He had a certain practical wisdom that enabled him to survive, but Tengo could discern no hint of a willingness in his father to deepen himself, to view a wider, larger world.
This means more life for these women, and more wisdom from them about how to survive a cancer diagnosis. (Smith, for example, travels the country talking to women about breast cancer as a paid spokeswoman for drug company Eli Lilly).
Understanding that your "friends" may really be nothing of the kind requires that you be sufficiently paranoid--that in your organizational life you implement the strategic wisdom offered by Andrew Grove in his book Only the Paranoid Survive.