The Suicide of Our Days

"Lord won't you come and get into my life."

Bradley Martin Ball of 1897

"Gilded’ is not golden. "Gilded" has the sense of a patina covering something else. It’s the shiny exterior and the rot underneath.” - Historian, Nell Irvin Painter

On occasion, I dabble in the headlines. If only the rot underneath our pretty, pampered lives could be exonerated. Forgiven, forgotten. But how?

There are pictures of the family. Young children “who had a special bond with their dad.” You stare at aerial overheads, shot by drone, an invasion of privacy, a two acre spread, mansion, swimming pool, a price tag neatly stamped in the corner for all to see.

Fancy clothes, fancy holidays, details including hotel prices and dinner menus included for our holier than thou judgement under our breath.

A multi-millionaire, “breaking down, sobbing, in business meetings” in the months building up, sends his influencer wife and two young daughters on a luxury holiday overseas. He waits a few days, after one last attempt to secure another loan. He loses the deal, grabs his keys and walks.

Walks, as birds are singing. I imagine equidistant oaks surrounding the property. Walks as his children are enjoying another holiday, walks as his wife is posting to her social media. Walks willfully into the opulent estate’s garage, more than likely gets into a very nice car, obviously not an e,… seals every last inch of pristine beach air from his existence, starts the engine. And waits.

Carbon monoxide slowly reducing the ability of blood to carry oxygen to the body's organs, which leads to fatal heart, lung damage, and other vital organs. Convulsions, cardiorespiratory failure, unconsciousness, coma, emergency plane rides, last goodbyes.

With over 700 centimillionaires visiting their second homes each summer, The Hamptons is also home to many celebrities, including retired politicians, CEOs, business people, and Hollywood elites.

The handsome Financier could no longer keep up with appearances.

We are back in a New Gilded Age. An era of extreme excess. An era of extreme poverty. What a rigid class structure indeed. A societal shift buried in the need to influence a lifestyle via a screen. Look at what I’m doing. God forbid that what you’re doing isn’t seen. It must be seen. A virtual unrealistic life with debt, children and fancy pets caught in the middle.

“The contradictions of the era extended well beyond the combination of growing wealth and growing poverty.  Ostentation and flamboyant excess co-existed with the Golden Age of Philanthropy.  Farmland grew with wealthy suburbs while cities descended into poverty.  Industrialists battled conservationists and labor unions.  Manufacturers fueled immigration to their staff factories while nativists fought to close the borders.  Corrupt political machines took control of urban politics and widespread social activism and political reform spread across the United States.” - Kevin P. Dincher

“For almost a century, the Bradley Martin Ball of 1897 was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive private party ever given in the United States.” - New York Adventure Club

By the time of that 1897 ball, the richest 4,000 families in the U.S. (representing less than 1% of the population) had about as much wealth as the other 11.6 million families all together.

and “there was danger in the air.”

Sound familiar?

Presently, the United States has 24,480,000 millionaires. There are 37.9 million people in the U.S. living in absolute and moderate poverty. Staggering to stare at these numbers. There weren’t billionaires during the Gilded Age.

---

The Gilded Age ended for these reasons and more:

The Panic of 1893

A financial panic that began when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and the National Cordage Company went bankrupt, causing the stock market to plummet. The panic also led to a four-year depression, with high unemployment, low incomes for farmers, and low profits for businesses.  Is there anything new here for today?

President Theodore Roosevelt

In 1901, Roosevelt took office and signed legislation to limit corporate power and protect working-class Americans.  Today’s leaders are even wealthier hypocrites.

World War I

The war transformed the nature of warfare, with industrialization leading to changes in weapons, tactics, and casualties. Todays wars are no different. Pick your flavor of weapons, including old fashioned gun powder for the Ukraine War (made in China) and now cyber attacks that can and will shut down an entire electrical or water grid.

---

The term “Gilded Age” was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in a book titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Published in 1873, the book satirized the thin “gilding” of economic well-being that overlaid the widespread poverty, corruption, and labor exploitation that characterized the period.

In the mini series, The Gilded Age, an actor’s line was “things are moving very fast.”

Yes they are. A tale of yesterday and today. A tale of the Roman Empire.

Renee Rosen noted “the upper crust of the original Gilded Age would eventually choke on their own conspicuous consumption.” By 1913, inequality and consumption brought into effect the first modern federal tax on high incomes.

In modern times the difference, whether rich or poor, it seems, is the isolation of digital pressures leading to the same demise. Influence and irresponsibility hold no boundaries.

In the New Gilded Age shame and suicide are on the increase. Keeping up with the Joneses is child’s play to the Tik-Tok Kingdom.

Did you ever think you would live in a time where even young pastors are taking their lives. I believe it’s far more than the pressures of their jobs or mental illness. It’s the pressure to perform outside of their jobs, where everything has been thrown to the public scrutiny of lifestyles portrayed on the internet.

Comparing ourselves, making choices that don’t align with our values can lead to spiritual abandonment, even for the spiritually intact.

Both eras enjoyed extraordinary wealth at the expense of the working class. Both saw wealthy corrupt industrialists (internet stake holders and cancelers) and greedy politicians.

Both eras also saw personal and subjective religion. A redefining of the traditional church. William James defined religion in 1902 as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men . . . to whatever they consider the divine."

Mass immigration and an elbowing for place was also of great influence both then and now. Although a few years early, The Gangs of New York (1862) depicted what was to come during the Gilded Age from 1865 to 1902. Characterized by technological innovation, laissez-faire economics, mass immigration, and intense political partisanship, seems the suicide of our days is the deep loss of our spiritual connection to what is real and what is not.

“Lord, won’t you come and get into my life.”

All of this came about when I heard this song, from my youth, after reading the headlines. I imagined a wife and two little girls and I cried. They had it all and they had nothing. “His door is always open…” as part of the lyrics say.

Even in the quietest moments
I wish I knew what I had to do
And even though the sun is shining
Well I feel the rain, here it comes again, dear
And even when you showed me
My heart was out of tune
For there's a shadow of doubt that's not letting me find you too soon
The music that you gave me
The language of my soul
Oh Lord, I want to be with you.
Won't you let me come in from the cold?

Even In the Quietest Moments - Supertramp 

Jesus offers peace if people come to him with their worries and concerns, saying, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" - John 14:27

Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” - Luke 12:15

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun" - Ecclesiastes 1:9

For more history during this era, I wrote this piece that includes the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.