Chip Conley

Joseph Campbell wrote, “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”

Recently, I had an exquisite Baja sunset conversation. The sky was ablaze with every color of the rainbow. Silhouetted whales were breaching. My friend and I stumbled through a conversation. I say stumbled because we were talking about things we forget.

I’m just as likely to visit the Lost & Found in my 60th year as I did in my 6th year when I was in kindergarten. Here’s what’s gone missing and what’s shown up on the verge of my big 6-0h...Oh...Oh.

“If I can meet triumph and disaster and treat these two imposters just the same...” Rudyard Kipling I chuckled when I saw the recent headline that 47.2 is the age when misery peaks in midlife. I was that age a dozen years ago and I can vouch for the researchers’ findings.

Societies have historically celebrated the movement of an individual from one part of life to another by creating festivities or formalities that mark that rite of passage. This rite of passage could be birth, puberty, marriage, having children, or death.

I know a catalyst when I see one. Having been on the Boards of Burning Man, the Esalen Institute, and Glide Memorial Church, I saw how these singular locations led to more global transformational festivals, personal growth retreat centers, and urban progressively-minded churches.

Nature is a resilient and poignant teacher. It also doesn’t have an ego or a need to be noticed. So, I’m occasionally embarrassed when I’m tapping away on my laptop when I look up and stumble upon a technicolor Baja sunset. Here’s a poem I wrote as an ode to the beauty that surrounds me.

Two days ago, I did three podcasts within six hours and two of the three podcasters - a man and a woman, one early in the day, one at the end of the day - started the session with the words that are the title of this post. I know, sort of weird, right?! I hope my mom won’t be listening to these two podcasts.

I have a soft place in my heart for the modern-day philosopher. Martha Nussbaum, Ryan Holiday, Cornel West, Pico Iyer, Brian Johnson, Judith Butler. I admire them all. But, at the head of my class is Alain de Botton. I got to know Alain when we brought him to speak to all of our Airbnb employees six years ago.

Long ago, we almost named a Sacramento restaurant “Gravitas” in our newly renovated Citizen Hotel. We wanted to signal that this was where politicos made important deals. While we ultimately opted for the name “Grange,” I took note that many of the older people I admired seemed to embody a perfect alchemy of gravitas and levity.