Robin Williams

[Henning]

All correct. But there's still a decision made to act. Pick up the knife, jump off the bridge, hang the belt from the rafters, pull the trigger, Etc. You are choosing to depart the mortal. It's deliberate.

That bothers people. They want a tidier solution. Deep feeling of despair from depression, etc.

Someone who had to get the belt from the pants, move the chair somewhere, loop the belt and latch it, move under it, and sit... Every one of those actions is a choice... AFTER he already tried cutting his wrists. He made the decision over and over and over.

Not what people want to hear. I know. But I won't disrespect his decision trying to find a simple answer for it. What happened in that room was a fairly long slow deliberate process.

What bothers people is that they have thought similar thoughts and wonder what kept them from it and will that always be there. What bothers people is someone so selfishly forced them to face their own mortality and mental demons. People don't like that **** so they ignore it most of the time. A depressive can't ignore it. Suicide is a deliberate act of that there is no argument, however it is a deliberate act that alters things in timing only, not the actual result.

Think about what it would have been like to be Robin Williams with enough voices popping into his head he was one bad link from being schizophrenic. Dealing with a mind like that can be extremely tiring and taxing. When you read a story to your kid and they ask you not to do the voices and be yourself, and realizing the voices are yourself, that's tough.

 

[hindsight2020]

Think about what it would have been like to be Robin Williams with enough voices popping into his head he was one bad link from being schizophrenic. Dealing with a mind like that can be extremely tiring and taxing. When you read a story to your kid and they ask you not to do the voices and be yourself, and realizing the voices are yourself, that's tough.

If that was true of Williams (schizophrenic), then that truly sucks. It seems to be a trend with truly successful comedians to be troubled souls, whether socially or pathologically, as the stem to their uniqueness and the wedge that sets them apart and thus famous. I tell you one thing though, if I was given the choice to be ordinary with full mental freedom, or be extraordinary in some way I could monetize but enslaved to mental defect, I'd choose to be ordinary every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Being healthy is the ultimate affluence. Being a savant is truly over rated. There's healthier ways of being remembered by society.

 

[Henning]

If that was true of Williams (schizophrenic), then that truly sucks. It seems to be a trend with truly successful comedians to be troubled souls, whether socially or pathologically, as the stem to their uniqueness and the wedge that sets them apart and thus famous. I tell you one thing though, if I was given the choice to be ordinary with full mental freedom, or be extraordinary in some way I could monetize but enslaved to mental defect, I'd choose to be ordinary every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Being healthy is the ultimate affluence. Being a savant is truly over rated. There's healthier ways of being remembered by society.

I don't think he was truly schizophrenic, but he was missing a few of the same filter set, just not all of them, the one that puts a schizophrenic over the top is the inability to differentiate and filter what is outside the mind from what is inside. BTW, 'ordinary' is not without mental defect, it is just having the typical ones.

 

[Jay Honeck]

Henning is close, in his analysis, but not quite.

What REALLY bothers us, and scares us, about his choice to kill himself, is that Robin Williams represented our best and brightest. His mind was sharper, faster, and more agile than 99.999% of the people on this planet.

He was truly the "Best of the best".

If even he couldn't find a reason to live, what chance do the rest of us have?

THAT is what really gets us, and it's reflected in both anguish and anger.

 

[steingar]

What REALLY bothers us, and scares us, about his choice to kill himself, is that Robin Williams represented our best and brightest. His mind was sharper, faster, and more agile than 99.999% of the people on this planet.

Williams was a truly gifted comedian, perhaps the best anyone has ever seen. But he was no uber-mensch. He couldn't fly an airplane as well as the worst pilot here. He probably couldn't tune a car better than the worst mechanic. He could do math better than the flunkies engineer, and I don't want to get started on him as a geneticist.

He was a marvelously funny man, someone who was fresh and original at every turn. But we now see that such a gift comes with a hefty price, and now he's paid the piper. I doubt it could have been any other way, and am just glad we were able to enjoy four decades worth of his utterly uproarious antics.

His was a talent so vast that normally we worry most about immediate family. But with Williams it's though we're all immediate family, the hurt is so personal.

 

[mnewb1]

Yes, a decision was made, but you seem to imply that it is a "decision" made by a rational logical mind that can parse and weigh the causes and consequences of that "decision"...." You seem to suggest, he made a decision and is responsible for the the effects that follow that decision, as if one was deciding a life question...do I take this job, do I buy this house, do I marry this person?

Nobody knows for sure, but plausibly he might have been hearing voices, and unable to distinguish the reality or "in my headness" of those voices. And one does not need to be Schizophrenic for this to happen; depression is certainly a disease that can produce psychosis...maybe these voices were telling him that if he didn't kill himself then his family would be harmed in a horrible way...in that case, is his suicide cowardly? Noble? Maybe in that terrible moment, he "felt like he was sacrificing himself for the sake of his family? No one will ever know. My point is, to say he made a decision, is to miss the fact that this was not a "normal" decision...he was not deciding paper or plastic. "Sophie's Choice" was a decision...a horrible one...

Not to mention a "decision" is not a simple and concrete thing....Neuroscience research is demonstrating that a "decision" is actually generated in the brain before a person is consciously aware of the "decision they (?) just made.....so who is "making" the decision? because it is not that part of us we think of as me/I.

I would rather focus on the disease and what it did to this man....is someone making a decision to have a heart attack and die???? That we can wrap our arms around..."Of course not; a small clot in the blood completely blocked off an important artery feeding the heart and the muscle, deprived of oxygen, died"...That is easy to understand. Well the reality is we have barely scratched the surface of understanding depression...Maybe the nature of depression is that it ultimately leaves someone incapable of making a decision? They act because the disease forces them to act...Possible the disease so distorts and colors "reality" that no one is making a "decision" in the way we would understand that concept in our everyday lives.

 

[Henning]

Henning is close, in his analysis, but not quite.

What REALLY bothers us, and scares us, about his choice to kill himself, is that Robin Williams represented our best and brightest. His mind was sharper, faster, and more agile than 99.999% of the people on this planet.

He was truly the "Best of the best".

If even he couldn't find a reason to live, what chance do the rest of us have?

THAT is what really gets us, and it's reflected in both anguish and anger.

With the agility and 'best and brightest' status also come a big helping of overload. Every blessing has its burden, no one has it easy. We perceive these people as 'having it easy' without understanding their burden. The mind has a lot of filters built into it for a reason, we can't process everything.

 

[Jay Honeck]

With the agility and 'best and brightest' status also come a big helping of overload. Every blessing has its burden, no one has it easy. We perceive these people as 'having it easy' without understanding their burden. The mind has a lot of filters built into it for a reason, we can't process everything.

What's interesting (and this is really a stretch, so bear with me) is that there is some correlation between suicide and intelligence -- even on a societal and even cross-societal level.

Just one example (and its not really "suicide", but the end result is the same) : The most highly educated women in history, all over the world, have decided to stop reproducing.

Russians. Americans. Brits. Germans. Japanese. All have achieved the pinnacle of freedom, education, and wealth -- and yet they have decided that their genetic legacy shall end with them. To the point where their race/culture/society will no longer be sustainable.

This group arguably represents the highest evolution of humanity, yet this genetic achievement will never be passed to succeeding generations -- and it's happening BY CHOICE, all over the world.

It's a first, for humanity. In some ways, we are witnessing the first voluntary extinction.

 

[Henning]

What's interesting (and this is really a stretch, so bear with me) is that there is some correlation between suicide and intelligence -- even on a societal and even cross-societal level.

Just one example (and its not really "suicide", but the end result is the same) : The most highly educated women in history, all over the world, have decided to stop reproducing.

Russians. Americans. Brits. Germans. Japanese. All have achieved the pinnacle of freedom, education, and wealth -- and yet they have decided that their genetic legacy shall end with them. To the point where their race/culture/society will no longer be sustainable.

This group arguably represents the highest evolution of humanity, yet this genetic achievement will never be passed to succeeding generations -- and it's happening BY CHOICE, all over the world.

It's a first, for humanity. In some ways, we are witnessing the first voluntary extinction.

Intelligence and schizophrenia have a lot of corollary relationships too.

I don't fault these women, I came to the same conclusion, that there is no sense in having children into the tipping point population. It's not voluntary extinction really, it's just that there is seemingly nothing that we can do to prevent it, so why subject our children to it? It's not going to be fun for the young generation. Mankind is just too stupid to continue, we can't meet our resource requirements vs. population.

 

[Ted]

If even he couldn't find a reason to live, what chance do the rest of us have?

THAT is what really gets us, and it's reflected in both anguish and anger.

So off base.

Smart people aren't necessarily any more capable of coming up with a reason to live. If anything, it's easy to realize how stupid most of the world is.

 

[SixPapaCharlie]

According to cracked.com smarter people are more likely to do drugs, engage in risky behaviors, three times more likely to suffer symptoms of depression, and have less sex.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19174_5-unexpected-downsides-high-intelligence.html

 

[jmp470]

What's interesting (and this is really a stretch, so bear with me) is that there is some correlation between suicide and intelligence -- even on a societal and even cross-societal level.

Just one example (and its not really "suicide", but the end result is the same) : The most highly educated women in history, all over the world, have decided to stop reproducing.

Russians. Americans. Brits. Germans. Japanese. All have achieved the pinnacle of freedom, education, and wealth -- and yet they have decided that their genetic legacy shall end with them. To the point where their race/culture/society will no longer be sustainable.

This group arguably represents the highest evolution of humanity, yet this genetic achievement will never be passed to succeeding generations -- and it's happening BY CHOICE, all over the world.

It's a first, for humanity. In some ways, we are witnessing the first voluntary extinction.

Jay,
I'm not disagreeing with anything you wrote. Except that maybe we as a society cherish and strive for all the wrong things!

Maybe our belief of freedom is wrong..... who has more freedom, a CEO or an unemployed person?

Maybe today's logic is significantly flawed in our society. Look at women's rights. Most people thought women needed to get out of the house and into the work force... Yet, today we are starting to see a shift back to stay at home moms, etc...

IMO, our society values the wrong achievements and shuns the most most important achievements known to mankind.

 

[bluee]

What's interesting (and this is really a stretch, so bear with me) is that there is some correlation between suicide and intelligence -- even on a societal and even cross-societal level.

Just one example (and its not really "suicide", but the end result is the same) : The most highly educated women in history, all over the world, have decided to stop reproducing.

Russians. Americans. Brits. Germans. Japanese. All have achieved the pinnacle of freedom, education, and wealth -- and yet they have decided that their genetic legacy shall end with them. To the point where their race/culture/society will no longer be sustainable.

This group arguably represents the highest evolution of humanity, yet this genetic achievement will never be passed to succeeding generations -- and it's happening BY CHOICE, all over the world.

It's a first, for humanity. In some ways, we are witnessing the first voluntary extinction.

More likely these women waited too long, only to discover it is extremely difficult to get pregnant over 40. It takes a long time to complete education and rise to the top.

 

[Henning]

More likely these women waited too long, only to discover it is extremely difficult to get pregnant over 40. It takes a long time to complete education and rise to the top.

IME, women who really want to have children typically have children regardless of career, they make it happen.

 

[Ted]

According to cracked.com smarter people are more likely to do drugs, engage in risky behaviors, three times more likely to suffer symptoms of depression, and have less sex.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19174_5-unexpected-downsides-high-intelligence.html

The less sex part would explain why the stupid are breeding so much faster.

 

[Henning]

The less sex part would explain why the stupid are breeding so much faster.

Also factor in that a large population listens to a man that says 'you can't use birth control'.

 

[bluee]

IME, women who really want to have children typically have children regardless of career, they make it happen.

I know plenty of women who have been struggling with infertility for many years. Like me. It took over four years to get one kid. I am sure many successful, powerful women think they can "make it happen" only to be sadly faced with biological reality. It is extremely difficult to get pregnant over 40, and if you see women in late 40's having kids (think Halle Berry or John Travolta's wife), they almost certainly used donor eggs.

 

[Henning]

I know plenty of women who have been struggling with infertility for many years. Like me. It took over four years to get one kid. I am sure many successful, powerful women think they can "make it happen" only to be sadly faced with biological reality. It is extremely difficult to get pregnant over 40, and if you see women in late 40's having kids (think Halle Berry or John Travolta's wife), they almost certainly used donor eggs.

I understand that, but then, they didn't really want to have kids at the earlier time (unless they are dealing with infertility issues then). If you wait out your clock without making preparations and having your eggs harvested and stored when younger, well again it shows a lack of interest in those years. There is also infertility when younger. As individually sad as it may be, it is the natural order. Fertility treatments are the unnatural order. It's such a mess to wade through between physical, psychological, and moral imperatives we feel when cross referenced against all the choices to be made. We do many wrong things for the right reasons, and many right things for the wrong reasons, but in the end we play what we end up dealt with unpredictable results regardless how hard we try to stack the deck.

 

[Henning]

Cloning technology will likely produce the human replacement.

 

[Everskyward]

I think there are many reasons women don't have children. Waiting too long may be one reason, but simply not wanting them is another one, which some people still find hard to accept when they hear someone say it, especially if they don't feel the same way. There is still societal pressure to have children but not as much as in the past.

As far as choice in behavior is concerned. I think that some people are able to control impulses better than others, and that it has as much to do with the physical/chemical/biological component in their brain as it has to do with morality. We like to think that we have total free will but we don't.

 

[steingar]

What's interesting (and this is really a stretch, so bear with me) is that there is some correlation between suicide and intelligence -- even on a societal and even cross-societal level.

Just one example (and its not really "suicide", but the end result is the same) : The most highly educated women in history, all over the world, have decided to stop reproducing.

Russians. Americans. Brits. Germans. Japanese. All have achieved the pinnacle of freedom, education, and wealth -- and yet they have decided that their genetic legacy shall end with them. To the point where their race/culture/society will no longer be sustainable.

This group arguably represents the highest evolution of humanity, yet this genetic achievement will never be passed to succeeding generations -- and it's happening BY CHOICE, all over the world.

It's a first, for humanity. In some ways, we are witnessing the first voluntary extinction.

A simple lesson in demographics. Folks at the top of the heap have to spend way more to raise children than those at the bottom, so they have fewer. In our day and age its birth control, in previous eras they used infanticide.

An ancillary issue is the biological clock. If an intelligent woman wants to compete in what is essentially a man's world she may have to forego childbearing and child rearing to maintain her competitive edge. A man can establish himself and hold off having a family until he's in his forties. A woman not so much.

 

[steingar]

Cloning technology will likely produce the human replacement.

Unlikely. Far too much somatic epigenetic programming to reliably get the clones. Besides, what's so special about them?

 

[Henning]

Unlikely. Far too much somatic epigenetic programming to reliably get the clones. Besides, what's so special about them?

Nothing, I didn't say it was going to be clones, I think the technology will lead to experimentation and directed mutation, especially now that they are synthesizing a couple more genes to add to the mix. Some smart **** is gonna figure out how to fix us. Without being able to clone it's a lot harder to understand the results of changes. Most of mankind will likely be gone by that point, but a depopulated infrastructure would serve a while.

 

[bluee]

I understand that, but then, they didn't really want to have kids at the earlier time (unless they are dealing with infertility issues then). If you wait out your clock without making preparations and having your eggs harvested and stored when younger, well again it shows a lack of interest in those years. There is also infertility when younger. As individually sad as it may be, it is the natural order. Fertility treatments are the unnatural order. It's such a mess to wade through between physical, psychological, and moral imperatives we feel when cross referenced against all the choices to be made. We do many wrong things for the right reasons, and many right things for the wrong reasons, but in the end we play what we end up dealt with unpredictable results regardless how hard we try to stack the deck.

Forty percent of all infertility problems are male related. Check out the WHO. Sperm quality and quantity have dropped every decade the WHO has been tracking it globally.

Also, no one thinks about freezing eggs at 25, and freezing eggs wasn't even possible until a few years ago. Embryos and sperm yes, eggs no.

 

[AdamZ]

Nice Nate,



Adam, I'm from a huge family so, yeah, there are a couple in there. Plus a couple of high school friends. I agree with much of what you said. I don't agree with the "it's the coward's way out" sentiment that so many express when a suicide occurs.

Yea Tim I would not call it the coward's way out either.

 

[Henning]

Forty percent of all infertility problems are male related. Check out the WHO. Sperm quality and quantity have dropped every decade the WHO has been tracking it globally.

Also, no one thinks about freezing eggs at 25, and freezing eggs wasn't even possible until a few years ago. Embryos and sperm yes, eggs no.

I can believe that 40% of infertility problems are male, I didn't realize that was an issue in question. Plenty of guys also chose not to have children, I guess they are more fortunate in not having a biological clock imperative, but as you say, they are not without misfortune on fertility either.

The truth is we can't all reproduce, the resource is not in place for that yet. The future of mankind is not the primary concern in the world. This is reflected in everything our society does including what you brought up, women struggling for career ahead of reproducing. If one thinks of it in terms of Karmic Justice, you would figure that your fertility treatments cost twice the difference in income, or greater, than you would have earned had you had the child early. I'm now of an age where high school girls I knew who got pregnant are 'empty nesting' about the same time the career determined girls are in your group now trying to conceive too late in some attempt to turn back time. The ones that are now empty nesting are doing pretty well and are happy. As you are aware, there are few creatures so unhappy as a woman who wants a child but can't have one.

It brings forth the question, "Why do we have our priorities so ****ed up?" What did Feminism really buy women? While struggling so hard to be equal to men on the man's playing field, women forgot that they own the arena. Why do women feel they should compete against men? It's unnecessary and unnatural. It shows the flaw in our entire social structure of competitiveness. We are meant to be cooperative in ALL our relationships.

As you can see, the whole 'men and women are equal' is seriously limited in scope, especially on the reproductive clock issue. We have lost in this competition for equality the family structure required to raise a child properly, not to mention the social engineering in the 50s housing project era that separated fathers from their families.

It all comes down to we define our value in $$$s, and whenever we do that, karma is going to make things difficult and expensive.

 

[steingar]

Nothing, I didn't say it was going to be clones, I think the technology will lead to experimentation and directed mutation, especially now that they are synthesizing a couple more genes to add to the mix. Some smart **** is gonna figure out how to fix us. Without being able to clone it's a lot harder to understand the results of changes. Most of mankind will likely be gone by that point, but a depopulated infrastructure would serve a while.

Good luck finding the researcher willing to muck about with human germ line mutations. Of course, the process is going to be glacially slow, since every alteration you make is going to take a couple decades to assess.

Best to stick with boats.

 

[Henning]

Good luck finding the researcher willing to muck about with human germ line mutations. Of course, the process is going to be glacially slow, since every alteration you make is going to take a couple decades to assess.

Best to stick with boats.

Lol, it won't be me... It won't be luck in finding the researcher and they will be self starting with no one around to tell them not to do it. It may be glacially slow, there could be a lucky hit, it's impossible to determine where along the line the 'hmmm, that's interesting' point comes especially since we don't know where the technology or knowledge already developed will be in 20 or 30 years' time. Every day we know more than yesterday, and compounding doesn't only apply to money, it applies to knowledge as well.

 

[denverpilot]

Yes, a decision was made, but you seem to imply that it is a "decision" made by a rational logical mind that can parse and weigh the causes and consequences of that "decision"...." You seem to suggest, he made a decision and is responsible for the the effects that follow that decision, as if one was deciding a life question...do I take this job, do I buy this house, do I marry this person?



Nobody knows for sure, but plausibly he might have been hearing voices, and unable to distinguish the reality or "in my headness" of those voices. And one does not need to be Schizophrenic for this to happen; depression is certainly a disease that can produce psychosis...maybe these voices were telling him that if he didn't kill himself then his family would be harmed in a horrible way...in that case, is his suicide cowardly? Noble? Maybe in that terrible moment, he "felt like he was sacrificing himself for the sake of his family? No one will ever know. My point is, to say he made a decision, is to miss the fact that this was not a "normal" decision...he was not deciding paper or plastic. "Sophie's Choice" was a decision...a horrible one...



Not to mention a "decision" is not a simple and concrete thing....Neuroscience research is demonstrating that a "decision" is actually generated in the brain before a person is consciously aware of the "decision they (?) just made.....so who is "making" the decision? because it is not that part of us we think of as me/I.



I would rather focus on the disease and what it did to this man....is someone making a decision to have a heart attack and die???? That we can wrap our arms around..."Of course not; a small clot in the blood completely blocked off an important artery feeding the heart and the muscle, deprived of oxygen, died"...That is easy to understand. Well the reality is we have barely scratched the surface of understanding depression...Maybe the nature of depression is that it ultimately leaves someone incapable of making a decision? They act because the disease forces them to act...Possible the disease so distorts and colors "reality" that no one is making a "decision" in the way we would understand that concept in our everyday lives.

So if we merge all of the above together we get, "I would rather focus on the disease no one can yet define but I'll make up some stuff to avoid the facts."

Not interested. Your life, your choice. You missed that multiple choices and actions have to be actively done to reach a state where someone is sitting in a chair, cut wrists, knife on the floor, belt around their neck.

The "neuroscience" you claim exists for this thing no one understands, you believe says that whole thing was one decision that the person suddenly had well up from inside their brain, unconsciously, and they couldn't stop at any one of 20-30 very specific motor skill and complex actions that had to be consciously done, to reach the end result...

... but I'm not buying it.

You're free to, of course.

Maybe this. Maybe that. Could have been this. Could have been that. This is your basis for your rationalization of it. That's ok, but you should at least recognize it's really really weak logic.

 

[Silvaire]

...It's a first, for humanity. In some ways, we are witnessing the first voluntary extinction.

Well there is the idea held by some that biology is just a step in the grand scale of evolution, that we are on the verge now of having developed the machine to a point that it can do all we can do. Of course we've focused on making it do things for us and even, in ways, mimic us but in reality when the machine evolves it won't need to carry all of the baggage we carry in order to exist and survive as biological creatures. If the machine were capable of evolving on it's own it wouldn't even need us at all.

Of course that's been hypothesized a thousand ways in countless Sci-Fi novels and films but if there are UFO's they most likely are machines because it seems that biology itself would forever keep you tethered to your home world and make inter-galactic travel impossible.

Now if that ain't thread drift, I don't know what is

RIP Robin Williams

 

[mnewb1]

So if we merge all of the above together we get, "I would rather focus on the disease no one can yet define but I'll make up some stuff to avoid the facts."

Not interested. Your life, your choice. You missed that multiple choices and actions have to be actively done to reach a state where someone is sitting in a chair, cut wrists, knife on the floor, belt around their neck.

The "neuroscience" you claim exists for this thing no one understands, you believe says that whole thing was one decision that the person suddenly had well up from inside their brain, unconsciously, and they couldn't stop at any one of 20-30 very specific motor skill and complex actions that had to be consciously done, to reach the end result...

... but I'm not buying it.

You're free to, of course.

Maybe this. Maybe that. Could have been this. Could have been that. This is your basis for your rationalization of it. That's ok, but you should at least recognize it's really really weak logic.

What I recognize is that I am trying to explain that the answer is much more complex, that the disease can rob someone of the facility to make simple, considered decisions...but I get it you like simple...OK

 

[Henning]

What I recognize is that I am trying to explain that the answer is much more complex, that the disease can rob someone of the facility to make simple, considered decisions...but I get it you like simple...OK

People don't like when an answer is complex beyond understanding.

 

[Jay Honeck]

What I recognize is that I am trying to explain that the answer is much more complex, that the disease can rob someone of the facility to make simple, considered decisions...but I get it you like simple...OK

Rational people gravitate toward rational explanations. I am guilty of same.

Another aspect we have not explored is the entertainer's lifestyle. All entertainers, be they movie stars or stand up comics, have an enormous amount of down time. They have month after month of unstructured free time, stretching before them, which gives them ample opportunity to become bored and/or overly insightful.

In my personal life, the craziest, most depressed, most self-destructive period ever was a six-month period after graduating from college in the middle of the severe recession of 1981. I literally had no structured life -- and it almost drove me insane.

That's when I learned that our grand parents were right: Idle hands ARE the devil's work. And too much time to ponder life is unhealthy.

Now, if I couldn't take six months of that, how does a guy like Robin Williams cope with decades of it? Obviously, it got to him.

I think it was Harrison Ford who was quoted as saying that being a movie star was incredibly unhealthy, mentally. It's why he threw himself into aviation and kept up his carpentry skills.

 

[mnewb1]

Rational people gravitate toward rational explanations. I am guilty of same.

Another aspect we have not explored is the entertainer's lifestyle. All entertainers, be they movie starts or stand up comics, have an enormous amount of down time. They have month after month of unstructured free time, stretching before them, which gives them ample opportunity to become bored and/or overly insightful.

In my personal life, the craziest, most depressed, most self-destructive period ever was a six-month period after graduating from college in the middle of the severe recession of 1981. I literally had no structured life -- and it almost drove me insane.

That's when I learned that our grand parents were right: Idle hands ARE the devil's work. And too much time to ponder life is unhealthy.

Now, if I couldn't take six months of that, how does a guy like Robin Williams cope with decades of it? Obviously, it got to him.

I think it was Harrison Ford who was quoted as saying that being a movie star was incredibly unhealthy, mentally. It's why he threw himself into aviation and kept up his carpentry skills.

I have always thought that if I was lucky enough (unlucky enough?) to win a life changing, done with work, lottery what would I do...not sure but I do know I would have to have a plan and do something creative/meaningful.

 

[denverpilot]

Annnnnd the real truth comes out. Robin's wife made a statement today that he was suffering from early-stage Parkinson's.

I wondered if there was a trigger. He knew his depression well and managed it well. He'd done countless interviews on it. He didn't live an unexamined life.

 

[jesse]

Annnnnd the real truth comes out. Robin's wife made a statement today that he was suffering from early-stage Parkinson's.

I wondered if there was a trigger. He knew his depression well and managed it well. He'd done countless interviews on it. He didn't live an unexamined life.

Can't say I blame someone for taking themselves out while they still can if Parkinsons is the fate. Although I'd much prefer to go out in an accidental looking ball of fire in that case. Much less stupid judgmental crap left in your wake.

 

[steingar]

Can't blame him a bit. If I found our I had a disease like that I'd likely take myself out while I could and spare those around me suffering my decline.

 

[denverpilot]

I honestly don't know what I'd do. But I can't fault him for his personal choice. (Nor technically is it any of my business. But anyway...) I really hate the idea of "wasting" type diseases. Lots of us get them eventually though.

 

[nddons]

My dad had Parkinson's, but didn't die from it. He died of colon cancer. It is debilitating, yes, and the drugs are often worse than the tremors. But I think it is manageable in many people. Michael J. Fox has had it and dealt with it pretty well.

I used to commute on the train into Chicago with a man who had it. He handled the commute as well as anyone, and clearly kept working.

It's not easy, and it's not pretty, but I don't think it's a death sentence.

 

[1600vw]

I have a bone disease and one day I will do as Mr. Williams. Until then I hang on. Not sure I could go through another broken back. I told myself if I break my back again I will end it.
But it takes a very strong person to do this. Today I am a coward....

Tony