‘I have always been conscious of my personal mortality’
A draft of 1996 memoir by Barry Sherman lays bare the late pharmaceutical mogul’s inner thoughts
A 1996 memoir manuscript written by Barry Sherman reveals the late pharmacy mogul gave ample thought to the meaning of life, and concluded there was none.
“I have always been conscious of my personal mortality,” he wrote two decades ago.
The 75-year-old founder of generic drug manufacturer Apotex, and his wife, Honey Sherman, 70, were found dead in their North York home last week. Their funeral is being held today.
A partial draft of the memoir, called “Legacy of Thoughts,” was submitted as part of Sherman’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by his orphaned cousins. He described the manuscript as his observations on philosophy, Canadian politics and the pharmaceutical industry.
“Memories are brief,” Sherman wrote in the preface, “and even should there survive some physical manifestation of my existence, my thoughts will be forever lost unless I commit them to paper.”
In the incomplete draft, he wrote that, while on vacation with his family, he felt the need to write something that would last beyond himself.
Sherman wrote frankly about his atheist convictions and his “disdain for organized religion.”
“What seems clear is that most if not all theists cannot define that in which they purport to believe, and any attempt at explanation leads to absurdities,” a portion of the first chapter reads.
Despite Sherman’s condemnation of religious beliefs, he and Honey were generous supporters of Jewish causes, donating at least $50 million to United Jewish Appeal throughout their lives.
On the other hand, Sherman emphatically wrote that he believes all humans are bound by the rules of physics, comparing human bodies to computer hardware and concluding: “Free will is an illusion.”
“Power and wealth bring no obligation,” he wrote, “but they do bring opportunity.”
Barring the existence of God, and free will, Sherman wrote: “Life has no meaning or purpose.”
“‘Meaning’ and ‘purpose’ are, by definition, dependant on an intelligent being having an intent in mind.”
“A corollary of the nonexistence of a ‘God’ is that we are here with no ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose’ to our lives,” he wrote.
Instincts, rather than God, explain humans’ pursuits of happiness and success — including his own, Sherman wrote.
“I cannot see that human behaviour differs in any fundamental way from that of numerous species on the savannahs of Serengeti. We are all driven by our instincts to eat, drink, copulate, protect ourselves and our young, and cooperate with others, particularly those most closely related to us, if and when it is to our mutual advantage,” he wrote.
“Happiness is, I believe, best defined as satisfaction of these drives, and it is that which we all pursue.”
A post-mortem on the bodies of Barry and Honey Sherman over the weekend revealed their cause of death to be “ligature neck compression.”
Police called the deaths “suspicious,” and a police source told the Star they were investigating the theory that it was a murder-suicide.
Little is written about Honey, except a mention of their meeting in 1970, followed by their wedding a year later.
“The fact that I make little mention of my wife and children should not be taken as suggesting that they are not important to my life, as that would be anything but true,” Sherman wrote. “However, it seems to me that information about my family is likely to be of less interest to a reader than my observations relating to philosophy, Canadian politics and the pharmaceutical industry.”
The manuscript includes almost five chapters outlining some of the major events in Sherman’s life, from his Toronto upbringing to the time he founded Apotex.
The preface begins in a journal-like style, with a location and date entry: “Serengeti, Tanzania, December 27, 1996.”
Within the preface Sherman recounts how he’s on vacation with his family, and how usually during vacations he’s in “frequent contact” with work, even admitting he considered himself a “workaholic.”
“It occurred to me today that there is no better time than now to put pen to paper and begin to write a text that has been forming in my mind for some time,” he wrote.
Sherman also wrote about his “unremarkable” childhood, the early death of his father, his education at the University of Toronto and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his time as president of Empire Laboratories and the birth of Apotex.
He described himself as highly motivated but lethargic; a top student, but not particularly intelligent.
He described his first foray into generic pharmaceuticals, at a summer job at Empire Laboratories, which was owned by his “Uncle Lou.” Sherman bought the company with friend Joel Ulster after his uncle’s death, and some manoeuvring with the trust company handling Lou’s es- tate.
He then founded Apotex on his own in 1974, the origins of which he described in “chapter five” before the manuscript’s abrupt end.
“We followed this plan and it worked. (A lot more to come.),” he wrote.
The remaining chapters, which are listed in Sherman’s index with such names as “The Insatiable Cartel,” “Animal Farm” and “Going for the Kill,” are not contained in the draft.