The World's More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand

As I tend to do with most pop culture, I've sat at the sidelines this week and watched quietly as the world decided how to react, respond or reject the sad news of Robin Williams' death.  I've heard many voices reach out in kind condolence to his family.  I've seen tearful tributes by his peers and fans.  I've read hateful and fearful mutterings of people trying to make sense of a senseless loss.  But I believe everyone can agree that we are mourning, coping, and trying to heal the hole left in our hearts.

Williams' passing is different from other celebrity news and even other celebrity deaths.  For decades he stood as a monument to comedy; no matter how bad your day was, he could get you to smile in three minutes.  In five he'd have you in stitches.  Give him ten and you'd be wetting yourself.  He brought a menagerie of colorful characters to life and into our homes and hearts.

But as famous as he was for making us laugh, I treasure the moments when he made us cry.  When he shook us to our core, made us look inward and find new corners of our hearts and avenues in our souls.  He challenged us to stand atop our desks in defiance, follow our brave captain into the unknown and seize the day.  He taught us about love, loss and friendship on a quiet park bench.  Even his more obscure roles still resonate with me.  I particularly remember a small part he voiced for the Spielberg film A.I. in which his character at first spills out a witty, fast-paced discourse in signature Robin Williams style, but then takes an abrupt turn to a somber, spectral recitation of the Yeats poem "The Stolen Child."

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild:
With a faery, hand in hand.
For the world’s more full of weeping
than you can understand.

A chilling transformation.  His voice still haunts me.  To be able to turn from profanity to poetry at the drop of a hat takes more than just a comedian. It takes a deep mind and a deeper soul to stand in the face of the world's weeping and laugh.  He had the capacity for more emotions than joy, and that range, that flexibility to feel was what made him such a gem.

I've seen the viral tweet #genieyou'refree floating around social media for days now.  An avalanche of fan art, tributes, and condolences has engulfed tumblr, twitter and facebook.  When I was in kindergarten I watched Aladdin nearly every day, so this struck a very personal chord with me.

And so, to honor the genie whose zany, hilarious brand of magic had delighted me since I was a child, I drew up a small tribute for him.  A humble sketch to show that he is free.  Free from troubles and cares.  Free from the burden of making us smile, which he silently, thanklessly bore.  Free from shielding the world from its own sorrows.

Normally when I share an original piece of art on Tumblr I get anywhere from five to ten likes or an occasional reblog.  This post has received over 1,300 such notifications in the past 24 hours.

This has been my first brush with "going viral" and I don't pretend for one second that it has anything to do with me or my talent; this was and remains a tribute to a greater talent than my own, a brighter star in the firmament of souls who brought laughter and relief to those of us lucky enough to look up at night.

But I want to return to a point I made before.  Not everyone is mourning gently.  There's a lot of anger mixed in with the sadness.  Some people feel cheated of a great man that the world adored.  Others feel he should have stayed strong, that he had nothing to be sad about.  Others still believe depression is purely clinical and can be treated like any other illness.

To these angry, confused voices, I implore you -


Shut up.


Look, I get it, everyone looks at death differently.  Everyone looks at suicide differently.  Everyone wonders about that "undiscovered country."  It's part of the human condition.  But what is not excusable is forcing your own preconceptions, your own ideologies, or worse, your naked opinions upon others, particularly when they're in pain.  Don't pretend for one second you know anything more than the rest of us when it comes to depression.  Now, not knowing can trouble people and make them panic or grasp at straws to feel in control.  But as advanced as we are in understanding medicine and psychology, the simple answer to depression is:

We don't know.


I've thought a lot about another star in that firmament of souls that we lost too soon.  He was much less loved in his life than Robin Williams, yet his legacy is just as moving and has touched the world for centuries now.  Vincent Van Gogh will always hold a tender place in my heart.  When I see his paintings, his surreal, colorful interpretation of a bleak world, I don't see evidence of a diseased mind.  I don't see his struggles with depression as weakness.  I see a warrior, a fighter.  A man who was plagued by a sorrow that we still don't fully understand.

The tears of a clown often puzzle us.  We forget that beneath the veneer of humor, pain often lies unseen.  I have a handful of friends who are the life of the party.  When they show up, the show begins and the rest of us have the luxury of simply enjoying the hilarity they bring to the table.  But this recent tragedy is a good reminder to care about the performer, not just the performance.  If you have such a friend, make sure they know that you are there for them, that you are more than just a fan, more than an audience.  The funniest people aren't immune from sadness - they're the best at hiding it.  Don't cheat them from feeling everything like the rest of us.  Don't let them suffer alone.

If anything can be taken from this loss, it's that we need each other more than we'd care to admit.

Genie, you're free.



S