Great wealth removes the distractions that normally mask existential emptiness.

Evidence

Listening to Nothing Was the Same, I’m reminded of Judd Apatow’s Funny People. Apatow’s film is defined by a series of hesitations and avoidances. First of all, it seems as if it is going to be a film about a jaded but rich and successful comedian, George Simmons (Adam Sandler), who learns the value of life when he’s diagnosed with a serious illness; then it seems to be about a man who accepts the value of love and family. Yet each time the film seems to move towards these standard generic resolutions, Apatow pulls back. Simmons’ hedonic nihilism re-asserts himself; the threat of death can’t break the bad habits of a lifetime; the love he lost long ago was actually better off lost. He’s not happy being himself but he doesn’t want to be anyone else. Far from relieving this existential dilemma, fabulous wealth means that he has nowhere at all to hide from it. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1322

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The closing inversion — wealth as the removal of all hiding places from one’s own existential dilemma — resists easy paraphrase and sits well beyond the platitude it starts from.
• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s recurring theme of ‘depressive hedonia’ and the evacuated affect of late capitalism across k-punk. — connects to: Existential dread drives conspicuous consumption beyond rational calculation. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 456

Broader Connections

• Existential dread drives conspicuous consumption beyond rational calculation. #contradicts (0.82) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 456