So there’s this legendary Wall Street person – I don’t even know how to describe him – trader? fund manager?  I know so little about this field.  A brilliant man – Harvard law and business degree before his mid 20s.  Billionaire with all that often comes with it – homes, women, love children.  Unlike others of his ilk, he barely gave any of his wealth away.  He also ate steak and shrimp cocktail every night for dinner and a hamburger for lunch – and no,  not the fast food variety but the steakhouse version.  So not a surprise he dies of a heart attack in his limo.  His firm obfuscates and delays the news as to not panic investors.  Money above all.

When I mention his name and firm, however, pretty much no one knows either.  Even NYCers.  Telling and tragic.

Questions aside about who actually remembers us or what we’ve done, I think it’s more about what you’re left with when all is said and done.  That’s the hard question.   You can take and leave nothing.  That’s the punishment and reward.  That’s sobering if you think of it.  Something about gaining the whole world and losing one’s soul –  a certain Jewish carpenter or Bob Marley if you prefer.

Maybe that’s all we really keep at the end.  Or whatever is left of the soul.  It’s not even about heaven or hell at this point, even though those likely matter.  It’s kind of like the ringwraiths in the Lord of the Rings, once men but now unrecognizable as such.  Shadows.

I used to say this – what you pursue is what you’ll end up with.

His name was Bruce Wasserstein and he was the CEO of Lazard.