‘Success’ without internal happiness is not really ‘success’ at all
Read the following article from today’s version of TrueHoop:
———————————————
Keith Richards’ school of Public Relations
Tough talk
Richards’ story is a macho one — women play minor roles, ex-convicts are his real friends. He presents himself as a swashbuckler, entirely unafraid of pulling a gun (unlicensed, of course), throwing a knife, picking a fight or, for that matter, ingesting a mighty eight grams of pure Merck pharmaceutical grade cocaine — the high lasted days — on a dare.
There is no shortage of tough talkers in this world, but Richards stands way the hell out for keeping his tough guy hat on even when it’s time to tell what actually happened.
Many of the most important relationships of his life — with Jagger, with the family of his wife Patti Hansen, with the mother of his older children Anita Pallenberg, with record companies, promoters and drug dealers — all got rocky and are all discussed in reckless specificity. He pilots his pen like he piloted his Bentley — with a lot of scrapes. Let the chips fall where they may.
If there’s value in honesty, this is an international treasure. That kind of truth won’t please many PR experts and I’m sure the lawyers had conniptions, but you’ve got to hand it to the guy. He sure keeps things from straying too far from the truth, and that’s exhilarating. What a lovely break from the saccharine sanitized version of things. It may be ugly, but at least it’s real. And in the case of Richards, his frankness is informative. His rules are interesting. No mainlining the heroin, for instance — only in the muscle. No crack. No freebasing. And only the absolute highest grade of everything. If the heroin gets out of hand, these are some remedies. These are the real stresses of the spotlight. This is what groupies mean to rock stars. This is what friendship feels like in the eye of the media hurricane.
———————————————
then, thoroughly examine the following sentence which appears in the middle of the piece:
“And yet, there is all kinds of evidence that Richards’ approach has more than succeeded.”
and ask yourself the following question:
What does the Life & Times of someone like Keith Richards really demonstrate about the True Meaning of the word Success?
In the opinion of this corner, the real answer to THAT question is:
“Unfortunately, not very much at all.”
Related:
Wisdom from the Wizard of Westwood
Tags: Henry Abbott, John Wooden, Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones, TrueHoop