Money And The Meaning Of Life

On the other hand, I do know people who have stayed quite stable through it. Often they are people who have strong ethical and religious lives. They have a sense that there's something more important than the money. Even when they get very rich, it doesn't really deflect them. Others get a wrong idea about their own importance, their own abilities, and they realize suddenly, unconsciously perhaps, that people are after their money and not after them. They get very lonely and it can really wreck their lives.

What is the most common misperception about wealth that you find among people who aren't rich?

There's a sense that if you're rich, you're bad. I quote one extraordinary man in my book who said, "What people don't realize is that it takes a great deal of energy and intelligence to make a fortune and especially to keep a fortune."

If the people who criticize the wealthy would be willing to meet those they're criticizing, they would find the same proportion of good and decent people. If they looked at their own ranks, they'd find similar proportions of shits and morons.

Those who criticize the wealthy don't realize that money is needed to do good things. Particularly in this culture, you have to have money if you want to save the environment, help reform education, feed the hungry, or stop some immoral practice. You need money and you need the help of people with money. Today idealistic people who are genuinely seeking to make a difference are becoming much more serious about money.

What would you say is the most common misconception that businesspeople have about money?

They forget the whole human condition. They forget we're mortal beings and we're meant to love and to serve, not just to get. Money is the most tempting illusion; it tempts most people to forget that we're people. We live, we're going to die, and there's much more to life than making money -- although without making money life is very difficult.

Given what you've said about surviving success and what getting rich suddenly can do to people, what's your definition of success?

To be totally engaged with all my functions, all my faculties, all my capacities in life. To me that would be success.

I grew up around the Yiddish language, and in Yiddish there are about 1,000 words that mean "fool." There's only one word that means an authentic human being: mensch. My grandmother would say, "You've got to be a mensch," and that has to do with what we used to call character. To be successful means to have developed character.

So how does a philosopher understand money and the meaning of life?

As the ancients said, we are angels and devils at the same time -- and sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the two. Sometimes the two masquerade as each other. Caring for your friends and family and children is part of being in this world, though it may seem a spiritual act. Getting your kid through college is not a spiritual act but part of being in the world. At the same time, working and making money can have a spiritual dimension.

We philosophers can't really figure this out better than anyone else. And money alone can't buy you an answer. Only worldly experience with lots of adventures and making lots of money may finally let you come away from it saying, "There's something money can't buy. I can't put my finger on it, but I sense it."

And the ultimate connection between money and work?

You should be looking for the joy, the struggle, and the challenge of work. What you bring forth from your own guts and heart. The happiness of hard work. No amount of money can buy that. Those are things of the spirit.

Michael S. Malone (msmalone@aol.com) is one of Silicon Valley's most influential journalists. Jacob Needleman can be reached via email, jneedle@sfsu.edu .