Robin Williams and the Murderous Mendacity of Depression – UPDATED

Depression is a hissing false witness. It lies and tells someone there is no hope; it lies and declares, “you’re a fraud”; it lies when it warns you to hide your feelings, because people won’t love you if they know how terrified and alone and desperate you feel; it lies and sneers that you’re weak — that you can just snap out of it, anytime, if you really want to; it croons the lie that love is not real, and hope is for suckers; it whispers the most insidious of lies: that your pain will never ebb, cannot be transcended, and has no value at all.

After a while, the pain begins to feel like all you are and all there is: a worthless, pointless void. And when your life becomes just pain-without-end, suffering-without-meaning, tomorrow seems like less a promise than a prison.

When depression wins, it is such a damned tragedy, no matter whether it has carried off a big rich somebody, or an ordinary nobody, because it is the victory of a an incessant liar.

Such a loss.

UPDATE: Tony Rossi has a collection of stories about Williams’ generous nature. Some people don’t realize how generous.

God is never outdone in generosity.

RIP, Mr. Williams. Such a broad artistic arc.

And…

As the Genie of Genies…

He was a perfectly cast T.S. Garp, too, in The World According to Garp, but I couldn’t find a video I liked.