
The Reason The Rich & Famous Commit Suicide - joshfraser
http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2011/01/reason-rich-famous-commit-suicide.html
======
keiferski
Are suicide rates higher among 'the rich and famous' than among average
people?

If not, this really has no merit. People kill themselves because they have
mental health issues, not because they come to realize that success isn't the
secret to happiness.

~~~
someone1
Obviously this is a throwaway account for possibly obvious reason that I don't
wish anyone in my life to know this... yada yada yah....

... anyway, I'd like to add to your comment about people killing themselves
because they have mental health issues. Please note this isn't some attack on
you and it isn't aimed solely at you it just happens that your comment raised
was relevant.

It strikes me as odd(not really) that people think that just because you would
dare do such a think that you must be mentally ill or be on drugs etc. That is
sometimes not the case. I'd describe myself as generally happy and a nice
person to be around(this is what I've actually been told) but to be honest I
don't want to be here, I never have and can't wait to go. It's possibly hard
for you and most people to understand but when you feel out of place often you
just want to leave. To give you some context; I don't live luxurious life and
I actually don't want one I often give-away most of the extra money I have but
I still live comfortably. I love my job and the people I work with. I'm not
the greatest communicator - it's not really a problem I just don't like
interacting with people (I prefer to listen and observe). Yet I've always had
close friends and is always popular with everyone everywhere I go(numerous
schools, university, work).

By now you probably are guessing that the way I'd like the world to be
(simple, happy and loving, etc.) isn't the way the world is, and that's very
much the reason I don't want to be here. As I said I just don't feel like I
belong here and I don't want to be here, if it were not for the fact that
people would be hurt I'd be gone a long time ago.

In the past I've talked about my views of life in a discussion similar to
this, I asked if that means I also and I also had a mental illness that was
causing me to think like this and I was told that yes I do. But noone can tell
me how or why that answer is a 'yes'.

Perhaps you can, provide a reason for a yes or no nswer, perhaps not but I'll
ask away and see what happens.

With the facts given above, is it not possible that I'm just one of those
people that see life differently from the norm. Do I have a mental illness?
can you give a reason why you think I do(or don't)?

~~~
someoneelse1
Two things:

* There are countless examples of people who felt there was nothing more (to live for), but luckily lived on to see they were wrong. I've seen examples even here at HN.

* Visiting a doctor for mental illnesses should be equally obvious as visiting a doctor for other illnesses. Mental illnesses can be equally, possibly even more painful than other ilnessses, but I guess one of the problems is that they somehow feel right.

As with all my advice, if it helps, use it. If not, leave it. It might not be
the best tought out piece of advice you'll get, but I once lost a good friend
once because I didn't react in time, and now I think it's better to do what I
cant rather than waiting for an inspired answer.

------
techiferous
About fame: I consider being famous a curse. If you are a celebrity you have
no privacy. You can't go to a restaurant without noticing the people
whispering about you. At least that's how I would imagine it would be.

I think fame within your field is best. Take DHH, for example. He's got a
great reputation as a programmer but he can still eat his lunch in peace.

~~~
staunch
> _Take DHH, for example. He's got a great reputation as a programmer but he
> can still eat his lunch in peace._

Oh really?
[http://37assets.s3.amazonaws.com/svn/newofficeshots/_3144012...](http://37assets.s3.amazonaws.com/svn/newofficeshots/_3144012442.jpg)

~~~
ekanes
Looks pretty peaceful. ;)

~~~
DarrenLehane
The two guys at the table are whispering about him.

------
ascuttlefish
I find it hard to believe that there's One Reason the rich and famous commit
suicide. I think this essay reveals a fair bit more about the author and his
take on richness and famousness than it does about the true motivations of the
suicidal.

~~~
keefe
I think the various specific reasons can be generalized to the idea that money
can buy happiness but it can't buy sanity.

~~~
ascuttlefish
Assuming of course that there are no specific reasons unrelated to money that
could drive people to blackest despair. That a person is rich and famous is
likely to be, in my humble and unexpert opinion, tangential to the problems
that might make them suicidal. The tendency toward suicide is too complicated
to generalize to a point about riches, I think.

~~~
keefe
Riches and suicidal problems aren't orthogonal issues. If you have enough
money, then there are no external checks on your behavior. This allows
negative traits to expand and if the wealthy person does not have a high
enough level of reflectivity to self modify, then in many cases negative
traits lead to internal dissonance and self destructive behavior.

~~~
ascuttlefish
That is definitely one of many ways a person can self-destruct, and it is
indeed related to being wealthy and perhaps famous. But there are other
motives that could explain suicides that don't involve money. I'm not saying
they suicidal tendencies and wealth orthogonal (disclosure: I had to look that
up :), but they're not always, uh, parallel either. Say for example you have
someone who's been heavily goal oriented their entire life, but when they
achieve their goals--of wealth and fame, or maybe just to be a hell of an
entrepreneur, or something that has a side-effect of wealth and fame--they are
completely unprepared for the emptiness and lack of purpose they now face. It
could be argued that they face a despair unrelated to their wealth and riches
but rather to the way they structured and lived their lives. (There's some
interesting passages in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest about this.)

I don't disagree with you w/r/t wealth being a possible contributor to the
motivations for suicide, but I believe that there are as many reasons a person
could kill themselves as we can imagine, only some of which might involve
their richness and famousness. Suicide is a dark, multi-tentacled thing.

------
joshzayin
The source poem the embedded song references (by Edwin Arlington Robinson):
(\ns for stanza breaks)

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean-favoured and imperially slim.

(\n)

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good Morning!" and he glittered when he walked.

(\n)

And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine -- we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

(\n)

So on we worked and waited for the light,

And went without the meat and cursed the bread,

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet in his head.

------
jhamburger
At this point in my life I would really hate to come into a large sum of money
all at once, like from an inheritance or lottery. Not that I don't care about
money, because I do- But for me most of the pleasure is in working towards
goals, watching numbers in accounts grow new digits, gradually being able to
afford more and better things.

I enjoy money the most in terms of 'keeping score' of your professional life,
to suddenly be a multimillionaire would be like skipping past the whole game
straight to polishing the trophy.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
This is how I feel as well, although if I'm honest with myself, I don't think
I'd refuse that influx either. Fortunately, my relatives aren't wealthy and I
don't pay the lottery, so I'm probably not at great risk of sudden undeserved
wealth.

------
lionhearted
I'd recommend everyone study a little biochemistry/neurochemistry. It's one of
those areas where a little bit of knowledge can pay huge dividends.

After you learn a little bit, you start to think, "Duh, of course more
external trappings don't keep jacking up your serotonin/dopamine/etc."

In fact, the more I learn of it, the more I reject pursuing "low happinesses"
- biochemical mix-based - as any more important than respiration or
circulation or immune system. Very important towards surviving, but as a
health/pragmatic note, not a meaning of life. It's liberating dismissing
biochemical happiness as a key goal, and freeing my mind to work on more
interesting things.

~~~
zackattack
External trappings can easily keep jacking up your serotonin/dopamine.

~~~
lionhearted
From my understanding, not beyond a certain fairly low point where you max
out.

~~~
joshkaufman
And even when they do, the rush quickly fades. Hence the "hedonic treadmill":
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill>

~~~
ippisl
I think the trick here is to work towards many small rewards , not a large
one. this way , when the rush from one reward fades , you grab another one.

------
flipside
This is an example of the gap between what people think should make them happy
and what actually will.

Once upon a time, I thought I could be happy if did the things that seemed to
make others happy. When I realized I couldn't find happiness that way, I grew
depressed because I had run out of excuses.

I'm lucky in that I eventually discovered a path to true happiness but I can
appreciate the terror of reaching a dead end and losing all hope.

Moral of the story, do what makes you happy, not what you think should make
you happy.

------
sliverstorm
_as fruitless as those dreams might be, they still give us hope_

This is why I prefer befriending gorgeous women I could never date to avoiding
them to save myself the longing.

When I was younger, I thought the success was the best part. Now I've come to
feel the longing and dreaming of success to be all the sweeter.

------
jodrellblank
_What about rich heiresses with everything in the world available to buy, who
still feel unhappy? Perhaps they can't get themselves into satisfying romantic
relationships. One way or another, they don't know how to use their money to
create happiness - they lack the expertise in hedonic psychology and/or self-
awareness and/or simple competence.

So they're constantly unhappy - and they blame it on existential angst,
because they've already solved the only problem they know how to solve. They
already have enough money and they've already bought all the toys. Clearly, if
there's still a problem, it's because life is meaningless. [..] But, mostly, I
suspect that when people complain about the empty meaningless void, it is
because they have at least one problem that they aren't thinking about solving
- perhaps because they never identified it._

<http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/>

------
jodrellblank
I don't want to get into the habit of linking to my own comments, but I posted
this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2082515> in the Bill Zeller suicide
discussion and think it's related.

TL;DR: happiness is in your head. If you have money and still aren't happy,
the next step is not "kill yourself" it is examine your head to work out how
to be happy. If you dedicated years of your life to making money _in order to_
be happy then it was misdirected effort, you should have spent the effort
directly on happy. Working out how you can be happy and changing yourself so
you can be, and are.

Biochemical/neural/medical disorders aside, that is.

~~~
btmorex
_TL;DR: happiness is in your head. If you have money and still aren't happy,
the next step is not "kill yourself" it is examine your head to work out how
to be happy. If you dedicated years of your life to making money in order to
be happy then it was misdirected effort, you should have spent the effort
directly on happy. Working out how you can be happy and changing yourself so
you can be, and are._

In my experience, people kill themselves because they've already spent years
or decades trying to find out how to be happy or even normal. Eventually, they
give up hope and that is what leads to suicide.

~~~
jodrellblank
I accept that's what they would claim to be doing, but I don't accept that's
what they were actually doing. Not really.

You know how some people start startups and spend their time registering a
company and designing a logo and imagining features and so on? Because they
think that's what starting a business is, what it should be? But that's not
how to actually start a successful business, building something which people
value and then getting people to use it is how to actually start a successful
business.

------
richcollins
Sure this has been posted here to death, but its apropos none the less:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoTmNU_5A0>

~~~
sambeau
I had never seen that so am thankful that you did.

------
bane
Money can't buy happiness, but it sure can buy a close approximation.

Perhaps when we can no longer fantasize that our approximation isn't really
fulfilling our needs, we realize that we've been leaving our needs unattended
for too long. And it seems to far to reach back into our lives and fix those
things, the easier path may just be "out".

