[Brother of Karl]

I don't make a habit finding solidarity with commies, but welcome home Brother of Karl.

I am not, nor have I ever been a communist. I'm sort of a liberal, with a mish mosh of political influences.

Robin begat genius, and he had that in spades. Most people don't look at genius as a state of suffering, but it often produces exactly that.

I wonder if geniuses are so often depressed because, even if they are surrounded by people, and even if they are loved by people, they can almost never truly relate to other people and it can be a fundamentally lonely existence. I might be projecting, because, although I never considered myself a genius, I know what that feeling is like, and it is painful and there is no easy relief from it.

Honestly, I feel like shit. Like a 5-ton truck's worth of shit. I know it's not my fault, but how I feel doesn't reconcile with how I think. So I just have to be present to the sadness I feel. It's hard to let go.

How could you have known? He must have had many many friends, and many who were in a better position than you to notice these things, but he did his best to keep his demons hidden. Not all of them mind you, but certainly the worst of them. Seeing a friend commit suicide and then looking back and realizing patterns that you just didn't put together in time is a natural human fallacy. I've seen it and I've felt it when a friend of mine offed himself a few years back. Ultimately it was his choice, and even if you had suspected something, the chances that you or anyone else could have saved him for long is miniscule. Especially given the fact that he was not a young man, the situation is much different, and he made his decision surely after many years of inner torment and deliberation.

It's not for us to question why people choose to make their exit when they do. We can never know why he made that decision, we can only know that he was always in control. I think he was a great comedian, and I fundamentally respect his decision as he is - ultimately - the master of his own life.

If even Rei admired his talent, you know he was pretty damn transcendent.
Of course it is his decision to live or die how he chooses, but this may tarnish his legacy, an additional element to the tragedy. You can't blame people for questioning his motivations, because they want to understand in order to cope with their own demons.


I'll end this post with this performance from two years ago, which in retrospect is strangely foreshadowing, especially since it is all improvised.
[youtube]0asL5VaWzM0[/youtube]

[Thompson_NCL]

Rei likes K-Pop, her standards are not especially high when it comes to culture!

[Brother of Karl]

My point is that she doesn't like the same things as most of us culturally, so this is one of the rare overlaps.

[wat0n]

Wow, this is some really sad news

I can only hope he rests in peace, I really liked his movies and acting

[Saeko]

RIP in peace, William Robins.

[Red_Army]

People who fundamentally misunderstand mental illness should not be allowed to give their half assed "man up" opinions. Have some fucking compassion.

RIP

[Gletkin]

Yes.....that tendency in contemporary western culture that still wants to stigmatize suicide......one of the last vestiges of feudal sentiment that still persists even in our post-60s modern culture.

Mmmm...case in point.

[Dagoth Ur]

I'm surprised at the level of sadness over Williams. For the past fifteen years all he's done is old-people stand up specials and movies that should make any self-respecting human cringe. People were only making fun of his comedy bit for the last five years, that was his only relevance. Then he dies and everyone is like OMG HOOK, ALLADIN, OTHER MOVIE THAT CAME OUT WELL OVER A DECADE AGO!!! Shit's strange and I doubt Williams would have expected this.

[KlassWar]

Always happens when washed-up actors bite the dust. People get nostalgic and remember them for their earlier careers, when they made movies that weren't utter crap.

[Red_Army]

Because he's dead? Have you not seen a famous person or anyone's death before? People usually avoid film criticism at funerals.

Also Father of the Year came out in 2009.

[KlassWar]

Yeah, because saying that in retrospect they probably ought to have croaked right before their creative careers finally jumped the shark and terminally declined is considered rude and uncharitable .

[Potemkin]

At least Robin Williams had a creative career, KlassWar, unlike most of us....

[Dagoth Ur]

Potemkin is correct although I'd say Williams was definitely a had-been at this point. His comedy stopped being important when I was a very small child.

[Solastalgia]

Fox News Host Calls Robin Williams 'Such A Coward'

Here's a nice little article about how society views addiction and mental illness.

http://commondreams.org/views/2014/08/1 ... ngs-change

Robin Williams is Gone, but Millions Will Still Suffer Until Things Change

Comedian Robin Williams was found early this morning of an apparent suicide. He was 63 years old. He struggled with addiction and depression for most of his life and recently checked into rehab as part of his constant battle.

But if the statistics are correct, he was one of 9.2 million people in the United States who suffer from what’s known as “dual diagnosis” of substance abuse and mental health problems.

Perhaps comedians are more at risk for suicide, I can’t say. If you haven’t seen it, the very heartfelt message from late night host Craig Ferguson to Britney Spears on the subject of addiction above is very moving. Ferguson was 15 years sober when he gave this monologue.

No one can know how Robin Williams felt at the time he made his decision to take his own life. But I can tell you what I’ve heard from literally thousands of other alcoholics and drug addicts I’ve met in 14 years of sobriety who have been in a similar place, struggling with a disease they just can’t seem to beat.

The next time you see a homeless person with mental health or substance abuse issues on the street, stand there and watch them for a little while. More importantly, watch the people who walk past them. See how embarrassed they are that this person is there at all, and in such a degraded condition. See the contempt they have that they’re being asked for something, or their anger at even being bothered. Or watch them stop out of pity and give the homeless person their spare change, hoping it will just make the whole thing go away.

The way that homeless person looks on the outside is no doubt very different from how Robin Williams looked on the outside, but on the inside anyone struggling with mental illness and addiction usually feels the same way no matter their station in life.

There are 10 times as many mentally ill people in jails as there are in hospitals in the United States, and it doesn’t save taxpayers one bit of money. Roughly half the people in federal prison are there on drug related charges. That should tell you something about what kind of signals we’re sending to people with mental health and substance abuse issues. We don’t see addiction and mental illness as just that — illnesses. We see people who suffer from them as weak, as criminals, as people of low character and we treat them accordingly, as people we are deeply ashamed of and who need to be locked away for the greater good.

Depression and substance abuse are inexorably intertwined for reasons too lengthy to go into here, but it’s fair to say that what happened to Robin Williams is not an isolated incident. Many famous people who have struggled with depression and addiction will tell you the same story — no matter what their outsides looked like, on the inside they felt like that homeless person. Completely trapped, utterly degraded and ashamed, unable to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” the way that society expects them to.

We can’t just help people in isolated pockets and think that individual treatment alone will solve the problem. If it would, rich people would be fine and Robin Williams would still be alive. Treatment certainly does help some but it won’t take away the shame and the stigma surrounding addiction and depression. We might as well start telling people with breast cancer or Parkinson’s disease to pull themselves together and get a job and everything will be fine — and then locking them up when it isn’t.

Depression is estimated to have direct and indirect workplace costs to the economy of $34 billion per year. Which is probably a gross underestimate, because the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that the cost of drug abuse is $559 billion per year. And things are only getting worse. A 2012 study concluded that the number of people in the U.S. who experience depression at some point is increasing by 20% each year.

Any sane society would acknowledge that these are not just serious problems but in fact public health crises and make it a top priority to deal with them.

Robin Williams may have been rich and had access to all the treatment in the world, but nobody can escape feelings of shame, weakness and guilt that depressed and addicted people feel in a society that just wants them to “buck up” — and “treats them” by putting them in jail if they don’t.

Stopping our horrific policy of trying to torture people into mental health and sobriety is only part of the problem, however. Beyond that there is a dramatic need to change the way we think about people with mental illness and substance abuse issues, how we identify them and get them help. The cost to our GDP is already far in excess of anything it would cost to do so, and the cost in human misery — not only to those who suffer but to those who love them and try to get them help — is incalculable.

[Red_Army]

Just because someone is a has-been doesn't negate their earlier work, and their death is a natural time to remember it.

[Dagoth Ur]

I get that you don't bring up someone being a has-been at their funeral but glossing over it entirely muddies the picture. Kinda like how when Jacko died he became some kind of saint who only ever brought joy to millions.

[Red_Army]

Celebrities have weird cycles in the public eye. Initially they are mostly liked as the come up, then people decide they have too much and begin to hate them, then they are forgotten, and in the end they become deified again. In general I try to avoid learning about the personal lives of celebrities, but hopefully somebody won big in a death pool somewhere.

[Dagoth Ur]

Same boat here. The personal lives of others are only interesting if you have zero life of your own.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

There's a big difference between Jacko and Williams. Jacko was disgraced with allegations of child sex abuse then lauded when he died, Williams just faded away towards the end of what otherwise was a very long and fulfilled career.

[Lexington]

The fact that Robin Williams's greatest stuff was more than a decade ago doesn't take anything from his career. (in fact, looking at some of these stories, part of that decline is from a resurgence of alcoholism and depression) Many of us grew up hearing and watching this guy. I think it is perfectly reasonable to feel some sadness in an entertainer's passing when he/she has given you some joy throughout your life.

This is made profound by the fact that addiction and depression triggered his suicide - problems that millions of people suffer and die from. Maybe people will give more of a shit about these problems and if he has a lasting legacy in addition to being a brilliant entertainer, perhaps it is that.