Stopped at page 3. This thread has gotten so far off its initial bearing that it's become useless.
I see two groups of people here. One is the throngs of common people rejoicing in the opportunity to offer advice to someone wealthier and more successful than they are. They're tired of seeing other people have and them NOT having, so now that someone with some financial and social success finally shows some weakness in his life, they pounce on it. "Haha! MY time to shine! Now *I* can be the master."
Is everyone foolish enough to think the wealthy don't have problems, don't face the same psychological and spiritual crises as everyone else? They face them FASTER because when you don't have to worry about money, your mind devotes itself to the higher things sooner in life. The reason that the successful are so "stuck-up" is that they KNOW people like these are WAITING for those weaknesses to be shown so they can pounce.
Then there's the rich and successful, trying desperately to hide their insecurity. Not that one can particularly blame them, since BB's initial show of weakness brought not help, but a throng of scavengers seeing their opportunity to put them down. But the successful hurt, too. And no amount of talking about how happy you are hides the fact that this thread was started for a REASON...something is missing. And it has nothing to do with money. Wealth can't replace a set of good friends, people you can trust. It can enrich your life in ways that you forget not having that, but not having anyone you can trust is a gut-wrenching feeling, no matter HOW much money you have. Rich, poor, whatever. Everyone wakes up and faces it sooner or later. And success draws deceit like blood draws sharks. Not due to the nature of the "blood" (money), but due to the nature of the "sharks" (the less fortunate)...but the end result is the same.
Yet in the end, all we're left with is a handful of men sitting on an Internet forum arguing about who is more virtuous, losing sight of the fact that we're all facing the same struggle. We're all on a forum designed to help men who have problems with women, which in itself is an indication of something missing socially. We're all going to die in 60-70 odd years. And we're all looking for something to believe in.
Looking for love up on a higher level, finding nothing but questions and devils.
BB, I understand your original post. I'm not as successful as you. (not yet, anyway...I have yet to discover something I'm passionate enough about) But I understand what you mean about trust. People like to think they're your "friend forever" and will f*ck you as soon as it's convenient for them to do so. I don't trust anyone...I always look for THEIR motive, and I've had the same conversation with some of my more idealistic friends. Everyone wants something.
Somehow I feel more and more centered on myself all the time. I envy you in that you've started to free yourself from what other people think. But treading that line is almost a paradox...on one hand, man has a social need, a need to associate with other people, but to be able to do that and NOT allow their thoughts about you to alter your self-esteem and self-image, to be able to hold your OWN "frame" in life, is one of the greatest challenges of manhood. Most people aren't fit for that challenge...they commit themselves to doing or saying things they really don't believe in in exchange for "protection" against other people's bad intentions. They don't conquer, they negotiate.
I've always found compromise distasteful. I've just never felt passionate enough about anything to break free and conquer. But what depresses me most is how some people can simply walk away from the simpler things in life because of some pretense of "importance" of other "obligations".
I guess maybe I never grew up enough to feel responsibility to other people...I just don't see the point when those people don't share the same passions as you do. To me, that's the ONLY thing that REALLY brings two people together...a shared passion for something. And you sound like the kind of person whose passions differ from those of the typical person, the one whose passions are spoon-fed to him/her by society until they find themselves waking up in some 9-5, living in some bullsh!t townhouse in suburbia with a wife and 2 kids to support that they don't even LIKE, but are forced to in order to "be a good person". *shrug*
I envy you in that regard, man, that you can just brush your shoulders off like that. I wish other people's opinions didn't matter so much to me. But it doesn't mean you won't struggle. Nothing means you won't struggle somewhere...if there were no struggles, then you wouldn't have much to live for.