David Katz – 50th Reunion Essay

David Katz

PO Box 1300

Kilauea, HI 96754

davidkatzwriter@gmail.com

808-635-5256

Spouse(s): Joey Katz (1972–2000)

Child(ren): Benjamin Katz (1980), Dylan Katz, (1982)

Grandchild(ren): Daphne Bergeron Katz (2016)

Education: Yale 1969

Career: Serial entrepreneur, author, teacher of meditation.

College: Saybrook

If my goal was to move as far west in the US as possible but not freeze, I’ve achieved it. For the last 15 years I’ve lived on Kauai. It’s as close to heaven on earth as I’ve been able to find. If you’re ever this way, come visit. Seriously. Even if you don’t remember me.

Those who do remember me likely do so in the context of meditation. I brought Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to Woolsey Hall in the fall of our sophomore year. After graduation, I went to his ashram in Rishikesh, India, to become a teacher of meditation, and returned to be one of the founders of the Transcendental Meditation movement. I continue meditating to this day. It’s been the one constant factor in a very diverse life.

I’ve started and run several companies in several different industries. Many classmates, wiser than I, are retired or retiring, but I’m in the midst of starting another.

I wrote three novels that, like the chapters in my life, don’t appear to have much in common with each other. Round Trip is metaphysical fiction. Conspiracy is a political thriller. Churning the Ocean is a slice of life set on Kauai and in India. I’m at work on writing a musical. I also run the Kauai Writers Conference, a fairly serious literary event.

Dropping false pride and armor, as our esteemed editor wisely recommended: a 27-year marriage ended in a sad divorce. I hope the two sons whom I love dearly are not too grievously wounded. If I had it to do again, would I? The answer is neither clearly no nor clearly yes. In its favor, I have an entirely new life, kept the best of the old friends and made some good new ones, male and female. In the “cons” column is the fact that I miss family and will likely continue to miss it as the years go by.

Should I really try to sum up 50 years in 500 words? Here’s an attempt: My life isn’t about what it seemed to be about. The things I spent most of my time focused on—relationships, businesses, endeavors both creative and mundane—all had possible outcomes I passionately hoped for and others I dreaded. Looking back on all that, what mattered was not when I sometimes achieved the results I longed for or avoided the ones I feared. The whole process was for the development of consciousness. In the end, that’s all that truly counted. That’s all we get to take with us when, in the not too distant future, “we’ll pass and be forgotten with the rest.”