Rockstar Syndrome

Yeah, so maybe the cliche actually is true: money doesn't buy you happiness. I always figured that was just a lie that rich people spread to keep poor people complacent so they don't revolt against them. But anyone living in the United States is already extremely rich by comparison to people in other parts of the world, and anyone alive today in any part of the world is unimaginably rich compared to people 200 years ago in terms of the material luxuries they have, most of which had not even been invented 200 years ago. But all this material wealth hasn't led to any sort of mass happiness, and when I see the number of exceptionally miserable rich people, it leads me to think that money buys a certain comfort, but that comfort, like most other things in life, gets boring, fast.

I think that's the epiphany that young, suddenly wealthy movie and rock stars have in rather cataclysmic fashion, and it distresses the hell out of them because fame and riches have been their only dreams for their entire lives. It's like our failure to plan for post-war Iraq -- everyone has a battle plan, but no one plans on what to do once they win it!

So sometimes fast, sudden, unexpected success can be the worst outcome, because in the case of movie stars, they suddenly find themselves with nothing to strive for, and still they aren't any happier. When you're still struggling and unhappy, you always have hopes for the future. But once you're rich, then you don't even have anything to hope for anymore -- you face the wall, that this is it, life is still just life, you are still the limited, mortal human you always were, and that's all you get. So that's when nouveau riche stars turn to drugs in a desperate attempt to inject some fun into their lives -- often literally. Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobaine, and on and on and on ad nauseum.

That's why I think it's good to find some hobbies that you can work at your entire life, goals that are ongoing and where you can progress but in a sense will never reach any final destination. For me, it's music... for others it might be painting, gardening, cooking, sewing, programming, inventing games or toys or poems, parenting, writing, healing the infirm, helping the poor, or helping the rich for that matter, skateboarding, tennis, frisbee, film making, sculpting, researching, entrepeneurship, choreographing, sailing, decorating, and on and on... in short, living.

It's sad only to realize late in life that the skills of happiness can be just as much work as the skills of acquiring material wealth. If you realize it early, then you can take a more direct path to start working on your happy skills while you're still young and vigorous, although maybe at the cost of sabotaging your motivation to excel at your job!

So does that mean that I don't dream of becoming rich and famous? Are you nuts? Of course I want to be rich! I want it as much as anyone... but I'm also not waiting for it to plan for the rest of my life, I'm working on the bigger goals today... and the good thing is, whether or not I ever win the lottery, the skills I've acquired are here to stay.

Yeah yeah, like we haven't heard this before... I'm so much better and wiser than everyone else, I'll enjoy my riches, I'll know how to handle it, etc. I guess I'm as deluded as anyone... only time will tell if money does me any more good than it did Anna Nicole Smith. Three things I'd do for sure though are: 1) fill one room of my house with those plastic balls from the McDonald's playpens 2) build several slides from the upstairs to various downstairs destinations 3) put jello or heavy salts in my pool so you can never drown and you needn't even know how to swim, like in the dead sea.

Uh-oh...