For a long time, I’ve dreamed of living in Tiburon.
Twelve years or so ago, a then-girlfriend and I took a weekend trip to San Francisco and on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we took the ferry across the bay to Tiburon. Even though she and I were enduring the aftermath of a significant fight (which had been my fault entirely; the previous evening, I had been at my most passive-aggressive and insecure), as we walked around the neighborhood, I was able to put aside my lingering anger with her, and my incessant loathing of myself, and enjoy the town. After an hour I decided: I really, really wanted to live in Tiburon. It was upscale without being ostentatious, tranquil without being boring or giving up any character, and beautiful without being cliche. I remember thinking, given the proximity to San Francisco, being right on the water, and one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the country, “I could be pretty happy here.” Yup, I had made up my mind. I could be pretty damn happy in Tiburon.
Of course, Tiburon is where Robin Williams decided to kill himself.
Before last week, it had been commonplace to hear someone’s judgment, “I prefer Robin William’s dramatic stuff.” I’ve said it myself many times, and agreed with others when they said it, after hearing about a new Robin Williams film, often times hearing that Robin Williams was in a bad film. He made plenty of good ones, he made plenty of bad ones. So what? Which movie star hasn’t? Everyone acknowledged that Robin Williams was a dynamite stick of talent, a Tasmanian Devil of stand-up, a bottomless well of voices and accents and impressions and references. Films like GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM and ALADDIN were able to harness that energy and delight us all. But as time moved on, it became pretty standard to feel fatigued by Williams’s unceasing energy, to conclude that his hyper, rapid-fire act was too much too often, to feel a little put off by it.
Lucky for him, Williams had the low-key side to his arsenal as well. When he dialed it down for DEAD POETS SOCIETY and GOOD WILL HUNTING (my favorite is THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP), he showed a softer side that was no less brilliant, no less effective, no less moving. His “dramatic stuff” won him an Oscar, gave him icon status, earned him enough tangible rewards to get him a house in Tiburon.
And it didn’t matter.
Pretty dramatic stuff, huh?
When I heard the news, I immediately knew that I’d be reading a lot of opinions about it, pieces about what lessons we all might learn from this tragedy. Nobody was talking about Robin Williams last week. In today’s Twitterverse, however, nothing resurrects a celebrity like death. Now I'm adding to it, I suppose. (shrug)
I also thought that there were no lessons to be learned from it. Every reaction I had about this was met with a “Yeah, but.” Suicide is an incredibly selfish act. Yeah, but doesn’t one have personal freedom? He should’ve been able to find help. Yeah, but often times help isn’t enough, and what help is there? It makes me so angry. Yeah, but…It makes me so sad. Yeah, but…You can try to find an answer from this tragedy that will ensure it doesn’t happen again, but you won’t find one. There is no solution that will end it.
Williams’s death came as a surprise to everyone and a surprise to no one, really. The news came from nowhere but everyone could see it at the same time, in a way. People hurt and people try to rid themselves of their pain any way they can, even if it’s foolish or destructive or even if it’s irrevocable, and people always will. We can try to learn from it and improve all of our chances of avoiding it in the future, but at a certain point it’s futile. We already know everything there is to know now. There’s no insight that can be suddenly wrested from this particular suicide. The truth is depression is like a natural disaster. We can think about it and analyze it and decry it all we want, but it escapes capture. It cannot be eliminated. No meteorologist has ever come forward with a way to eliminate hurricanes. All they can do is warn us to board up our windows and find higher ground. All we can do about depression in ourselves and our loved ones is watch for it closely and protect ourselves and others from it when it creeps up behind us the best we can.
Robin Williams himself was very open about his demons over the years, freely discussing his problems with substance abuse, not just with humor but with self-awareness and wisdom. He was not glib about it. Recently, he had checked himself into rehab for his emotional well-being. He didn’t seem to be ignoring his problems. He wasn’t in denial about his demons. Far from it.
And it didn’t matter.
Last night, I was listening to the podcast Marc Maron did with Robin Williams a few years back where Williams discussed thinking of suicide only one time. He performed a bit about having a debate with his conscience about it, with his conscience patiently asking questions about why he was thinking of killing himself, and whether or not the bottle of Jack Daniels he was holding in his hand might, just MIGHT have anything to do with it, and why he might be holding that bottle, and so on and so forth. The bit was detailed, understated and very, very funny, a perfect blend of Robin Williams’s “comedic stuff” and his “dramatic stuff.” It concluded with Williams’s conscience convincing him to put the thought of suicide on the shelf where it wasn’t really needed, then or ever. After the bit was done, Williams told Maron that that was the only time he had ever thought of suicide.
Now, I don’t generally wish that somebody is lying their ass off. And this was an old podcast, so chances are good that one contemplation of suicide was, by last week, no longer an accurate tally. But lying in a bed in Singapore, listening to Williams’s claim, I thought, “I hope you’re a goddamned liar, Mork, ’cause if you aren’t, Jesus, I really need to watch myself.”
Because I think about suicide all the time.
(Here’s the point where I concede the narcissism in making someone else’s suicide about me. And HERE’S the point where I argue that’s what we ALL do this in some form or another when we hear news like this. People relate to it, or they don’t, to varying degrees. Many simply empathize because it’s not an issue for them. Even for those people who are shouting, “Okay, we get it! Depression! Suicide! Enough! Move on!” are making it about them, if it’s only to push it away so forcefully it reveals their effort to keep the conversation away from them. We pour everything through our own filter, make everything about us, all of the time.)
Before anyone gets alarmed, rarely do I think about suicide beyond a moment. Certainly right now I feel pretty good, for me anyway. Yet sure, it still crosses my mind. The notion passes in and out as if I’m thinking, “Maybe I’ll go to law school,” or “These sunglasses are dirty,” or “Robin Williams is really funny, but I prefer his dramatic work.” 999 out of 1000 times it’s a transitory “Hm…” and then a bird chirps or I see a piece of cheesecake or something like someone in front of me on line at McDonald’s annoys me, and the thought evaporates. To be frank, most of the time it passes through my mind it’s just because I don’t feel like getting out of bed. “Thinking about” something has a very, very wide range of meanings.
In the past, however, there certainly have been those 1/1000 shots where it’s gone beyond a mere brain flutter, where my thoughts have been a storm of darkness and genuine despair between a mere passing idea and a tangible objective. I’ve never thought it to the point of attempting it, or even planning it. But I’ve dealt with depression pretty much my entire adult life, to varying degrees of success but to this point never to complete failure, either, for which I'm grateful. I’ve been at points in my life, however, where I never thought there would be any way out of the hole of sadness in which I was buried. Times where I was so depressed I didn’t even bother not to end a sentence with a preposition. It has been an utter torment for me at times. I have found no answers for it, zero, nothing, nothing nothing nothing ever to solve it completely for me. I wish I could find some answers, learn some lessons to get rid of it, but no. Never. It is always there, with the potential to build. So far, every time I’ve been low I’ve been able to fight back, to rebound, to rise up, to board up the windows overlooking my own brain. But I know that the depression’s never beaten, only beaten for now, only for the time being. It’s a constant threat and thus a constant worry.
So to hear that someone’s committed suicide after thinking about it only once before? That’s a real “Okay, watch yourself,” moment. Because there is no definitive solution to this problem, no way to eliminate it. There is no answer to it. There is only vigilance and protection from it. I like to think I remember to have plywood ready for my windows. But is there enough plywood in the world?
I mean, Robin Williams was undoubtedly one of the most talented comedians in the last century and one of the most talented and celebrated actors of his generation. One often hears the expression, “(X) has more talent in his left thumb than (Y) has in his entire body.” That would certainly apply when (X) = Robin Williams and (Y) = me. With Robin Williams, that cliche loses its hyperbole. Robin Williams was a millionaire a hundred times over, while I kick myself when I spend over ten dollars at lunch here in Singapore. Robin Williams lived in Tiburon; I will most likely never own a home.
So if HE can’t protect himself from this shit, if HE can’t stop it from overtaking him, what chance do I have? If this shit can overtake Robin Williams, it can overtake anybody, right? So what chance do I have?
The answer, so much as there is one, is as good a chance as anybody, as long I am vigilant. William’s death is not a lesson; it is a reminder. It is a warning. That is what I’ll take from it. I will take it as a warning. Williams’s death sucks, it fucking sucks, it deprives us all of more good work and entertainment and more importantly it deprives his family and friends of a person they love. I can’t make sense of it, so the only way I can take any comfort from it at all is to use it as further protection for myself, for my emotional home, and to remind myself that my depression will always be right outside my house and I always have to fight - proactively fight - to keep it off my goddamned porch. That’s all I can do, but I can do it as hard as I can. And I will.
And if I’m able to do that, then I can continue to claim that I appreciate Robin Williams’s dramatic stuff.
