"We have built a society around the concept of consume, consume, consume," he says. "It's commercialism. It's advertising. It's what we are told will make us happy. Buy things. But that is exactly the opposite of the case."
Kurtz is a Freudian, following the thesis that our childhood shapes much of our personality. It's during that period that our psychological pain and happiness live. To alleviate the pain, to uncover the happiness, we must confront our childhood memories.
"'How much is enough?' is an issue I deal with all the time," Kurtz says. "The problem is there is usually no amount of money that feels right. It keeps going up."
Freud examined the issue of whether money could provide happiness, Kurtz says. "And what he came up with was that happiness would be the fulfillment of early childhood wishes. Money was never a childhood wish."
Ergo, no amount of money can buy happiness.
A sense of security
Kurtz lives and works on the North Shore of Long Island, where "old money" resides and "new money" encroaches. It's a telling geographical intersection. People with lots of money for lots of generations, and people who just made lots of money for the first time. Both can learn lessons of appreciation from the other.
"The pursuit of money becomes an addiction. If you cross the finish line, you no longer have the pursuit. And it's the chase that gets them high," Kurtz says.
"What many people attach to money is a statement about themselves. They think people judge them by it. For women, their pocketbook is the opening sign in terms of status, or their shoes. This is acceptance. It's a code to indicate 'You're okay.'"
The "you're okay" sentiment Kurtz is discussing falls into Maslow's hierarchy in the categorical need for love and belonging. Country clubs, he points out, are indicators of this need.
"A group is defined," Kurtz says. "Who is accepted and who isn't. It's us versus them. And the 'us' gives a sense of security."
Safety and security also are important psychological issues many people try to mask through such things as gated communities. They believe safety can be obtained by adding more locks, Kurtz says.
"But the thing is, this only increases the anxiety."
It's the same with money, according to Kurtz. "You can't get safety through money. And you can't get security through a mentality of 'us' and 'them.'"
Why?
"This undermines closeness and contact. You continue to feel more and more isolated."
Seeding consumerism
I mention to Kurtz that a number of wealthy people I interviewed on the subject of money and fulfillment suffered some type of loss. They either had been sick or another tragedy occurred to arouse their consciousness about money and its power. Money, it seemed, in large amounts, bred dispiritedness and even illness.
"The problem with money is that it's used to seed a side of consumerism as opposed to production," Kurtz says. "When consumerism doesn't make you happy, your whole value system becomes false. You fall into a funk. You can get depressed. Sure, you can become ill.
"Money for consumerism is tantamount to junk food - there's not a lot of nourishment, so you need to keep consuming. You have to balance consumption with productivity. It's that nutrition that provides the real growth."
In other words do something, don't just buy something. How much sense of accomplishment is derived from doing something yourself than buying something from someone else?
"When I work with children of wealthy parents, the first thing I have them do is produce something - whether it's playing an instrument or making something with their hands. It creates goals," Kurtz says.
The goals for money are twofold.
"Money is a commodity and a useful commodity. It can be used to buy things. And then once you have enough of that commodity, then you can use money for freedom," Kurtz says.
That is the normal thinking. That is the goal. But that is false.
"Money doesn't create freedom. It's a prison because it controls you," Kurtz says. "The one commodity you can't get back in life is time."
"Am I doing what I want to do with the time I have?" should be the question," Kurtz says. "That activates the decisions and the values that make us happy."
The focus of life should be on how we spend our time -- in the most productive manner and meaningful way.
"Am I doing what I want to do with the time I have?" should be the question," Kurtz says. "That activates the decisions and the values that make us happy."
Money is 'misused'
But there are forces against us.
"As far as we've gone as a society, we haven't gone very far with money. At all levels of our culture, it's misused. The wrong values are reinforced. The government reinforces this. The tax code reinforces this. Ultimately, we as a people have to decide what we want to encourage or discourage. And as far as messages, they are all toward consumerism.
Advertising is geared toward consumers not producers," Kurtz says.
Of course this is the case. We are inundated with calls, commercials, provocation to buy, buy, buy. What, at the end of the day, are we buying, however?
"It's all a sense of belonging and being hip," Kurtz says.
This goes back in society to idolatry. You worship something because of what it seems to provide. "You want the idol to give you something," Kurtz says. "If you worship the idol, you make a contract. If you worship, this is what you'll get in return. And most often, that was safety."
Today, it's much the same. "You'll be wanted, desirable, looked upon," Kurtz says.
Inherent in this, however, is existential anxiety. "We are a culture of people who belong. In the Amish culture, punishment is to be shunned. In jail, solitary confinement in the worst punishment."
We do what we have to do not be alone.
"Money insulates us from aloneness," Kurtz says.
The ultimate aloneness is death. This is the fear we are constantly fighting, whether we acknowledge it or not.
There are those that choose not to acknowledge this. They shun money, make the "anti" statement. "They say, 'We are not going to be like you,'" Kurtz says. "What they are trying to prevent is the problem. In shunning money, they are also being controlled by it. It's just the other side of the same coin."
