~ ITEM: Love the comedian: hate the act that took him from us, by Hilary White
~ ITEM: Shaidle: Everything people are saying about Robin Williams is right— and wrong— at the same time
~ ITEM: Matt Walsh: “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice”
~ ITEM: Just Before He Died Robin Williams Sent a Terminal Cancer Patient This Heartfelt Video
~ ITEM: The Truth About Robin Williams, by Stefan Molyneux
~ ITEM: Please Let Robin Williams’ Depression Be His Real Legacy
~ ITEM: What Dreams May Come
What Dreams May Come Official Trailer
~ PONTIFICATING on Robin Williams’ suicide is presumptuous, predictable, and reveals more about us than about him. The fact that the manic comedian had developed Parkinson’s (which boosts emotions) may explain why his already painful life became too much.. brilliant and driven, lonely and painful, as Stefan Molyneaux explains, from his childhood on up.
Some people live life like a raw nerve; they feel ten times more, suffer ten times more, rejoice ten times more, and find life wearing and wearying. Robin Williams lived his life in the public eye, and we saw his inside-out life and it entertained us.
Who wants to cure the jester? Or as the old joke has it, the husband asks the doctor about his wife, who thinks she’s a chicken. “so you want to cure here?’ asks the doctor. “No!” says the husband, “we need the eggs.” Make us laugh, comedy-monkey!
Of all the movies which reveal the skills, and inner life of Robin Williams, it’s 1998’s What Dreams May Come which shows the most. It starts out as an afterlifey happy shiney magical land– but as William’s character searches for his wife (who committed suicide) she’s nowhere to be found. All of a sudden the shiney happy vanishes, and we end up on a Dantean quest through horrors and hell to save the wife from her self-murder.
For me, it’s a classic case of a screenwriter whose talent exceeds the bounds of the story; or, of a spiritual universe which is much larger and deeper and brighter and darker than it first appears.
Word is that Robin Williams was nominally an Episcopalian (Anglican), and I have no idea what he made of that, or of his relationship with God. The sad thing for those in such spiritual need that squishy liberal Protestantism has nothing strong enough to comfort or save or hang onto. The empty & smug elitism of much of mainline denominationalism leaves you spiritually like someone on the Titanic after the boats have gone.
Wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
I cannot say, with Disney or whomever “Genie, you’re free.” Suicide, like homicide, is about murder. It’s horrid and messy and cruel and leaves the victims angry with and grieving the same person. It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Robin Williams now stands before God, his judge and Savior, as each of us shall, come death’s door. I do not know Mr. William’s spiritual state, nor if– with the last milliseconds of his life– he repented and wished to undo his doom. Let us, instead, look to our own souls, visit and help sick & depressed people (they are all around us, and I am one of them). ~
