Feynman ‘The pleasure of finding things out’ explains the incomparable joy in discovering scientific truths. He was a believer in discovering things from first principles, often using a unique mathematical toolset to get to the desired result.

Not everyone is able to relate to this type of joy, as it requires fairly sophisticated mathematical training.

The point is, there are many, many joyful activities in this world, not all of which require money, or chasing money.

It is true, that the chase of money can provide thrills (and even joy) to some.

However, from one perspective, simply taking money and turning it into more money, is a pointless exercise. Especially if you don’t DO anything with all that money (except keep turning it into more money).

A close relative of mine died a multi millionaire, but lived like a pauper, his entire life. What use was that endless pursuit of money?

The Money High

Speaking to a financial wizard once, he said there wasn’t any high like the one that you got from making a trade (a profitable one, that is). At that time, I was a Graduate Physics student absorbing some fundamental truths. To the wizard I responded – ‘Have you ever derived Boltzmann’s entropy equation from first principles’? Or tried to solve the Fermat theorem? Or wrote out the proof for Godel’s incompleteness theorems? Or simply tried to explain quantum entanglement to your own self?

You can’t take your money with you, but you might be able to take your knowledge

The second law of thermodynamics suggests that no information in the Universe can ever be destroyed. Once you die, what happens to all the knowledge that you painstakingly acquired?

That’s also information – information which is stored in your brain’s storage network. If information cannot be destroyed, what exactly happens to all this information?

The bottom line is – focus your energies on acquiring knowledge. Science seems to be implying that you CAN actually take your knowledge with you. Not so much the money stuff.