Years ago at an awards dinner, I found myself talking to one of the country’s most august, respected and well-paid journalists. He was up for a prize. So was I. But since he’d already won every conceivable award, often multiple times, I assumed one more engraved lump of Perspex would mean nothing to him. “Oh, no,” he said frankly. “I still really, really like winning awards.”
If I’d read Will Storr, I wouldn’t have been so surprised. Status has no final destination, he argues. People who’ve acquired enough laurels to rest on usually just want more laurels. He quotes research that found “the desire for status is ‘never really satiated’ because ‘it can never really be possessed by the owner once and for all,’” and refers us to Paul McCartney, the Beatle, who was still bitching about John Lennon’s name being first on the credits for “Yesterday” 50 years on. Macca can’t let it be.
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