Fame is addictive -- and it appeals to a lot of people who are looking for something outside themselves to give them validation. (A tactic that never works.) And like other addictive substances, it's easy to build up a tolerance for it at almost any level. You have to keep increasing the "dosage" to get the same satisfaction -- or comfort.

After a while, it's clearly not possible to keep on topping yourself. When you start to feed the fame, and do things simply for that reason, to keep your popularity alive so you can keep generating your "fix," you've signed a deal with the Devil ... because it takes tremendous courage and willpower to simply stop.

So many people hooked on their own image can't find what it takes to do that, which explains many of the suicides and the terrible unhappiness that often goes with "the price of fame." (The same goes for people who are in love with their wealth and the "status" that gives them.)

Another thing I think for those who substitute "fame" for "love" is that for a while, they can look at how popular they are, how in demand they are ... and convince themselves that their "fan base" -- all these people -- love them. This is an incredibly shallow definition and understanding of love.

Their fans aren't in love with them. They're in love with their image of their idol. (Often this is a missing part of the fan himself!) The moment a famous person starts doing things to feed that fame, they are truly lost. Their fans can't possibly love them -- because they don't really know the first thing about them. (How can you love something or someone who is basically a mystery to you?)

When you spend enormous amounts of energy to support the image someone else has of you, you lose touch with who you are -- if, indeed, you ever had a grip on that in the first place. And once you no longer know who you are, that emptiness itself -- unless you can find your way back "home" again and redefine your authentic self -- is such spiritual desolation it becomes a kind of suicide. The person is a walking shell ... dead inside. And it may be a very short step from that place to the real thing.

Sudden fame, intense fame, can be cruel, far more a curse than a blessing -- despite the headlines and $$$ that usually go with the gig.

I've heard it said that, Those whom the gods would destroy they first make famous. The fall from that pedestal is notoriously fatal.