures. I have a lot of stories. Stories about families persevering through tension to make good philanthropic decisions. Stories about finding my way through a global pandemic. Stories about irrationality, and love, and investing, and so many more hard, rewarding things.
I find myself writing about hard things because hard things are what give life meaning. We judge our lives by the challenges we face down, the difficulties we overcome, the achievements we never considered ourselves capable of achieving. Through them, we gain resilience and faith.
A lot of money-oriented people don’t see the point in writing. A lot of corporate communications are filled with typos, dry language, and other missed opportunities to generate meaning. I went away from the literary arts for a long time, focusing on my career. But I came back when I desperately needed answers. I’m never leaving again.
“Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them.”
Click here to download a printable PDF of this article. For a sampling of the books that have lent meaning to my life, check out my Reading List.