Regarding Robin Williams

Thoughts written following Robin Williams' death, while having, at that time, no actual information about it. In other words, for better or worse, projecting my imagination onto the situation...

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, because he was someone I felt I could relate to... not in reference to his humor so much, but what seemed to be beneath that. He was all over the place... and 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, often a naturally sensitive sign. 

Sure, we can scrutinize astrology, and all of its assumptions entirely, however I challenge a person to put 100 virgos in one room and 100 cancers in a another. If the world's survival depended upon guessing which one was which, I wouldn't be very concerned. 

Not having known Robin Williams personally, I can only speculate. It's easy to see that some people step out of the lines more easily & naturally in the external and the internal worlds.

For them, the walls are fuzzy, and they may have a choice as to 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 in our faces, but the roots go down, just as the branches go out. Many funny people are people with depth and darkness deeper down.

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 when they choose something so extreme as to end their own life.

The person judging, however, would do well to consider, not only the humor & life this person brought, but also that he/she may have been (knowingly or unknowingly) more affected by environment, food & substances, and people dynamics.. than many people will ever be.

Whatever the case, this person had a lot to handle... and success and money and popularity are not reliable treatments in themselves.

To some, subtleties may be as large as life. The system may be flooded with them. A person may be directly negotiating them or, conversely, may have become overstimulated to point of short circuiting, drawing back from the static to become numb or to drift away... even as the surface runs on a residual, deceptively vital, deceptively happy energy.

Whether implicit or explicit, there may be a baseline heightened sensitivity to contend with. Because the internal world is such a fluid latticework (that pierces or burns down the usual walls), there may be a strength there, as Robin clearly demonstrated on stage... but also, perhaps, a vulnerability, making the internal world, 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, simply 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 that he went to the painful end of ending his own life.... though it is arguably a personal 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 another's 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. 

Unconventional, creative personalities are often already flooded as it is. They may have a greater sensitivity and tendency toward imbalance or depletion/excess. They very often exist outside the lines... and there's a lot out there. Valuable things to bring back and share--but harmful things as well.

Factor this into the potential come downs after performances. This 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. Consider all the musicians who have passed, by way of the excesses available to them, within easy reach, to self medicate. 

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

And, as was the case in the movie What Dreams May Come, there is a difficulty in joining people in their personal hells. We really 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---especially if we've lost someone in our personal lives to suicide.

We have a right to experience our own emotional reactions... which are valid in themselves. It is normal to be hurt or angry or confused or overwhelmed... especially if there is a personal relationship involved.

"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 are of high sensitivity or are experiencing instability, there may be an opportunity to fine tune and perhaps get closer to optimum health... if the person is listening... and responding through action... or, sometimes, inaction. 

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

This 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, it may help 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 can relate, that it feels grounding and peaceful to be around. It may help to shift environments and not ask so much of the self. It's easy to negate this extension of self... that is the environment.

Not that I know anything about Robin Williams or others personally, but this is how it seems to me. It's easy to think of others who's lives have ended by suicide. And imagining him in this regard, even if off base, can't be too far from useful in some general way.

Lastly, this is to contemplate how we as a society may benefit from those with heightened sensitivity. I'm thinking of Temple Grandin (an autistic woman often requested by farms for her talent in pointing out small details, easily missed by humans that profoundly impact other animals).

Like many animals, she is more sensitive and highly attuned to her environments than most people tend to be. We may call upon sensitive individuals like her to test a space... to tell us whether it is harmonizing to the canary in the coal mine.

If, for instance, we'd like a better (and less oppressive) learning environment for everyone, it might be a good idea to survey those with heightened sensitivity, so they can point out what others are missing.

Perhaps we can raise the baseline quality of a space in even subtle ways, to raise the health, quality of performance, and 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... we can know the importance of finer details.

Heightened sensitivity, demonstrated by people and by other animals (and plants) and even by the system as a whole, may help us to see what is invisible. We may hear a coming storm, detect an energetic draw on a space, detect impurities.

We may enhance spaces to the benefit of our health and happiness. We fine tune for better and better music... which better feeds the soul... so that we may grow as a culture, creating a comfortable (and perhaps productive) space for a wide spectrum of people... some of which we certainly hate to lose.