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robin williams, dead at 63

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    • He will be missed - the talent, the wit, the genius! I cannot understand how someone so successful, so creative, can have such a depression to do this..very sad. However - Real depression is worse than falling down the rabbit hole... Alice & I have been there,


      Today much of the radio was baseball - blocking my news as I drive 200 miles daily... My wife told me...
      Be wise enough to walk away from the nonsense around you! :thumbup:
    • I think his wife put it best in her public statement:

      "As he is remembered, it is our hope that the focus will not be on Robin's death but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions."

      The man brought smiles and uproarious laughter to millions of people, and I'm sure inspired an untold number of comedians and actors. There are certainly worse legacies one could leave behind.
      Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. - Robert E. Lee
    • It is so easy to say the wrong thing here. I will try to not say the wrong thing. I have delayed in saying anything until now, because I did not want to express this wrong. However, anyone that knows me, knows I say what is on my mind. Hopefully they also see my heart and intent.

      What Robin did is understood by many, but was wrong. It is also not understood by many and not seen as that wrong. Before you get upset, let me say that I understand what he did. I have contemplated dying. I am in the company of David and Paul. They longed for death. However, they did not lose their battle.

      Over the next few days exaggerations will be proclaimed. Many will say only good things. That is kind and understandable. However, many will beautify him and in doing so add comfort to others who are considering the same. Please do not have a kneejerk reaction. What I am saying is true. I am not saying that is the person's intent or that if others do the same that somehow their words are to blame. I am saying that there needs to be balance.

      There will be hateful things said too. These words will not be helpful either. They will marginalize the very real pain that drove Robin to this end. However, it is a fact that Robin lost his battle with his pain. And in doing so inflicted pain on those that love him. His path is a selfish one. My heart goes out to those that remain. Some of them will struggle with guilt for some time.

      Like I said, I have been there. There were a few things that kept me from doing what he did:

      1) I was aware of what it would do to others.
      2) I was aware of what God would think of it.
      3) I was stubborn enough not to be defeated.
      4) I was too chicken.
      5) I saw hope through the fog.

      Robin is gone. I share in the sentiments expressed above. He was hilarious. He did a lot of good. There is no glory in bashing his choice. But somehow we must be aware that there are others that are teetering on the same decision. They must hear (in love) that what Robin did is not the right path. That there is hope. The last thing they need to see is that the world will love you if you do this. Again, please do not be angry. These are real people out there and they are still alive.
      Non hikers are about a psi shy of a legal ball.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by BirdBrain ().

    • on the surface, most suicides would appear to be a selfish act, in many cases designed to hurt those who have hurt them. my brother in law took his life just over 2 years ago, on his mother and sister's birthday, most definitely a deliberate selfish act.it is difficult to imagine what can bring a person to commit the act. i had suffered a very deep depression when i first was separated from my wife and kids. i could not imagine life without my family, and thought i didnt have much to live for. but something told me i did, that my kids needed their father, that i could not inflict such pain upon them. and things got better.
      our men in arms, that fought so fearlessly for an ambiguous cause, now return home, and each week, another veteran takes his life.certain cultures support suicide, samurai would take their own lives rather than live without honor.so what was it that turned my mind away from taking my life? what was it that stilled someone elses hand? and what wasnt there, what didn't happen for those who succumbed to putting an end to their misery, to take that final step?
      although i am incredibly saddened by his death, i will always remember robin williams as a kind compassionate man who wanted nothing more than to put a smile on someones face, who worked tirelessly for charities, and who gave all he could of himself both on and off the screen.
      its all good
    • tears of a clown


      Now if there's a smile on my face
      It's only there trying to fool the public
      But when it comes down to fooling you
      Now honey that's quite a different subject

      But don't let my glad expression
      Give you the wrong impression
      Really I'm sad, oh sadder than sad
      You're gone and I'm hurting so bad
      Like a clown I pretend to be glad

      Now there's some sad things known to man
      But ain't too much sadder than
      the tears of a clown
      When there's no one around

      Oh yeah baby, now if I appear to be carefree
      It's only to camouflage my sadness
      In order to shield my pride I try
      To cover this hurt with a show of gladness

      But don't let my show convince you
      That I've been happy since you decided to go
      Oh, I need you so, I'm hurt and I want you to know
      But for others I put on a show

      Now there's some sad things known to man
      But ain't too much sadder than
      the tears of a clown
      When there's no one around, oh yeah

      Just like Pagliacci did
      I try to keep my sadness hid
      Smiling in the public eye
      But in my lonely room cry
      the tears of a clown
      When there's no one around

      Oh, yeah baby
      Now if there's a smile upon my face
      Don't let my glad expression
      Give you the wrong impression
      Don't let the smile I wear
      Make you think that I don't care
      Really I'm sad I'm hurting so bad
      its all good
    • this perspective was offered today on facebook:

      This will not be well written or contain any answers or be very charming. I won't be able to proof read it It is about times like today when the abyss is visible and we cannot buy cute area rugs at IKEA to truck out the abyss. Our brother Robin fell into it yesterday. We are all staring at the abyss today. I called my Jesuit friend the day after the shootings in Newtown, stunned, flat, fixated, scared to death: "Is there any meaning in the deaths of twenty 5 and 6 year old children?"

      Tom said, "Not yet."

      And there is no meaning in Robin's death, except as it sheds light on our common humanity, as his life did. But I've learned that there can be meaning without things making sense.

      Here is what is true: a third of the people you adore and admire in the world and in your families have severe mental illness and/or addiction. I sure do. I have both. And you still love me. You help hold me up. I try to help hold you up. Half of the people I love most have both; and so do most of the artists who have changed and redeemed me, given me life. Most of us are still here, healing slowly and imperfectly. Some days are way too long.

      And I hate that, I want to say. I would much prefer that God have a magic wand, and not just a raggedy love army of helpers. Mr. Roger's mother told him when he was a boy, and a tragedy was unfolding that seemed to defy meaning, "Look to the helpers." That is the secret of life, for Robin's family, for you and me.

      I knew that those children at Sandy Hook were caught in God's loving maternal arms at the second each crossed over, and the teachers were, too. I believe the shooter was too, another child of God with severe mental illness, because God loves, period. But this is controversial.

      I know Robin was caught too, in both the arms of God, and of his mother, Laurie.

      I knew them both when I was coming up, in Tiburon. He lived three blocks away on Paradise drive. His family had money; ours didn't. But we were in the same boat--scared, shy, with terrible self esteem and grandiosity. If you have a genetic predisposition towards mental problems and addiction, as Robin and I did, life here feels like you were just left off here one day, with no instruction manual, and no idea of what you were supposed to do; how to fit in; how to find a day's relief from the anxiety, how to keep your beloved alive; how to stay one step ahead of abyss.

      We all thought after Newtown that gun control legislation would be passed, but no--not one new law. We think in the aftermath of Robin's death that there will be consciousness raising about mental health, but I doubt it. The shock and awe will pass, like it did after Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death. Unless...unless we take action. But what? I don't have a clue. Well, here's Glenn Close's astonishing organization to raise awareness and diminish the stigma of mental illness, where you can give OR receive help: bringchange2mind.org/ Go there, OK?

      In Newtown, as in all barbarity and suffering, in Robin's death, on Mount Sinjar, in the Ebola towns, the streets of India's ghettos, and our own, we see Christ crucified. I don't mean that in a nice, Christian-y way. I mean that in the most ultimate human and existential way. The temptation is to say, as cute little believers sometimes do, Oh it will all make sense someday. The thing is, it may not. We still sit with scared, dying people; we get the thirsty drinks of water.

      This was at theologian Fred Buechner blog today: "It is absolutely crucial, therefore, to keep in constant touch with what is going on in your own life's story and to pay close attention to what is going on in the stories of others' lives. If God is present anywhere, it is in those stories that God is present. If God is not present in those stories, then they are scarcely worth telling."

      Live stories worth telling! Stop hitting the snooze button. Try not to squander your life on meaningless, multi-tasking bullshit. I would shake you and me but Robin is shaking us now.

      Get help. I did. Be a resurrection story, in the wild non-denominational sense. I am.

      If you need to stop drinking or drugging, I can tell you this: you will be surrounded by arms of love like you have never, not once, imagined. This help will be available twenty/seven. Can you imagine that in this dark scary screwed up world, that I can promise you this? That we will never be closed, if you need us?

      Gravity yanks us down, even a man as stunning in every way as Robin. We need a lot of help getting back up. And even with our battered banged up tool boxes and aching backs, we can help others get up, even when for them to do so seems impossible or at least beyond imagining. Or if it can't be done, we can sit with them on the ground, in the abyss, in solidarity. You know how I always say that laughter is carbonated holiness? Well, Robin was the
      ultimate proof of that, and bubbles are spirit made visible.

      Anne Lamott
      its all good
    • I met Robin Williams a couple, few years ago at the terminal at Teterboro airport. He was waiting for his charter jet to take him to CA from NY, where he had been working, and I was taking a coffee break in the terminal. We talked about a lot of nothing for about 30 minutes and then I had to get back to work. He seemed like a regular guy, not some stuck-up snob, famous, rich, guy. Too bad about his death. I think the world could use more "regular" guys like him.
    • i just watched "what dreams may come"...

      in the movie robin williams dies and goes to heaven. the first person he met died at age 63 but chose a younger body in heaven, saying to robin ""who wants to be 63 for all of eternity?"

      and then later in the movie his wife, suffering from depression, commits suicide.

      spoiler alert (can you really have a spoiler alert on a 16 year old movie?) the movie has a happy ending.
      2,000 miler

      The post was edited 2 times, last by max.patch ().

    • robin williams, dead at 63

      We can now add Joan Rivers to the list. I personally never liked her humor and found her rather annoying. With that being said lots of people liked her and she remained "famous" nearly her entire life. That's notable in and of it's self.
      RIAP
    • i wouldn't have guessed she would be the next one; seemed like she was in great shape for her age. not sure what type of outpatient surgery she had -- but at her age -- just a matter of time before the lawsuit comes. and this one just might be justified.
      2,000 miler