a few thoughts.
normally, i don’t address the tragedies that happen in life around us. partly, because you come here, i assume, as an escape from that kind of thing. to be inspired, to feel a little lighter. but i feel the collective sadness all around me after the devastating news of robin williams’ suicide and i’m finding it hard to set it aside. i think if you’ve ever known someone who has suffered or you yourself suffer from depression, your heart has broken a little more these last few days. i am one of those people, although very few friends know it, and i’ve certainly never talked about it here. but, i thought — just maybe i should. maybe i should tell you, as i did once a while back, that life is not always the perfect little instagram package you sometimes see.
first of all — i’m completely fine. but i am fine because i addressed the problem a long time ago and i’ve kept on top of it with medication — because i have to. if i didn’t, i’d have bad bouts of depression and i couldn’t get up and write this blog every day. i couldn’t see the beauty around me, let alone share it. i’ve tried not taking medication and trust me, you don’t want me to do that again. i take a low dosage of an anti-depressant, but whatever the dose, it’s what keeps me from hiding in my room by myself and having very dark thoughts and loneliness that is much too overwhelming — there’s no turning back from it without help. but with help, my life is on a very happy, even keel. i do see beauty, lots of it — and i do want to share it. so, if you need help — please, ask for it. please tell someone.
the chronicle’s truthful headline this morning is really what moved me to write this. i often think for a comedian to be a good one, they need to be extra perceptive, because it’s those perceptions that they share with us which make them so relatable, and so well-loved and identifiable to us, right? we nod our heads in recognition and agreement of the craziness that comedians capture so succinctly for us. they just get it. it’s true for lots of people who seem to ‘get it’ — artists, writers, actors — people just like you and me. but i think it’s exactly that extra-perception if you will, that also makes life extremely painful. there’s no filter — you feel it all, especially for the really brilliant artists. so beauty, and love and loneliness and all of the poetry of life is intensified and sometimes just too painful to bear. i don’t presume to know what troubled robin williams, but from what i’ve heard from his peers, he was a genuinely kind and sensitive man. and perhaps that was why he felt he just couldn’t keep looking at the world — heaven knows it’s hard to look at some days with all the suffering that goes on. but sometimes, it’s simply too much beauty that becomes the difficult thing to bear when you haven’t someone with which to share it.
so i think if we are to learn anything at all from the lovely genius that was robin williams is that you really just never know if someone might be suffering, or from what, and so it’s good to take a moment before judging, or acting unkindly or petty towards others, and just think about that. think about your fellow humans and remember that words and actions, or even a lack thereof can really affect the people around you and make them feel excluded. try to make those words and actions thoughtful ones, and watch out for not just those you love, but your community, your world. act to make it a better place. simple acts of love and kindness can do that more than you know.
robin williams said: “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone.” maybe, we all just try to make the people around us feel a little less alone.
– xo, victoria
