Tuesday 12 August 2014

Regarding Robin Williams

I didn’t know him, I wish I had, It’s not often that you can honestly say that a person you never met influenced how you live your life, but he did for me. 

From the time I first encountered his work (which was actually Robin Williams Live at the Met, not the TV or film appearances), it was apparent that here was a man who was doing his best to get through life by doing what he could for everyone else, because in doing so, he found purpose for himself in it.  I do a lot of what I do not because it makes me happy, but because the end result of my actions make other people happy, I live for those moments when people wander past with happy smiles because of something I’ve done, it reminds me that something I’ve done made the world a better place, if only for a short while. 

I’m not depressed, let me be clear, I know what depressed feels like, ask my twenty year old self, he knew all about it.  I have the best of lives with the best of people, and I still do what I can every day to make things better for everyone else because I have no drive to make things better for myself, and I accept that for the failing that it is.  As long as there are people out there that I can make the world better for, then I will be fine, I learned this a long time ago, watching a man I’d never meet raise the hearts of all those around him.

And so this morning when I heard the news, I was saddened by the death of a man that I’d never really known, because the world has lost someone who made others happy when most people only make others sad, and now it falls to the rest of us to pick up where he left off.

And it’s not a light weight to carry, but there are a lot of us...


We can do it...