Death and riches: the search for meaning

The Succession clan make a point over wealth and death

“I don’t want to die. Save me. I have a family. I’m too young to die.” The man, in his sixties, had end-stage prostate cancer. The doctor, Rosalind Noor, to whom this plea was directed, recalls:

He sat, bolt upright, staring straight ahead, panting for air. [...] I couldn’t shake the fear in his eyes. It sent aftershocks into my soul that led to the questioning of assumed truths and changed the course of my life.

One reading of the man's outburst – he died a matter of minutes later – is that he had no resources to find peace about his approaching death. His focus was fixed on what he had not done in his life, still needed to do, displacing any belief in an afterlife he may have had that would have provided solace.  

In that manner the psychic condition of the cancer patient bears a close resemblance to that of the super-rich, whose "toxic excess" causes them to struggle through life, failing to find peace. 

Clay Cockrell is an American psychotherapist "and my specialism is ultra-high net worth individuals". He reports that for his clients: 

[T]here are the struggles with purpose – the depression that sets in when you feel like you have no reason to get out of bed. Why bother going to work when the business you have built or inherited runs itself without you now? If all your necessities and much more were covered for the rest of your life – you might struggle with a lack of meaning and ambition too. My clients are often bored with life and too many times this leads to their chasing the next high – chemically or otherwise – to fill that void.

The "void" that is death in the minds of some or the absence of  a "ground of being" for others gives rise to the lack of an accurate perspective on life, with this crippling defect laid bare at times of stress.

As a doctor, Noor has had the opportunity to observe that "a nihilistic view of death is not too infrequent nowadays: that death is final and that there is no afterlife".  She reflects on that in this way:

Interestingly, a theory called “Terror Management Theory” posits that those without a belief in the afterlife need to find fulfillment and leave a legacy within their own lifetimes in order to feel a sense of peace about death. However, those who believe in life after death do not have this pressure to reach these markers of success within their lifetimes due to their belief that reward comes in the afterlife.

Her reflections in this direction had a profound effect: "My preconceived ideas about success started to shift, slowly transforming from outward to inward markers of success":

I felt the shift between the two groups described in the “Terror Management Theory”: I no longer found myself wanting my “dream career” at any cost, but instead preferred inner peace and calm. The hoops I needed to jump through to get to my end goals and were no longer glittering markers of success, but black holes through which I had to sell my soul. My goals morphed from climbing to the top of the career ladder at the youngest age possible, to finding satisfaction in the smaller things in life — the way a blossom catches the evening sunshine in spring, a particularly elegant sentence, a small act of kindness.

Noor's studies also connect us to the areas of difficulty that Cockrell is called upon to deal with, as we will see shortly. But first Noor:

There’s a rather interesting finding in Daud Batchelor’s research into the happiness of Islamic nations. According to his Islamic Index of Well-Being, countries and territories that are not necessarily the wealthiest or enjoy the best living conditions were found to be among the happiest. While interesting, this finding should not really be surprising at all because it follows scriptural guidance from all the major world’s faiths — wealth does not and cannot buy happiness. In the words of Ash-Shafi’i, an Islamic legal scholar from the ninth century:

I know that contentment is the core of richness, and I adhered to it, so I never stood at anybody’s door, or begged anyone. Consequently, I became rich without a dirham (a penny), passing by people as if I were a king.

Cockrell, too, has a conclusion that uncouples great wealth from happiness: 

Most of the people I see are much more willing to talk about their sex lives or substance-misuse problems than their bank accounts. Money is seen as dirty and secret. Money is awkward to talk about. Money is wrapped up in guilt, shame, and fear. There is a perception that money can immunise you against mental-health problems when actually, I believe that wealth can make you – and the people closest to you – much more susceptible to them.

I see family situations like those in [the TV series] Succession all the time. People like the series’ lead character, Logan Roy, who came from humble beginnings to create an incredibly successful media empire. His entire life has been focused on his business. However, it is evident that he has failed miserably at raising fully functioning children.

Too many of my clients want to indulge their children so “they never have to suffer what I had to suffer” while growing up. But the result is that they prevent their children from experiencing the very things that made them successful: sacrifice, hard work, overcoming failure and developing resilience. An over-indulged child develops into an entitled adult who has low self-confidence, low self-esteem, and a complete lack of grit.

The wealthy parents I see, often because of their own guilt and shame, are not preparing their children for the challenges of managing their wealth. There is truth in the old adage “shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations”. On numerous occasions the child of a wealthy family has said to me: “We never talked about money. I don’t know how much there is or what I’m supposed to do with it. I don’t know how to take care of it. It’s all so secret and dirty.” 

What could possibly be challenging about being a billionaire, you might ask. Well, what would it be like if you couldn’t trust those close to you? Or if you looked at any new person in your life with deep suspicion? I hear this from my clients all the time: “What do they want from me?”; or “How are they going to manipulate me?”; or “They are probably only friends with me because of my money.”  

And it can be very difficult to watch these individuals struggle with the toxicity of excess, isolation and deep mistrust. Succession is a dramatised version of the world they operate in – it is made for television and part of its purpose is to give audiences the pleasure of watching the wealthy struggle. But for someone who has worked with them, I know that their challenges are real and profound.

Which brings us back to how Rosalind Noor's reflection on death changed her perspective as to the relationship between wealth and the possession of meaning and happiness in our lives, especially when belief in an afterlife is part of the mix. She writes:

Happiness, therefore, rests with being content with what we have — whether that be little or lots, whether we are in good health or bad, or whether our lives are long or tragically short. This contentment is not just for ourselves, but also for our friends and loved ones, as well as for the strangers who touch our lives. Perhaps, then, the root of happiness is knowing that our lives are of a fixed, determined length, and being content with what we have before that time comes.

Belief that reward comes in the afterlife means that our present lives here become a path, with the decisions that we make affecting whether our afterlife is a reward or a punishment. Death comes to be viewed, not the final end of life ... but as a completion of the hardships and duties and a release from the suffocation of this worldly life into the everlasting gardens of paradise.

Death therefore morphs from a nightmare into just a transitionary phase to the afterlife through which we all pass — death is just a moment, after which death is no more. Death becomes powerless. Indeed, d “Terror Management Theory” found that beliefs in the afterlife result in increased self-esteem, reduced anxiety, as well as reduced response to pain. This understanding of death therefore not only makes death more meaningful, but also can make life more pleasant.

Indeed, I increasingly found that happiness was not to be found in the consumerist trappings of our society, but that I was at my happiest when I shifted my goals away from these.

Health of mind and body is an ongoing concern worldwide as we come out of the Covid-19 pandemic, with nations exploring guidelines for work and recreation to achieve optimal satisfaction for citizens. Perhaps a starting point for formulating measures for the future are the compelling words that have meant so much to Rosalind Noor. Imagining ourselves at the end of our life, looking back we gain a perspective on what is meaningful and of eternal value: 

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne Sonnet X

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