TRANSCIPT:

I think the need for fame is an

interesting concept. And what I find

interesting about it is not only why

people want it, but also when they get it

how some don't want it anymore. And so

when we look at fame, if we look at the

reasons why we want to be famous, I mean

this is just my perspective on it,

there's this need to feel validated.

There's this need to feel wanted. It's

almost like a need for some sort of love.

Right?  I mean what reason do people have

that they need to work this hard, and go

this far out of their own way to want to

get this kind of attention. There's a

biological reason why. An evolutionary

reason why, we feel the need to reach for

fame. 

Because if we didn't, there wouldn't

be anybody famous. There would be nobody

needing to feel that they need to be

famous. And so when people say they want

to be famous I think what they're trying

to say is they want to be accepted. They

probably feel isolated

maybe they didn't feel like they were

part of a family. I mean some people are

part of a family and still feel the need

to be famous. 

But there's this there's

the acceptance there's a solution of

this expectation that the world is going

to appreciate me. They're gonna

appreciate me they're gonna appreciate

my work. Some people just want to be

famous for the sake of being famous.

I think they look out into the world

and they see that people get this kind

of attention. They get their needs met.

They get recognition. They get respect.

They get money, women, drugs, whatever it is.

And so there's this illusion out

there that if I achieve this in my life

if I make it to this point I have

accomplished something. I'm successful.

People will admire me. And what I find

interesting about this concept is

that often times when you talk to some

people  have reached that

level of success, reached the mountaintop,

a lot of them will say that it's not

what they thought that it was going to

be. It didn't really take away their

problems. They really weren't accepted

the way they thought that they were

going to be, and a lot of them still feel

alone. 

So it's interesting to me that we

spend our lives looking for this

attention for this reason to be

validated in our lives and yet we still

don't feel it when we get it. We feel

like it's still not enough, like

something is still missing. 

And when we reach that mountaintop, where do we go

from there? What do we do? Who are we ?

Why are we doing what we are doing?  

And I think it

causes a crisis, a conflict with within

our minds because the expectations

that we have about life, the reasons

why we do what we do,  come into question.

Why are we doing this? Why do we do this?

Why as humans do we feel the need to

accomplish these great feats in life?

Why is it even for a lot of people that

power is something they try to achieve?

What does greed get you in the end? Right?

All these people working so hard to get

these really nice cars and these really

nice houses and they think they're

gonna be happy. And maybe some people are.

I'm not gonna say that all people are

that way.

But what I find interesting is that,

the human mind adapts pretty quickly

after a while to happiness. So it becomes

just like anything else; you get what

you want and then you get used to it and

then it feels like everything else. I've

seen it time and time again. I've seen so

many stories of people that say they

bought this big house, they bought this

nice car, they reached the pinnacle of

success and they still felt miserable.

They still felt alone and if they didn't

even feel that they just felt normal

again. The house was the house, the car was

still the car. Even if it was a Ferrari.

I've seen it over and over and over

again. You see this with millionaires, or

people that win the lottery. 

I mean it’s interesting, you know, and there's a lot

of studies that are done on this that 

say that your level of happiness will

drop back to normal no matter what.

So then why are we convincing ourselves

that that is what we want?  Why do we look

at these other people when we say, " That's

successful. That's what I want. I want

what they have."

Why are we doing this? I'm not saying

that there's anything wrong with

achievement.  I'm not saying there's

anything wrong with overcoming things

and making yourself better.  I think we

all want that. We all want to be

respected for our crafts, who we are, our

abilities. But I also don't understand

what is our need for this attention in a way that doesn't

really give us what we want from life.

I'm not saying I fully understand it

either way, but, it just seems amazing

that we're all working so hard to

achieve things in life and especially

creatives, and you know filmmakers and

musicians and entrepreneurs. We want to

be the next big thing. We want to be

the next big thing, and we

don't even really know why.  

I mean we think we do. We think "I want to

feel validated. I want to feel like I'm

important. I want to feel like what I do

matters."  And there's nothing wrong with

that. I just think in the context of why

we do it, can come into question if we

really aren't careful about it. 

You know, when I was younger,

when I was a teenager, Kurt Cobain had

committed suicide.  I was probably 15 or

16 years old. And I remember at that age

asking myself, "Why would someone who

achieved so much success in life, want to

kill himself?"  And I really didn't

understand it back then.  I

didn't know what I knew now, but it

really stuck with me for a really long

time.

How can one go after the things that

matter in their life and achieve this

level success and still not be happy? And

here I am, you know, decades and decades

later, and I get the question.

You know, I mean,  I get the answer to the

question. Because it isn't enough. It's

not what you expected. 

It's these unrealistic expectations that we put on

ourselves. And I think to me, that's a

big fear even in my own life, is that

I'll be trying to achieve things, wanting

to go after things and still not be

happy. And I see it all the time. I see it

from other celebrities out there. 

And so, what is a realistic expectation?

What's that you can hope for in your

life that's real, that's

manageable,  that that your expectations

are just enough for you to feel like

you've accomplished something. And why

isn't what you have enough? Why isn't

what you're doing good enough?  I mean

it's one thing if you're in certain

situations where you're dealing with

extreme stresses or extreme problems.

People in poverty, people in war,

people in abusive relationships,

addictions. And there's nothing wrong

with striving harder to overcome those

things. But beyond that point. Beyond the

point of survival. Beyond the

point of feeling safe and secure, which

is what we all need, what are we trying

to attain in life? 

What is it that an actor wants when he wants to

be on the Hollywood stars, or you know,

his name on the Hollywood Boulevard of

Stars?  

I think there's this need for

immortality because we don't control

other things in our life. We can't

control death. We can't control most

things in life. And yet we hope that our

ideas live on. We hope there's something

about this that we transcend time, that

we broke these barriers of

uncertainty and fear and that we were

transcending something else. 

That we were able to leave something greater than

ourselves behind. Because of the limitations of our life, because the fears that we have in our life. 

I think for some people, fame is this temporary

drug. It's this very powerful drug that lures people in and makes them think that somehow that's gaining more

control of their life. Somehow they are

attaining some sort of level of love and

acceptance. But when they get to that

point and they realize how out of

control it really is, that they don't

even have control of the people that don't

like them. That criticize them. That

demean them. 

Or even if they had some level of success, it gets to their head,

and then they make bad decisions.

Then worse yet they try to maintain that

level. They consistently think that they

can keep up with that level of fame. We

see this time and time again with

musicians and singer songwriters.  I

mean, how many people have you known who

had a successful album or a book. And

never wrote a good one again even though

they wrote plenty of them after that. And

that's always an interesting question in

itself. <