“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” The latest person to discover the truth of King Solomon’s words, written thousands of years ago, is none other than Hollywood superstar Will Smith.
Speaking with Christian rapper Lecrae, Smith said that over the last few years he has done a lot of “inward work” and realised that after reaching the highest heights of fame and riches, there is still a great emptiness.
Smith is not himself a Christian, instead saying that his religion is “love” and has been influenced by numerous religious traditions. However, he stated that he has learned to “trust himself and God” to “let go” of those things in his life which are not useful.
He also noted that while many people turn to God when they reach rock bottom in life, his experience has been the opposite - turning to Him after discovering the emptiness in having everything.
"It is such a rare gift to reach the end of the material world, to reach the end of money. To get to the point where you can buy anything you want, and you sit in your house and there’s nothing else to buy. Whereas buying things used to scratch an itch," he told Lecrae.
"Now there's nothing else to buy … To have had all the sex that you wanted. How many more number one movies do I need? How many more Grammys do I need? It’s such a rare gift to get to the end of the material world and a place where only God is left."
Smith continued, "People usually do that when they hit rock bottom. But there’s a corresponding place to rock bottom which I call cliff top. Where you actually pop out of the material world and you [realize] there’s nothing left here … And inward is the only place left."
The actor also told Lecrae that he wished everyone could have this experience in order to learn the same lesson that having everything cannot fully satisfy the human soul.
He said, "There’s no country you can go to. There’s no relationship you can start. No new job that’s going to do it… You get to the end of it. It’s excruciating, but I would wish that on everybody. I wish everybody could get everything they want to see that it doesn’t satisfy."
Smith’s comments echo the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes chapter 2, in which the glorious king tells of how he fulfilled every desire he could possibly conceive of, but still found it all meaningless.
