Regarding Robin Williams

Thoughts written following Robin's death... 

Regarding Robin Williams, it sounds like a lot of people are expressing appreciation for all the times, perhaps thousands, that he chose to keep going despite potential impulses he dealt with. 

His passing is something that hit me a bit, because he is someone I feel I can relate to... not in reference to his level of humor but what seemed to be beneath that... he being all over the place... the way his mind quickly jumped fences. 

Though he could be so engaging and connecting, he also had a sensitivity which was evident in many of his movie roles, especially when he quieted things down. Not to mention that he was a Cancer, what is said to be a naturally sensitive sign. 

And one may argue astrology, and all of its assumptions entirely, however I challenge a person to put 100 virgos and 100 cancers in a room. If the world depended upon me guessing which is which, I would not be too concerned.

Since I didn't know Robin Williams personally I can only speculate. I can certainly say that some people step out of the lines more easily & naturally in the external and the internal worlds.

The walls are fuzzy and they have a choice whether to break pattern or not. They may come face to face with emptiness. We may think we know them, because some of the latticework slips out & dances around in our faces, but the roots go down, just as the branches go out. 

Easy to see then how an onlooker with relatively solid walls in his/her mind would not easily relate to this personality & may even default to hard judgment. 

This person however might do well to consider not only the humor & life this person brought but also that he was probably more affected by the environment, food & substances, people dynamics.. than many people will ever be. This person had a lot to handle... and success and money and popularity are not reliable treatments in themselves.

To this personality, subtleties may be large as life. The system may be flooded with subtleties and s/he may be directly negotiating them... or conversely s/he may have become overstimulated and even short circuited, to be drawn back from the static to become numb or to drift away... even as the surface runs on a residual energy, deceptively energetic, deceptively happy.

Whether implicit or explicit, there is very likely a baseline heightened sensitivity to contend with there. Because the internal world is such a fluid latticework that pierces or burns down the usual walls, there is a strength there, as Robin clearly demonstrated on stage... but also perhaps a vulnerability, making that world of his presumably more subject to storms. 

Maybe in a hunter gatherer society, the opportunity for balance would be more easily available... maybe nutritional factors & other complexities would have been alright just by default. 

Many of us are like canaries in the coal mine. You can judge the individual, but you can also judge the whole system, which invites and aggravates imbalance by default. (Soda machines in high schools... case in point) 

Maybe, in a naturally balanced society this person wouldn't go so deep into this that he went to the painful end of ending his own life.... though it is arguably his choice to do so. 

Is it any more selfish to take one's life than to expect that another would live a life of pain in the interest of our own comfort? This is a difficult question even to type and I find myself pausing.

With that said, in modern times, extra care has to be taken in terms of what a person's internal and external worlds are flooded with. 

The unconventionally creative personality is often already flooded as it is. There is often a greater sensitivity and tendency toward imbalance or depletion or excess. Factor that into the potential come down after performances. It could be like water getting sucked away from shore, before the tsunami hits.. 

A person may have to grapple again and again with purpose and purposeless. Furthermore the person is right there in the public arena... and this may be his/her food as well and his/her nemesis. To consider all the musicians who have passed & the excess available to them, within easy reach to self medicate. 

When the person is functioning optimally, it is great for others, but start messing with the gears, and symptoms may start to surface... hidden to the public... if only in personal relationships... if only to that person's solitary self. 

And just like in the movie What Dreams May Come, there is a difficulty in joining people in their personal hells. In a way, we can't pass judgment until we've been exactly where they have been. In a way we can't pass judgment even then. Not that it isn't natural to do so. 

To be clear, this is not to say that we don't have a right to experience our own reactions... which are valid in themselves. It is normal to be hurt or angry or confused or overwhelmed. 

"It is okay not to be okay" (A quote from a song I heard but used in a different context). The worst thing we can do is feel guilty about our own naturally unfolding emotional reaction. We have a right to be kind to ourselves. 

I've come back to add this quote by Rumi... 

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

On a side note, for people that can relate to Robin Williams, there is a great opportunity to fine tune and perhaps get closer themselves to optimum health... if the person is listening... and acting. 

The body may be telling people all the time what to steer clear of, what elevates and what depresses. This may be an undertaking and take a lot of discipline. It also requires one to tell the difference between the urge to align with something vs. addictive impulses. 

It may require a withdraw period, one that is well supported. In the case of drugs, obviously these could be used to self medicate... even to rock one to sleep. 

This is tricky because often these minds jump fences without substances anyhow, so these can also aggravate or twist the internal chemistry a bit too much, despite the short term relief. 

There are a lot of people, that in one way or another, feel they can relate to Robin. If they are similar to how I imagine him, they may want to want to choose their environments carefully & cultivate some sort of mindfulness practice such as moving mediation/yoga... or perhaps grounding barefoot walks on trails. 

The mind is very electrical & grounding can help calm the storm or on the opposite end, it may help certain senses to return. 

It may help to prioritize people that seem to get you, that you feel grounded and peaceful around. It may help to shift environments and not ask so much of the self... as to negate the extension of self... which in a sense is the environment.

Not that I know anything about him or others personally, but this is how it seems to me. And imagining him in this regard, even if off base, can't be too far from useful in some way.

Lastly, this is to contemplate how we as a society may benefit from those with heightened sensitivity. Just as Temple Grandin, an autistic woman often called into farms for her talent to point out small details, missed by the farmer, that greatly upset the animal... we may call upon sensitive individuals to test a space... to tell us whether it is harmonizing to the canary in the coal mine... 

To perhaps raise the baseline quality of a space too, even in subtle ways, to raise the health, quality of performance, overall glow of the people in that space. 

Just as large businesses know that small shifts in operation can have big impacts... just as computer programmers know the importance of one line of code... just as engineers know the importance of precision... just as a cook knows the subtle difference of adding a bit less spice... just as a singer knows the impact of falling out of harmony by the slightest bit.

Heightened sensitivity, demonstrated by people and by other animals... and plants... even by the system as a whole, may help us to see what is invisible... to hear a coming storm, to detect an energetic draw on a space, to detect impurities and to enhance spaces to our benefit, our health, our happiness... fine tuning for better and better music... which better feeds the soul... so we may grow as a tribe and create a comfortable space for a wide spectrum of people... some of which we certainly hate to lose.