Robin Williams and a Sky Full of Stars

Hello Everyone,

I hope this day finds you well.

I've been thinking a lot about Robin Williams, who died - by suicide - almost two weeks ago.  I've read articles in the papers, looked at old pictures, put some of his films on hold at the library.

One columnist (and I can't find the article just now) wrote about why it is that when someone well known dies we mourn as if the person is someone we know.  The reason is because that person is someone we know.  

I've seen at least a dozen of Williams' films - laughed and cried with his characters.  I've heard him on t.v. interviews.  He has been for most of my adult life.  His characters get a bit mixed up in my mind ... possibly because the film characters he played were all Individuals my mind creates a bit of Williams-the-person in all of them, puts them together, and ... well, there he is ... someone I know ... just like I know the characters in favorite books.

Stories are real.  Just ask a 4 year old.  My own four year old remains, manifest with all the versions of me there are ... and they all recognize the reality of the stories and characters I see or read.

As for the depression Robin Williams lived with and which must surely have made him the Individual he was ... I'm going to grieve some more, and think on a lot of things.

Two (of no doubt many) articles worth reading are noted below.  The Redhill piece about the commonalities of depression is close to the heart/mind.  He mentions the last line from Dante's Inferno, as an idea to hold on to because it reminds us that depression may chew you up but it may then spit you back into a reality you can appreciate:  Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

I hope Robin is somehow, somewhere rebeholding the most beautiful sky full of stars.

Sincerely and with all best wishes,

Why's Woman

  

Thoughts on depression from an artistic mind

MICHAEL REDHILL, Contributed to The Globe and Mail, Published Friday, Aug. 15 2014, 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/thoughts-on-depression-from-an-artistic-mind/article20079978/

The mystery of creativity and madness

The Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente, Published Thursday, Aug. 14 2014, 7:00 AM EDT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-mystery-of-creativity-and-madness/article20056505/

World War I ... where are the voices of the pacifists?

Good morning everyone,

I hope this day finds you well, gardening, cycling, reading, or wall climbing ... whatever activity you enjoy!

This morning's CBC had yet another mention of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the first world war ... an important event without doubt: did I hear the number 8,000,000 as the number who died?

There's been a series on CBC, a re-discovery of interviews with WWI veterans done 50 years ago.  TVO is about to run the 4th part of a series, which shows worse images each part.

Commemoration services are across the country, and probably across the world.

What I have yet to hear on the admittedly few media I follow is information about people who were against the war.  I'd like to hear their ideas, know how they served in non-combat roles.  What little I do know - and you might laugh at my source - comes from Agatha Christie's stories.  She made several mentions of those who objected to the war who served as ambulance drivers and medics (right at the front), in hospitals, and generally in very difficult physical jobs.  They "served" but did not serve in ways they had to kill.

And that is what any war is about: killing.  Film from WWI - on the TVO series - does not hide the bodies, the amputations, the facial disfigurements, the pain.  One hundred years ago ... whatever kind of lives did the men with horrible facial disfigurement have?  I bet they didn't go out of their homes, or hold jobs.  The culture was that way; such people were hidden. 

None of the war shows so far has talked about the agricultural disruption, the education disruption that must have occurred for children. 

And, from the TVO series, even at the end of the first episode, all I could think was: men need to be kept inside their homes where they cannot get at each other.  I'll be kinder here and say, political leaders.  Political leaders need to be put in a locked room until they sort out whatever the personal power trip is that they are on. And if they kill each other, send in the second in command and let them stay in with the bodies and work it out. Don't involve the intelligent and capable men, women and children of a country in a boundary dispute or a resource dispute.

Perhaps let the problems be resolved by grandmothers or kindergarten teachers, people who have a proven track record of teaching how to share and be kind to one another.

The above is badly expressed, I realize.

Listening to the voices of soldiers from nearly 100 years ago, seeing photos of bodies piled on bodies ... and then listening to today's news of Ukraine, Gaza, Syria ...

... it's being done wrong ... it's being handled wrong ... I don't know the answers, or even the questions ... but I know it's wrong.

Sincerely and with kindest regards,

Why's Woman