Robin Williams: the Dangers of a Facade

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As we all now have come to know, the king of comedy has passed away. Robin Williams reportedly committed suicide, asphyxiated himself. While many are mourning the loss of Robin due to his enormous sense of humour, I cannot help but think about something else.

I think that people are so fixated on his facade of happiness and humour, that they are forgetting the tragedy in all of this; the worst part of Robin Williams' passing is knowing that someone who appeared so content was the utter opposite internally - that someone who lived his life ensuring the happiness of others had a limited amount of his own. Millions of people are fighting depression and it leaves me feeling morose knowing that another has lost the arduous battle it brings to its victims. 

Suffering from depression is not the simplest of tasks. It consists of a lifetime of mental struggle. It digs a dark abyss into the sufferer's mind and expands deep into a depth where an end is unseen - if one were to throw a rock into it, they would not hear the sound when it reaches the bottom, mainly because for most sufferers, there exists no bottom. They thus fall into a loophole of darkness, a barren mental realm where no light thrives. They float in it and when they cannot barely make their way out of it, they find themselves caught there, their bodies having no choice but to remain immobile as their owners leave the world behind.

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Just then, a tribute movie containing Robin Williams was televised: Mrs Doubtfire. Though I have seen it hundreds of times, this particular viewing had me catching on two quotes that I otherwise never noticed.  The first, dressed as Mrs Doubtfire, Robin says, "this is not a way of life... it's just a job." And I thought deeply about that quote. Figuratively, it is representative of his role as an actor and a comedian - just because he pretended to be happy, it does not necessarily mean that he was. In saying that, the general public needs to keep in mind that actors are humans with careers too. They act as their job requires, and they take off the acting mask when they reach home, and in his case, Robin unfortunately did not mimic his mask.

Another quote stuck out to me - this was when Robin, not dressed as Mrs Doubtfire, rather dressed as his second character, Daniel, says to his movie wife Miranda in discussion of their divorce, "you want me to pretend everything's all right? Put on a happy face? Smile?" And I think that that quote there highlights the issue with people failing to understand why he has prematurely ended his life. If they are in a state of discontent, it is difficult enough to have to act like they are not so as to protect their self-esteem, let alone the difficulty they face in having to keep that act constantly so as to ensure recipients are content. And all actors and actresses face this problem. Fans are simply too demanding. But life itself, existence, is much more demanding. Once the acting is turned off, once the wearer is temporarily relieved of the mask, reality kicks in and life becomes difficult to deal with again.

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It is a strange phenomenon for someone who is so terribly melancholic to act as though they are happy. Greek tragedy began in 5 BC. I remember taking a sociology class, wherein my tutor mentioned a theorist, MacIntyre, who believed that man is 'a storytelling-animal'. He continued, 'I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’' In saying this, MacIntyre implied that we retell stories in order to know ourselves better. We act in order to fit, and thus falls Robin Williams. He acted, I hypothesise, as a form of denial; it is safe to say that he clearly fooled everyone, however the main person he fooled was himself. In pretending that everything was okay, he believed it. Even for a short amount of time, even if he knew that it was not, he believed in that moment that it was, and he reveled in that moment, and that is what made him a great comedian. 

I would certainly know this because it is the case with me. For as long as I can remember, I too have been dealing with depression. It is something that I cannot shake from myself, and I have grown to accept it despite its unhealthiness. I know too well the use of a facade to mask my true feelings, and unfortunately it is something that cannot be helped. So I understand why Robin did what he did, and as a fellow human sufferer I am saddened not because I lost a favourite actor, but because I lost a fellow brother. Laughter is truly a medicine. It is helping me overcome my darkest thoughts, and to see everyone else's reaction to my humour makes me even more happy, so much so that I forget that I was ever sad.

Let me paint a picture of how it is to live with depression, or at least grant you a painting from my ongoing experience of it: imagine a little girl. Let us name that little girl 'Life'. Life has wanted her own heart balloon ever since she could walk. One day, she found one caught in a tree. It was a red heart balloon that was filled with helium. It sometimes was so strong that it would almost slip away from Life. Life held tightly to it, until one day, a large wind picked up with it Life's beautiful red balloon and it flew out of Life's reach. No matter how high Life tried to jump, that balloon would not come down. Depression sufferers are that balloon. Some come back down to Life, and Life repairs them and inflates them again and they fly despite all of their beautiful scars. Some never return to Life.

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We find ourselves starting most conversations, following with a greeting, with 'are you okay?' But I find that we do not really expand on that. The other person in the conversation either lies and says that they are, or complains about complaining, or begins to tell the asker reasons as to why they are not okay. And the asker may or may not take it under their wing entirely, but I think that we do not delve deep enough into asking someone if they truly are or are not okay. And I think that if we started to, instead of using it like a secondary greeting, we would notice that a lot more people than not are wearing masks.

'R U OK? DAY' falls on the 11th of September each month. It is the only day of the year by this company commemorated to making sure that somebody is okay. I think that this day should outstretch to the length of 365 days. We need to be asked each day what we are feeling, because there goes by no day where something does not bring someone down, where something does not pull up that red balloon from Life.

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Depression is a real illness. It continues to claim the lives of many. In order for sufferers to be strong, we have to bond with one another. My hand is held out for whoever wishes to hold it. Our world can be so barren, but if we unite we can help each other feel less alone in this. Nobody should ever feel that they are the only one going through this tribulation, because the reality is that a lot of people are, and the main ones are those who pretend that they are unaffected.

Rest in peace, Robin Williams.

Maya Angelou

I have always had the misconception that life is infinite, that those alive who I admire who are out of my reach would one day be in my reach, and that there is plenty of time for everything. Yesterday, I was proven wrong. I should have known that there was a particular reason for my solemn evening. 

I saw a trend on Facebook, a little notation on the right side of my web browser that said 'Maya Angelou' - without reading any further, I was content for one that my main source of inspiration was being mentioned, atop all other things in the world, in a place where intellectual muses are usually overlooked. So I briefly revelled in that moment alone. Then, I read on, and I could literally feel my intellectual realm shatter inside me. All that I stood for, education-wise, was shaken with an internal earthquake that bounced off and away from the richter scale.

My one academic muse was dead. She had left the earth. She was gone. That was it, all she had worked for, all she had achieved, all the lives she had touched, it would now mean that it would not matter after the media has used it to their benefits, until an enthusiastic poetry teacher or educator or literary or historical genius dropped her name out of the blue, connecting it to the topic at hand, and her name would penetrate the ears of many and slip away, sticking only with a couple or a few students who will, not for long, focus on her name because they will feel that it will be best to return to the task at hand so as to pass and one day reach near the level of Maya Angelou's impact on the academic world.

Eighty-six years, and in those years she achieved more than what most cannot achieve had they lived thrice that amount. I am bothered. I am saddened. But above all, I am grateful. I never had the chance to meet her. I never had the chance to live up to my fullest potential so as to get some mere form of recognition from her, nor had I ever had the chance to write her a letter, all of which I should have done, and I wish I had done. Time slipped away. And upon looking for an address for contact, I have found these two things, both of which illustrate how quickly a chance can escape:

Sorry, the person you were looking for is no longer available, more like. I am grateful that I lived in a parallel world to her, so that at least I did not have to look in a mere history book to stumble upon her. I hold up high the values her work has nestled in me about my appearance, about my womanhood, about my curves and my femininity and my voice and how I can impact the world too, as a future educator.

I am grateful for Dr. Maya Angelou and her impact on the world and myself. And though I never had or ever will have the chance to show her my gratitude, I will always carry her story with me for future generations and I will always remember her many gifts.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

- Dr. Maya Angelou

Mother's Day

As per usual, today was another excuse for my family to gather together and share within ourselves ten large pizzas, how we ended up fitting them all inside of us  I still cannot recall. All in the name of Mother's Day, we headed out onto the freeway and placed the phone order as we drove.

And as per usual, something shook me today. One bridge in the freeway overlooks a large memorial garden, where tombstones lay in commemoration of some we have lost. Not my family though, not yet. But what struck me was looking at hordes of family members wearing black, stopping at tombstones and placing large bouquets of flowers. Little people who the idea of death is still abstract to, big people who know it too well and older people who are expecting it at any moment gathered on a piece of land underneath the freeway as we passed, unappreciative of just how good it is to be alive with people and eating a lot of fresh warm pizza.

And the fact is that I do not live my life to its fullest potential. I still sit here in my little 'everything will be okay every time' bubble and thrive in it when in reality everything is not okay. I need to push myself away from thinking critically about partaking in any activity that will prolong my stay here and push myself away from the abstract thing that is death so that I may live until my time comes. Today reminded me of that. I have my mother, my sister, my entire family, and I still choose the glow of the computer screen over them. I still choose watching videos and looking at pictures of people doing things rather than doing things myself.

I think most people are like that nowadays, though. People have become too afraid to take risks because they feel it is better to observe them being done by somebody else to avoid the pain that may come with the flip-side of that risk. There was a time when I was eighteen that I took so many risks, when I look back at them now I think of the person I was as a totally different character, someone so foreign to me. But that was when I was happier. I had a sort of freedom in anything that I did, but I had to stop it all because it was eating away at me as well, the fastness of it all, the scum that I met along the way, and capitalism knocking on my little door telling me that its rent was due.

So I have turned away from risk to acquire a different form of reward, a reward given to my mind and my pocket. I still need to reward my body, though, and that will come with the rewarding of my mentality. I keep reminiscing to that scene today. Everything can fall away so quickly. It can slip away so fast, the strongest of arms cannot hold on, this entire facade we call 'life' will not be lenient when it wants to leave us, no matter the impact we make. It was not lenient towards Abraham Lincoln. It was not lenient towards Mother Theresa. It was not lenient towards Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse, nobody. It does not accept any deals. It does not offer mercy to those who have offered it their entire lives. It does not respect any legacies or any endeavours. It wants your soul and there is nothing to do about it but enjoy it while you can.

The reason why I cringe when I think of a career is because you are paid for your time - time can never be bought back. Yes, work at McDonalds for three years as a manager, get paid thousands, that is fantastic - but all you did was swap three years of living for three years worth of money, a mere thing that the government has crafted in order for us to swap things. Even if you are not residing in a third world country, even if you are rather powerful, you are being exploited, and the exploiter is mankind.

Appreciate all that you have right this very moment. Stop all sources of exploitation and sit and listen to yourself breathe for a bit. You exist. You are temporary. So is your mother. Or your sister. Or your aunty. Or your grandma. Or yourself, if you are a female. Or any male. Everyone. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Another Day Day. Go. Live.

Where do Grim Reapers get their Cloaks from?

The grim reaper. A cloaked figure, dressed in all black, transcending through realms surrounding life and death, haunting all those in its wake. 

After searching through the internet via Google I have found no means of explanation which tells one about where the grim reaper acquires its attire from. From whence does its cloak come? Has anybody bothered to question its one fashion statement? Do some humans contribute black cloaks to these beings as a form of bargaining so that they may live a little while longer before these beings visit them and take them from their lives and loves? Surely it does not appear from thin air dressed in the way that it is, a neat black cloak covering the lengths it is meant to - perhaps there exists a tailor who creates these cloaks for the price of immortality? 

Perhaps even these beings create their own cloaks. Maybe some reapers reap whilst others sew for those who reap. Maybe even they spawn in that cloak, with one hand carrying a scythe, convenient because they may immediately get to work from the moment of their, if you like, birth. Maybe they inherit their clothing - maybe their time is too up after a certain period of time or after a certain number of reaping and then they pass their clothes onto the next of kin. Maybe the more rustic the cloak, the more ancient and the more experienced it makes the wearer, giving the wearer also a higher reputation earning them more souls to reap than others. 

Grim reapers are too elusive to interview, and that proves problematic because no human can ask it this question. No human thus will ever know where it obtains it's clothing from. And it is worrying because they all conform to one style of clothing which means that there most likely exists a large cohort of grim reapers who each must wear the same things so as to be noticed by another. That also means that the cohort exists, the number within unknown, but may multiply to exceed the number of humans which means that there may be competition between each reaper, which may be the reason behind why humans wage war - maybe they are among us and their cloaks are magical because they transform into that of the president's, or an army lieutenant. 

Either way, it would be of interest to know where their cloaks come from. Maybe they are like Macklemore and they go to the thrift shop to buy our granddads' cloaks. 

Kurt Cobain

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"I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what I used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm.
And that terrifies me to the point to where I can barely function.
I can't stand the thought of Frances becoming the miserable, self-destructive, death rocker that I've become.

I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful, but since the age of seven, I've become hateful towards all humans in general.
Only because it seems so easy for people to get along that have empathy.
Only because I love and feel sorry for people too much I guess."

I never have really bothered to inquire about Kurt Cobain or his suicide or his band or anything to really do with him, simply because a cheap merchandise store thought it was okay to place 'Nirvana' on cheap t-shirts and every girl and boy wore it not knowing who Nirvana really was, and it turned me off wanting to get to know this elusive figure.

But I thought it appropriate to do so today, the day which marks his suicide's twentieth anniversary. Any suicide pains me to inquire about because people who commit suicide go to a very dark place, a place that no light can illuminate, and that darkness lingers for all eternity, and it lingers now as I try to look through the looking-glass towards Kurt. I am currently listening to him singing Where did You Sleep Last Night and I am experiencing a strange feeling, especially after having read his suicide note and after having seen pictures from his death. It is a sort of sickly feeling, one that will lie in the pits of my stomach until I forget about Kurt having shot himself in the head as a form of escape from the world that he failed to continue to see the light in, as shown in the excerpt from his suicide note, above.

I can align with Kurt when he says that he is "terrif[ied]" about how his daughter was once like him, "full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm". Knowing the true colours of most people is something that comes with age, and what a glorious, distant thing age seems to every child. I still remember my tenth birthday, where I told my mother I could not wait to grow age so that I could receive my first gameboy, a gameboy colour - clear purple, along with the game Pok'emon Crystal, which featured animated pok'emon. I simply could not wait, and she told me that I will one day age and regret it, and now I know why. There is so much evil in the world, and I am assuming that, based on Kurt's manner of thought right before his death, that somebody had done something horrible to him to the extent where he had "become hateful towards all humans in general". 

What compels me to become interested in those who have committed suicide is what draws them to do so, and what frightens me at the same time is that their opinions align with mine. "I love and feel sorry for people too much I guess", and as do I, and I also know the consequence of unrequited love, unrequited emotions and unrequited attachment. Severe attachment to another is lethal on one's mental state, and I have learnt that the way that I have learnt about everything abhorrent this world has to offer: the hard way. But I have not learnt it hard enough, well, at least not as hard as Kurt, who had turned to heroin. I cannot imagine the mental distraught this man had gone through from something, that it led him to a needle pointed near his elbow. In inquiring about what compels me to gain interest in these people, I have also an interest in what compels people who inflict mental harm upon others to do so.

Though Kurt clearly had hatred for all humans, he still had some light left in him, ending his note with "peace, love, empathy" and "I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU" sprawled twice in capital letters. At twenty-seven years old, Kurt had prematurely ended his life, which still is impacting on many today, but certainly not on those unaware teenagers who wear cheap shirts with 'Nirvana' on them. Hopefully they will not feel the mental agitation Kurt had felt. And Kurt, it has taken me twenty years since your suicide to realise that you and I are alike in some ways, and for that I am eternally sorry. May you find mental serenity wherever you now are.

I had my Heart Stolen by the Book Thief

“First the colours.

Then the humans.

That’s usually how I see things.

Or at least, how I try.

Here is a small fact:

You are going to die.”

I told myself that I will never again, if the story proves cleverly whimsical, watch a movie adaptation before reading the book that inspired it, yet today I broke that personal bond with myself, and it resulted rather well.

After watching a copious amount of movies, I have found that none have impacted on me so much as The Book Thief. Narrated by ‘Death’, The Book Thief tells a daunting tale about how humans are scarier than Death itself, and how instead of fearing our demise we must fear what we are capable of. It features the juxtaposition of how Hitler used words to defy his followers, to how Liesel Meminger, the thief of books herself, used the words she had learnt to care for the miniscule amount of mentally wounded nation within Germany, which would form itself in a bomb shelter each time an air raid was called.

The story had captivated me from the very moment I knew that the narrator was ‘Death’ – I have not yet witnessed any stories narrated by the sort, and this was an excitable view of a story – however, the point of view of Death was not what I had anticipated. Death was weary with his constant taking of lives, however upon finding Liesel his view of humans changed – he found colour in his taking of life, and instead of sticking to his solemn job, he began to focus on Liesel and her journey, nurturing her in his eyes.

I felt a warmth within me knowing of Rudy Steiner’s love for Liesel. It felt so real and true, that love may occur at first glance and may last until the final glance. I admire how realistic the depiction of loss in the film is too, how it ends rather smoothly without exaggerating lives, and with abiding by the one underlining term which circulates around our lives here, that the fact is that we will all die, we just have to be sure that we live a little before it happens. And in her moments of living, Liesel showed Death that life is full of colour, despite how bland her surroundings were.

And that is what hit me – life is full of colour. We see Death progress from focusing on his uncoloured lifestyle, and how he became to know that colour is warm on his very soul. And it occurred to me, that most of us have not yet seen the colour in our predominantly uncoloured lives – that is because we mostly focus on the lack of colour alone, while colour stands there tapping at our souls’ windows, beckoning us to realize its existence, that it has always been there and wants to be noticed.

We all focus on what we want, what we want to work for, and what we will get in working for what we want, when none of us focus on what we actually have. In fact, in most cases, the things that people have turn out to be what people truly need. The Book Thief has taught me that – that in wanting to read the book before watching the movie, while I have had the movie waiting for me, I have learnt that I could just watch the movie first then read the book – there is no constitutional law against doing so, and my dignity is not in any way harmed. I am still me, and I am at no loss, in fact I am at a gain – I have gained a deeper interest in wanting to read the book.

In all seriousness though, what I am trying to say is do not look for something not waiting to be found. Surround yourself by what you currently have, and focus more on the colourful things in your life. I am an aspiring novelist, but I am nowhere near forming a great idea that can be written. That does not mean I am looking at the colourless side of this, I am looking at the colourful side, in that I have several ideas plotted down and at different stages I add to them, who knows, perhaps one day I will have an idea so grand it will be ready to grow bigger.

I thank you, Markus Zusak, for restoring the colour in my life, and helping me approach the reality of things in a more realistic manner. I look forward to acquainting myself with the textual character of Liesel Meminger, the book thief who stole my heart.

Celebrity Deaths

First and foremost, I would like to say that I respect everyone as human individuals because no matter our progressions or withdrawals, interests, circumstances or investments, we all end up in the same place at one time or another and for varied reasons - six feet under. Our fates will always come back to the harsh reality that also is our lives, and there is no fountain of youth or immortality that we can drink from to attempt to escape our situations. With that said, I will now begin to state my opinions about celebrity deaths, which is an issue that has come to my mind since the recent passing of Paul Walker and the combined reactions to it that I have come across. 

Because of Paul's celebrity status, and wealth I presume, of course, from all of the revenue from his acting career, it is inevitable that the news of his passing or of his new purchase of a car or of the strange green stain on his pants that night at the red carpet, hypothetically, will be heard by the vast majority of individuals. Nobody can prevent that because the media is a large vermin, per se, that spreads news incredibly fast about the successful people that the status quo would like to hear about because of the popularity of the movie(s) they have acted in. With that said, it would be understandable that most people will hear about the deaths of celebrities rather than the deaths of hundreds of thousands of humans in third world countries. However, when the tragic typhoon had recently struck the Philippines, a large number of people around the world also showed the same generic social-media based care and support, similar to that shown to Paul Walker. Thus, in basic terms, people will sympathise towards what they are aware of, if they choose to.

Paul was a good looking individual. His physical appearance had catered for millions of lovestruck eyes, and this was seemingly convenient for these lovestruck individuals because they have access to the movies he acted in, the interviews he participated in and photoshoots they premiered in. It is safe to say that most people judge others by physical appearance, and that in Hollywood, your physical appearance definitely takes part in how famous you are - Paul's definitely had. With the constant display of his physical state, some people had obsessed, and placed some of his characteristics on their invisible checklists of possible suitors - "blue eyes, check! Blonde hair, check! Stunning photogenic smile, check!" That was slightly irrelevant, but it leads me to my central point.

My central point is that obsession exists and it is not necessarily a bad thing, because dreams also exist. The mixture of the two can create a concoction known as dreamy obsessions, which assists in the popularity of celebrities. Most famous people, including Paul, are either envied, looked up to, or adored. We, as humans, enjoy the screening of possibilities in life because most of us have no access to them. To dream is one thing, but to do is another, and most of us have no chance of being able to do. For example, take Paul's awesome driving skills in the Fast and Furious series. Ironically enough, most people do not possess these skills, thus yes, I am claiming that the driver of the red Porsche that Paul was in did not posses these skills. In a way, though, that driver represents us as individuals. We place our celebrity obsessions in the hypothetical passenger seats of the hypothetical 'car' that we drive called life, and we say, "I like what you have done there, watch me do the same!" and then most of us realise that we can't, and excuse the pun, we come to a crash.

Yes, indeed, famine, deaths, terrorism, rapes, and all other terrible things do happen to other people across the world and we do not project our care, however it is because the need for care is not projected upon us, by our projectors, the media. We live in a world that is based on telling us what to prioritize and what is important and somewhere near the top of the list is celebrity or wealthy people's lives and deaths. When it is projected onto us to care, we do. We send out health support, food support, shelter and clothing support, anything we can. We form charity organisations for those projected events and we all sympathise with one another about it, connecting with one another. Yet our efforts hardly make a difference. Paul Walker's death displays this. His death took up most news headlines. We wake up to check on the news and in our breaks read the news and in the duration of the days speak of the news, how is it that one can ignore the passing of a common figure rather than the passing of an uncommon figure? It is highly impossible. We all use the internet, and the internet today was flooded, wherever you went, with the passing of Paul, because it is a method of conversing about the news that we have heard. Do we mean it? Do we know his family, thus we sympathise because we empathise with them? No. We do so because our varied bulletins are filled with one predominant factor - death, and death is so real to us, just like our dreamy obsessions, that we have to include it in our lives.

It is indeed silly, thus, to sympathise for someone that we do not know, but I suppose we are using the fate of that person we do not know and hypothetically applying it to someone we may know, someone that resonates within us the same way that Paul Walker or any other celebrity does, and we weep. Regardless of who the famous person is, the connection is still there, that we are humans and that we go through the same things. Also, some celebrities make it easier for the general public to connect with them - for instance, if you really supported a certain charity and a certain celebrity continuously donated to it, then you would feel a telepathic bond to that celebrity because of your passion combined with theirs. For many people, Paul shared the same passion with them in that sense. I mean, we could mourn about your Uncle Bill that passed away last Christmas from cancer, and who helped millions of homeless youths get back to their capitalist lives and had an impact on them, but really, the only people who would be able to possibly mourn him would be you, his other family members, and those youths, because that is as far as, unfortunately, his status has spread him. The media did not care, thus the greater good did not see to care. It is, with a deep sadness, as simple as that.

For many, some celebrities are a beacon of hope, a piece of aspiration or a role model, even if what is shown may be fake or genuine, be it even a glimpse - however, if people are given the connectors, they can connect. The media is our connector and unless it is someone personally known to us, without the media projecting the most popular events, we cannot connect. People sympathise because they are mourning a loss, not necessarily based on the person they have lost, but also what came with that person which had made a personal impact on them. Let all those who wish to weep, weep, for we all will feel a need to weep about different things and different people, be not the person who attempts to halt others' weeping because of your personal opinions. The world is wired this way and you can only do so much but comply. At the end of the day, Paul Walker, regardless of his acting career or fame, was another human being who has met his fate a little too early, may he rest in peace.