Category: Musings

personal thoughts and explorations; sometimes evolving as I write ’em.

On Robin Williams life

Runaway**UPDATE**

This article may be the most relevant, yet, to the way Robin Williams ended his life: autopsy_robin_williams_had_lewy_body_dementia/

Original Post:

I have known a marvelous woman, my second wife, who suffered similarly to Robin Williams from severe chemical depression. She also attempted suicide multiple times over the span of her life, finally succeeding. Personally and professionally she  also went way beyond what we might think of as “the extra mile” to make others happy. Tonight, I am wondering if Williams was more or less Driven to make others happy, and so was “always on”. I think many of us know what it’s like to feel the need to please someone, if not to please everyone. I’ve been told that most of us know at least a kernel of the experience of feeling less than “enough”.

In compassion I just want to offer a notion: Those of us who have a history of feeling a need to meet unrealistic, or even insane, expectations deserve time and room to take care of ourselves as well as we try to take care of others. This is another opportunity to absorb the wisdom of letting that need go, if at all possible  –more like a rough pebble in our shoe, instead of a cross we bear.
Wouldn’t that just go a LONG ways toward a happier, more sane, more playful, more connected world!?!

Thinking of those who were close with Robin Williams, I am reminded of a rendering by Daniel Ladinsky of a poem by Sufi poet, Hafiz: 

I Know The Way You Can Get
 
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
 
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
 
Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.
 
Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.
 
O I know the way you can get.. .   



That said, I wasn’t even remotely close to him, so I don’t know for sure if it’s fair or accurate to say that Williams was driven to please. Maybe it’s not that simple? Maybe we won’t reduce his life and contributions to “lesson”, and will just let him be what he was and is.. in many ways a mirror of our love of playing, of creating, of giving others pleasure, and above ALL, of living life to his fullest. He was irrepressible, if nothing else.

I thank Robin for the amazing awesome gift of himself. Period.

it dawned on one of us

I can’t remember what the “holiday” was, but some friends and I decided to catch a Wrightsville Beach, NC chilly sunrise.

Perfect Rise

I believe I may have been the only photographer in the bunch, and I was Ready to “capture” (such a silly word for photography) the rising sun at the horizon. We all alternately huddled and stomped about in the sand to keep warm while waiting. As the brightness rose, most of our moving stopped as we stood in mute anticipation of the moment when that great orange bowling ball would finish slow-mo bursting through that break in the bank of clouds clinging to the ocean.

Silence. Even the seagulls had dissipated elsewhere.
Then one voice broke the spell.
“Guys.. the sun is rising over Here”
Meaning.. Not where We were expecting it in that cloud break, but several degrees around the horizon, to the northeast.
No apps to pinpoint sunrisings, back then,

but there’s probably not an app to avoid wishful presumption anyway.

_Motion

In her blog post, Karen Hutton wrote, “Part of me is even a little horrified to discover how much art matters to me.”

That statement, right there, hit me in My tear ducts and throat, Sister.

And one could absolutely plug in almost anything in the place of “art” in her sentence. It seems when I have connected with something that matters most, it feels so much like a runaway train. I’ve just discovered, among other whacks, that I’ve been thinking I’m the engineer of this here loco-motive, and I’m just as much bound for its destination as any other passenger is; I’m the one being “trained”.

And, as I hear in what Karen is saying, “what a Ride! it’s Awesome!” is the only way to travel, when, as she says:

Again, from her blog post,

“If you’re like me, you may find you’ve been doing it all backwards. I’ve always chosen the logical direction and then charged at it like a battering ram, instead of turning myself into an Awesome Life magnet. Man, is it both harder and easier than I imagined! Easier, because instead of figuring out all the details and setting ‘appropriate goals’ (I now know I’m always disappointed by those results)… I’m letting things emerge in a more effortless way.”

And, it’s true.. as Unlimited as we are? Slowing down, in the way that I read it, might mean the same as Surrender, or Embrace, applied to the few loves that transform us in increments. The train is then no longer runaway.. . just on track.

You bring these things out of me, Karen; I’m victim to your honest heart.

Thank you

Oh.. Snap!! That’s what the train Really is, isn’t it!?!
LOVE! It’s how much we Love something that has all that power.

Runaway