FAREWELL, ROBIN WILLIAMS

I'm usually unfazed by celebrity deaths, but this one hurts. And it's not just that Robin Williams is dead, which is bad enough. It's that he killed himself. I mean, if a guy like Robin Williams gives up on existence, we must necessarily revisit that old, old question: why do we bother to continue?

But that's the thing. I don't think this final message he sent out to the world is really who he was or what he was about. He was a man clearly dedicated to making the human race happy, and his accomplishments in that area, his life's work, are far too numerous even to start mentioning here--it just goes on and on and on; even when he had me bawling my eyes out with What Dreams May Come, I was ultimately happier for having had the experience.

Robin Williams killed himself in a moment of weakness. Reports are saying that he was struggling with depression, which can bring you to your knees, cut you off from the human race, make you blind to beauty, make you hate yourself and the world, deaden you to love. Depression robs its victims of all inner strength.

But depression is not what Robin Williams was; it's what took him from us. Instead, what Robin Williams was, at least to me, is the guy who ended up doing this video with Bobby McFerrin. This is how I will remember him and the marvelous gifts he kept giving us over and over.

Farewell.



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