"Can we turn the loss of this artist we loved
so much into something that pushes back against the ravages of despair"
Alan Alda
Sometimes,
I just can't understand the rationale that we stand on when a celebrity dies.
It's as if they have some sort of super power, some beyond human experience,
existence that makes them more of an IDOL, than a real living breathing human.
The
adoration and adulation is so displaced. A great attention given to a person
who barely knows who he/she is outside of the admiration thrust upon them by
their audience. In real life, beyond the big scream, they cry, they fart, they
throw up and catch the flu. But on screen they are more than human, they are
more than super human, they are GODS.
Somewhere
in the human psyche we need to have these GODS, these DEITIES, who seem to give
us this false sense of hope and a false sense of reality. We never see them
sweat except as part of the act. We don't see what it takes to get one scene
together to fit the big screen. But alas, we are manipulated and mezmorized by
their "bigger than life" persona.
Yet, by
the same token we will walk over a homeless person lying in the gutter. Some of
us will actually bring harm to them, as if they are not human and deserving of
being treated as a living, breathing human manifestation of the Divine. We are
also the same ones who will vote for the killing of thousands of children in
other people's homes. How is that possible? How do these two opposing beliefs
come from the same species. Even in the animal kingdom you see a compassion
that far outweighs what we tend to portray for one another, particularly in the
more privileged side of the human family.
Robin
Williams, brought us all a taste of a world beyond our own abilities to
manifest in the sense that he could be all of us and none of us at the same
time. He could be almost any character and make it so real, we really believed
it. Yet who was he, and did he hurt every time he heard that another
Palestinian home had been bombed and another 50 children killed in an areal
assault? Did he pay attention to what was happening in the world outside of his
fame? I tend to believe he did, but that could simply be a personal bias.
My point
is this... Here we are mourning the likes of a ROBIN WILLIAMS, another human
being who had the opportunity to make us laugh so hard, we'd better stop before
we damage our hearts, yet, we are divorced from the sadness, the grief, the
despair, the depression of others who are not on the Big Screen.
What
gives them carte-blanche to our sympathies? What makes their pain bigger than
any one else's and what makes them so important, even more important than the
thousands of Yazidi fleeing into war torn Syria. What kind of world is this? Imagine
just for a moment what that must feel like, when 20 members of your immediate
family is killed in an instance and you are the only one who survives. Would
you consider the fact that this lone survivor could give into the deepest
darkest despair and kill himself or become a suicide bomber? Would his suicide
make headline news??
Why are
we so divorced from the chemical, electro-magnetic impact that death and
destruction has on all of us, in every single corner of this globe. Is one
death and its reason more significant than the death of an old man who gave up
after being shut away in an old folks' home for 20 years where no one came to
visit him? How is it, that Robin's depression is a clarion call for folks to
focus on remedies for it, and questions about it and how can we avoid it in
others....?? How is that possible when we are constantly bombarded with all
types of violence against one another and others we don't even know? How in the
same breath, we weep and cry and wish we knew before it was too late, and then
say that Israel's disproportionate force against Gaza is justifiable? How do we
support the arming of rebels around the globe who have no compassion at all for
their victims and their families as they slaughter, maimed and behead them.
What type of mind do we as a human family have that we can go so deep into the mirror
over a superficial SUPER STAR
who told us himself that
"NO MOVIES ARE REAL!" yet we are lacking in our ability to
comprehend, respond or change the conditions of our world where distress, pain
and misery lie.
Seriously,
is the fact that Robin Williams was depressed more of a headline than the deep
despair that Liberian Mother feels whose child succumbed to Ebola? Or the
Ferguson's mother whose son was shot several times and killing all his chances
to go to college this coming September? How displaced is our attention, concern
and adulations when it comes to a so-called Hollywood Celebrity than for our
family and neighbors who live in our midst? How displaced is our concern when
we spend ours and dollars on Pop Culture and ignore the pain of those who are
on the other side of the globe, who are awakened from their sleep in the middle
of the night to the rhythmic sequence of bombs falling on their neighborhood, a
neighborhood they could not escape. What about their despair, what about their
depression, grief and feelings of loss?
And
finally, how can we avoid it? Sometimes, I think the Universe let's it happen
to us so we can see what it feels like and maybe, just maybe we will have more
empathy for others. I wonder how effective that method is however. It seems we
get more self gratification weighing in on our favorite celeb, sports start or
politician than we do on the real issues. We are all one human family sharing
one home, Earth, and surely, whatever is happening anywhere in the world is
happening everywhere.
We hear
so much about honoring the dead, honoring their families, giving the families
of these famous deceased folks their privacy, etc., etc. ad infanitum, yet, who
honors those that are killed by our tax dollars and warmongering Politicians?
Who stops and places a yellow ribbon on their hearts for them. Who refuses to
participate in their annihilation? If it meant that the way we could save Robin
from his ill fated demise meant that we stop supporting the industry that
killed him, would we do it. Would we release ourselves from the joys of his
mania and allow him, the artist to live in peace? Would we rally around programs that brought
peace into his life if it meant he would make no more movies for our gawking eyes
and selfish idol worship to enjoy? Would we stop if it meant that we would have
to find something else to entertain us or find a way to entertain ourselves
without destroying the idol of our worship? Would we? Could we? Are we all
crying out loud because we cannot live without Robin Williams, our major
distraction from what is really happening in the real world????
Yes,
another IDOL has succumbed to the
ravishes of an industry that kills it. And to what does that mean? Save we
shall simply find another distraction and move ever more from reality and
deeper into the matrix of mind control.
I hope
that Robin is doing well, wherever he is. I hope he realizes that our
worshipping of him was a sickness as much as his desire to be worshipped and
that if he comes back he will love himself, more than any mass of emotionally
starved and derranged human beings could ever love him. Rest In Power, Robin
Williams, and all those who preceeded you and all those who follow and
particularly the forgotten ones whose physical bodies are wasting away
under the rubble of human ignorance and cruelty.
Opinion
Alan Alda: A Niagaraof Wit Falls Silent
Aug. 12, 2014Can we turn the loss
of this artist we loved so much into something that pushes back against the
ravages of despair?
Within minutes we
were telling one another he was gone. His genius, that had burned so hot, was
cold, and the whole country felt the chill at once.
For years, we had
watched with awe as a Niagara of wit poured from his unconscious. Where did
that manic waterfall of funny have its source?
And where did his
fearlessness come from? The night that he and Jane Fonda and I hosted the
Academy Awards show together, he kept coming up with outrageous jokes in the
wings. But before he went out on stage, he seemed to be using me as his taste
monitor. He would think of a line and say, “Is that too tasteless?” Invariably,
I’d say, “Yes, it’s too tasteless,” and invariably he’d go on stage, say the
line and kill with it.
Unfortunately,
sometimes the mind that runs so fast it can’t keep up with itself also has its
down time. I didn’t know he suffered from depression, although it doesn’t
surprise me. But it makes me want to do
something.
I hope it makes us
all want to do something.
While the whole
country, and much of the world, feels this moment of sadness at his death, can
we turn the loss of this artist we loved so much into something that pushes
back against the ravages of despair?
Can we educate one
another to recognize the early signs of depression? Can we make it clear to one
another how dangerous it is? We all know now that drunk driving kills. But,
when I looked up the numbers, I was astonished. Each year there are more than twice
as many suicides attributed to depression as deaths on the road due to alcohol.
Maybe our grief can
be transformed into an awakening. The man who enriched our lives could be the
focus of saving countless other lives. Robin Williams could be with us a little
longer.
