A Little of the Tragic (August 14, 2014)

For this coming week I'll be republishing the five most viewed blog posts and Huffington Post pieces of this past year. FROM OUR VERY FIRST SIGHT OF HIM WE KNEW there was something different. Whether he was portraying an alien, psychologist, cartoon character, a man dressing as a woman, or just a profound stand-up comic, we were drawn to Robin Williams by something far deeper than mere humour or talent. Somehow on his face was drawn the deep pathos of humanity, even if it was shrouded in hilarity.His death, announced this week, was unique in its ability to shock and dismay the hearer. We loved him, but we never knew how much until we learned he was gone. Some of us are inconsolable. Others have used the occasion of his passing to highlight the deeper realities of mental illness and depression. Still others have shed a tear while enduring a time of great sentimentality.Yes, he’s gone. But it’s not merely his departure that is creating such powerful emotions; it is the awareness that in his very countenance were the signs of a deeper tragedy being played out, as on some kind of stage. Even when he caused us to laugh in untold measure, there was pain in his eyes. We sensed it and felt drawn to his poignant sadness even as his awesome talent brought tears of happiness to our own eyes. He gave us the pleasure of his amusement.To our eyes, it was as if he was forever performing on some kind of high wire act. It was almost frenetic. His wasn’t a lazy humour, but a powerful burst of creativity that swallowed us up as some kind of fire. We never knew what to expect.But he knew. Behind the bravado, the applause, the almost manic chorus of cheers, was a mind and heart the journeyed back into a place of darker hue and sadness. It was always there on his face and it called to us, but he was just so darn funny that how he made us feel caused us to miss the signals. His humour was a kind of brilliant cry, a plea for understanding of his darker shadows of depression, but we were too busy giving him awards, our outright devotion, to comprehend that what he needed was something more. We always sensed it in some way but didn’t know how to approach it.He found himself in a place of paradox, his tragic sense driven by having to accept the version of him that we all demanded for our own emotions. We wanted him to make us laugh because we needed it to deal with our own pain and disillusionment. He was just so good at it, breaking through in such lightning bolts of creativity that, for a moment at least, our own lives became a bit more bearable. And he wanted that for us, at times even talking about how others told him of how he had accompanied them through their own times of darkness. And for our benefit he endured his own dark nights of the soul.We just didn’t understand that what seemed to be a flower so beautifully in bloom was actually and exotic orchid already wilting. It was difficult for him to move on because his surroundings always required the same of him. The great poet, W. B. Yeats, understood the irony of it even though he died decades ago: “He had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”What we now know is that Robin Williams faced the internal tragedy of depression every day, but was willing to emerge from it to give us pleasure once more. And that knowledge makes us weep because we now understand that his tragic/comic face so blatantly revealed his inner turmoil. We can see it now and we can understand that the joy he gave us – a gift – so brilliantly and soulishly, came at a price – not ours, but his. His death now brings us so many emotions that our thoughts can express. He brought a kind of remarkable light to us and we loved him for it. Sadly, we now recognize that such illumination leaves the world darker when it’s gone.Yet he never stopped loving what was sacred in this world. My wife’s favourite movie has always been Dead Poets Society. Whenever she watches it she weeps because, even as his character enters the school for the first time, she knows what awaits him. Yet we didn’t have to wait for the plot to develop to see it. His face already carried the tragedy in its lines, the corners of his eyes, the child-like expression on his face.Robin Williams mattered to us because he always drew out the sense of sadness even when we didn’t spot it. In truth, we all carry a little of the tragic within us. We carry our hurts, grief, and pain, constantly processing them every day for the sake of those around us. We transcend such things so as to be functional in a complex and hurried society. And we often get good at hiding it. But Robin Williams unmasked us even as we laughed at his exploits. In him we found a heart that entertained an abiding pain and we fell for him.Now he is gone, the brightest star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame has gone out. But the darkness that remains is still valuable to us. His life and tragic ending remind us that mental illness and depression have remained hidden for too long and the longing we feel at his passing might just be the thing to drive us to speak out about how we deal with the tragic – our tragic – within us. Robin Williams inspired us and now he can teach us that inner pain must find life, understanding, and comfort to be endured.He once said, “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” Well, so can mental illness if we but acknowledge it, seek company, and change our world through the grace of our own pain. This might well be his greatest gift to all of us.