Die helping, not clutching the levers of power

The forgotten case for going out on top

I finally watched Megalopolis this weekend, but don’t worry there’s no specific spoilers to follow. Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited magnum opus on paper had all the hallmarks of a modern blockbuster. But in execution felt like a cacophony and meandering swan song, packed with far too many ideas competing for attention. It was a literal and thematic mess. And while it’s impressive someone in their eighth decade still has high ambition, I couldn’t shake the thought: why is he still doing this when he’s clearly lost it?

This isn’t just Coppola. It’s a cultural phenomenon and an ill of modernity. Tyson in his recent fight. Biden attempting to go another term (and also Trump, we should have age limits for this office, it’s really only ageism with one end gated — you can’t even fly a commercial jet after 65 but sure, fly the whole country). Seinfeld creating that painful cereal flick. All of them are in the late stages of careers so sprawling and consequential one could easily argue their time would be better spent mentoring the next generation and platforming new voices rather than trying to outdo their own peaks. There comes a point in life when the pursuit of one more big thing shifts from admirable to self-defeating. Media execs are complicit, as they think they can keep milking existing stars and ideas while refusing to invest in anything new (they’re also pathologically addicted to sequels, nostalgia and easy money).

It’s not a popular take. Our culture fetishizes productivity and self-absorption. We revere the idea of working until you physically can’t anymore, often confusing it with meaning or virtue. But there’s something broken about a society where elder statesmen, cultural icons, and political leaders don’t know when or even that they should pass the torch and champion the new generation. We didn’t always get this so wrong. In indigenous communities elders are revered as keepers of knowledge with youth coming to them for wisdom, or ancient Rome, where retired statesmen served as advisors in the Senate, shaping the future without needing to remain in the spotlight. Instead of this we watch people dying grasping the levels of power, on the big screen or something like it.

The issue isn’t that these figures are talentless in their twilight years. Coppola’s cinematic genius didn’t evaporate. Seinfeld didn’t suddenly forget how to write a joke. But there's an undeniable truth: when you’ve already created a timeless corpus of work, you’re unlikely to outshine your previous heights. The result? A tired, forced cereal movie. A muddled magnum opus. None of these guys need the money or more attention. They had their moment in the spotlight. They’re in denial of biological and cultural realities and cannot let go. Many such cases.

Contrast that with someone like Hayao Miyazaki, who ‘retired’ (multiple times) only to return because he wanted to mentor young animators at Studio Ghibli. He’s working on passion projects, sure, but his real contribution now isn’t just more films: it’s teaching people how to make magic after he’s gone. This is the flip that too few icons make.

Hell, you don’t even see popular musicians or actors do really simple things like linking up-and-comers on their social feeds, which even cutthroat businessmen do regularly to promote peers. My friend Jim O'Shaughnessy isn’t nearly as old as these people, equally accomplished, and already spends most of his time championing others in social, on his podcast and through his investments. For this, he is revered by all, and his creativity and spirit will carry long into the future. It’s also high status behavior.

At some point, the most meaningful thing you can do isn’t to create more but to help others create. To teach. To nurture. To invest. To build frameworks for a future that doesn’t need you at its center. Ironically in the internet age so many young people are doing this before they’ve even built anything (such as selling as courses online). Because modernity continues to prop up the old at the cost of the young and pull the ladder up wherever possible, perhaps that’s all they feel they can do (sell the dream to others).

We know all of the above intuitively. That’s why The Office stuck the landing so perfectly with Steve Carell’s exit. Michael Scott leaves not because he’s run out of jokes but because he’s realized his life’s fulfillment will come from nurturing a family. He doesn’t need to prove himself anymore. He’s done that already. Proper showmanship to leave at the top: we highly admire the character and the human.

Real life now doesn’t follow that arc. Instead, we get Harrison Ford still cranking out tired Indian Jones sequels in his 80s, political leaders running again and again because they can’t fathom anyone else in power (to the point of forgetting where they are) and cultural titans refusing to believe the next generation could possibly contribute or have their own voice. The tragedy isn’t that they keep trying. It’s that entire industries don’t see the higher calling in letting new generations take their shot. They hate taking chances, and our nihilistic management consult world has forgotten risk (making bets, finding new talent, new ideas) is precisely the job.

People are so terrified of irrelevance, of fading away, they cling to what they know: continuing to repeat the same stories and remaining at the center. It’s a big reason culture is stuck. But what if our final highest form of relevance is the kind that doesn’t need credit? What if it’s mentorship that builds a legacy enduring over time instead of final vanity projects?

We should normalize this transition: die helping and passing the torch, starting this process with generous amounts of time and energy left. Build something greater than yourself by letting it belong to someone else. We need a culture with enough wisdom to nurture what’s next, not languish in its own self-indulgent nostalgia. Even the adults don’t want to grow up.