Why Jim Carrey Warned Us About ‘Fame & Riches’
Perhaps all that glitters is not gold…
I. All That Glitters is not Gold
When Carrey downplayed riches, most people rolled their eyes. Understandably so. After all, “I wanna be a billionaire, so fu*king bad” serves as today’s theme music.
“Buy all the things I never had…” Bruno Mars hums, with each passing commercial.
Ahh, but for ages haven’t the wise taught us this: it’s not what you have but it’s how you feel that counts?
Unfortunately wisdom, like common sense, ain’t so common, eh? After all, wisdom is discovering a cobra is deadly without first having to lose your life… right?
On that note, here’s a slice of wisdom to chew on:
💡 Every truly famous person wishes fame came with a switch.
After all, fame is all fun and dandy until you wake up one morning to pots clanking. You race downstairs. Annnd — tada! Your celebrity stalker’s busy scrambling eggs…
…And oh, the stranger is wearing your apron. In your kitchen. Yikes!
“You can become famous but you can’t become unfamous,” Dave Chappelle warned us. “You can become infamous but not unfamous.”
Sure, it sounds “fun” to be Justin Bieber for a day or so…
…But after years of having strangers camp outside your NYC apartment, stalking for autographs, while you’re privately battling mental health issues — ahem, perhaps being “The Biebs” doesn’t sound so “fun” after all.
Perhaps horror stories like these remind us of the following paradoxical nature of fame:
💡 We often pity folks we should envy while we envy folks we should pity.
What about finally quenching that thirst for being a “billionaire so fu*king bad”?
Let’s ask Elon Musk and a few other centibillionaires…
II. Money Can Buy Happiness…Right?
💡 “Whoever thinks a lot of money will make them happy never had a lot of money.”
— Mike Tyson
In 2021, Musk became history’s first person worth over $300,000,000,000.
But do you suppose having so much money that, had he written a check even the bank would’ve bounced, was enough to buy Money Bags happiness?
For years, Musk has openly complained of suffering from “unrelenting stress” and occasional bouts of depression.
What about Mr. Bezos?
“The surprising reason billionaire Jeff Bezos gets depressed…” Annie Wegner writes.
Ahh, but whenever the super-wealthy cry out for help, we’re the only ones left scratching our heads. Not history. She loves repeating herself, after all. So she’s already seen this movie before.
III. Cautionary Tale of Richest Person Ever
Clearly our society is obsessed with riches. After all, in the eyes of social media, the death of ONE billionaire is worth more than the lives of ONE billion poor people.
The more I live, the more I wonder if to most people — most people are not as important as money. Indeed, one perk to living in New York City is it offers me a rare glimpse into human nature…
Living in the Big Apple, you’re daily offered chances to grasp why Confucius once asked a disciple this:
‘If you look at their intentions, examine their motives, and scrutinize what brings them contentment — how can people hide who they are?
Because example beats precept, let’s use history’s RPE (“Richest Person Ever”) to illustrate our point…
…If Rockefeller were alive today, he’d be worth $340 billion… when adjusted for inflation. That’s more pennies stuffed in the ol’ piggy bank than the net worths of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg.
If you’re counting at home, that’s:
💡 1 man’s net worth = 340,000 millionaires.
Excellent!
Because we can’t truly see something until having the right metaphor to let us see it, I’ll briefly paint a word-picture worth a thousand words:
➡️ If you huddled up 340,000 millionaires in 3 sold-out Michigan Stadiums, this amount = Rockefeller’s staggering net worth
Do you suppose having alllll the money in the world satisfied Rockefeller’s hunger for more?
As Rockefeller’s biographer, John K. Winkler, writes: by the time the RPE reached 53, “He [Rockefeller] looked like a mummy.”
Why?
“The only thing that lightened his mood was news of a good bargain. When he made a big profit, he would do a little war dance … but if he lost money, he fell ill.”
Dale Carnegie told a story of how Rockefeller “once shipped $40,000 worth of grain by way of the Great Lakes. No insurance. It cost too much: $150.”
As Fate would have it, a brutal storm saw Rockefeller lose all his cargo.
Upon hearing the news, he nearly collapsed. Apparently the depressed Rockefeller never grasped why our appetite grows with eating.
Until his dying day, Rockefeller’s mindset revealed a mind set to the following poor attitude:
Interviewer: “How much money does it take to make a man happy?”
Rockefeller: “Just one more dollar.”
IV. The True Meaning of Happiness
In life, everything we do is for a reason…
…For what reason?
Some men chase women, some women chase money, some of both chase vodka with soda. But every such chase leads to the same pot at the end of the rainbow: HAPPINESS.
“Happiness,” said Aristotle, “is the meaning and the purpose of life.”
Happiness is life’s ultimate goal! But happiness, you see, is a State of mind, not a State of fame or a State of money.
In other words,
💡 Never chase after happiness. After all, you’re already carrying it inside you.
Bingo!
Aha! No wonder Carrey called fame and riches overrated.
Carrey’s insight merely echoes the wisdom of the ages.
When unmasked, happiness reveals a nature that’s inherently negative, not positive in character. Here lies one of life’s greatest paradoxes. Let me briefly explain…
…Apparently as humans, we’re wired to appreciate things only in their absence. For instance,
- Hunger is the best sauce
- Fatigue is the most comfortable bed
- Your Ex is the most beautiful creature of all
Whereas the healthy guy wants everything, the sick guy only wants one.
Pain alone makes its presence felt! And it’s only when released from suffering do we truly taste satisfaction. And gratitude. And happiness.
V. The Takeaway
One of the finest compliments a reader has ever given me was this:
“Genius, I consider you more of a philosopher than a motivational speaker,” she said.
I smiled. “Is that so… what’s the difference?”
“You see, motivational speakers speak about what people want to hear,” she said. “But philosophers philosophize about what people need to hear.”
If that’s the case, then, let me end this piece by philosophizing a bit…
…Fame and riches lead to excess. And anything enjoyed in excess triggers addiction. Always.
Fame and riches are like soda pop: the more we drink, the more thirsty we become. The appetite grows with eating, after all. In reality, though, most people need about 1/4th of what they want.
Aha! So when Carrey dismissed the lust for champagne wishes and caviar dreams, wasn’t he hinting at this: not things, but our experience in our mind which we have of “things” is what makes us happy.
After all, there’s no reality, only perception… hence perception is reality!
In short,
💡 Within ourselves, the only place where happiness lives, is the very last place most pursuers search for happiness.
C’est la vie.
When Carrey dismissed craving the Fame Drug, didn’t he merely echo the one-time “Material Girl”?
“Well, fame is a drug and when you take it away from an addict, things can get ugly,” Melissa Jo Peltier once said.
Ahem, why else do you suppose Prince Siddhartha left his palace, which overflowed with riches and women, to live as a Buddhist monk?
Perhaps the biggest lesson that History teaches is this: we learn from history that we never learn from history.
Did not the “Royal Family of Fame,” comprised of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, the King & Queen of Pop and a singer named Prince, all teach us the Fame Drug ends in an overdose?
As for the royal family, perhaps they forgot Shakespeare’s words of wisdom to the king.
“My Crown is in my heart, not on my head: Not deck’d with Diamonds, and Indian stones: Nor to be seen,” Shakespeare cautioned. “My Crown is call’d Content, A Crown it is, that seldom Kings enjoy.”
In short, no wonder Jim Carrey concluded:
💡 “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
