"This is NOT going to look good on my resume!"

The post title is a direct quote from "Good Morning, Vietnam", in which Robin Williams played Adrian Cronauer.  

Cronauer was a DJ for Armed Forces Radio/ Vietnam in 1969/1970.   His line is delivered when a young Viet Namese boy, who was becoming a friend of his ... committed suicide by blowing himself up.

Williams was an erratic master of comedy; often, his humor was more black humor than humor.  Often, I didn't like the routines he did.  I remember "Toys" as a true downer.    I remember "The Fisher King" when he played a secondary character:   "I have a hard-on for you as big as Florida".

He played the bad guy in a couple of movies,  like Insomnia and One Hour Photo.   I couldn't picture him as the bad guy.

And also in HOOK, which was a hoot.

He was ever the complicated character, who had more to offer than what was just on the surface.

 Well, not EVER!  He had many characters, many roles, but that undercurrent was always there, and maybe that's what made him such an accomplished comic.

In later years, I gave up watching him.  I regret never having watched "Patch Adams", for example.

Maybe I will, someday.

Now is not the time for my usual rant about the "selfishness" of suicide.  My bias is still there, but Depression is something than many of us have experienced.

He must have felt beyond redemption, to have hanged himself by his belt and slit his wrist as well.

I wonder how anyone can so ignore the love that people feel for us, that they believe their only recourse is to end their own life.  Are we more to blame than they?  Was Robin Williams' self-image so difficult to  reconcile with his universal love that he didn't know he was loved?  Or did he feel it was only 'surface', and not worth living the life?

While I remain unconvinced that suicide is a valid out, short of debilitating/painful disease, yet  I still mourn for him.

Maybe he's looking down on us today (I don't believe the religious bias which demands that suicides are irredeemable) and seeing how much he has been loved.

I hope so.  He contributed more to humanity than most of us ever will.