"What's the difference between a tornado and divorce? Nothing. Either way, someone's losing a trailer." Robin Williams
The world has lost a very, very funny man. By all accounts Robin Williams was a good man who truly seemed to care about others. He was also a man who they say was suffering from depression, and had issues with addiction to drugs and alcohol in his past, too.
I don't mean to sound uncompassionate, but I don't understand depression or addiction. I don't have an "addictive personality" myself and I'm not close to anyone who does. Not my wife, or my kids, or any of my friends or family. I understand they are legitimate diseases, but I suppose I just live in a small, probably naive world with other like-minded naive people. I've never been exposed to those dark things.
I don't understand how the brain works. I've never taken a formal course in psychology. Why would someone so talented, someone able to light up a room when he walked into it, someone who could travel where he wanted, do whatever he wanted, probably meet whoever he wanted, have to resort to drugs or alcohol, and eventually suicide? I just don't get it.
In my little pea brain I can't see what he had to be depressed about. When people have an empty pantry, hungry kids, and no money, I can see them being desperate and depressed. When people (who want friends) have no friends, I can see them being depressed. When people are cold and homeless and don't even know if they'll survive the night, I can see them being depressed. Thankfully most of us reading this right now don't (I'm guessing) have those problems.
And drugs and alcohol....again, I don 't get it. If I'm healthy and fed and clothed and housed, why would I want to screw it up by abusing myself? If you have enough money to afford booze or drugs in mass quantity, I'm guessing you should be smart enough to find something a lot more fun to spend it on than booze or drugs.
It's one of my great shortcomings....I just don't understand the abstract. Last night when we heard the news that he was dead K said incredulously, "But Robin Williams should still be alive." Then she asked, "How do we know that's true? How do we know this wasn't meant to be?"
All I could do was sit there, my mouth open, and say, "wha...what?" Great, deep philosophical questions go straight over my head. I see the here and now, the rocks and trees, not the what might have beens or the philosophical dilemmas of life.
If any of you are hurting or addicted or in mental pain, I wish I could help you, but I wouldn't know where to start. Thank God there are people out there who can.
I'll never know what was going through Robin Williams mind at the end. I'll never understand his addictions. I do understand that a funny, caring man is gone. Pity.
S
