Robin Williams

Robin Williams was a part of life for a generation. RIP

In connection with Robin Williams' death many people have opened the discussion of depression and suicide, which I thought Harvey Fierstein beautifully summed up in a tweet: "Please, people, do not fuck with depression. It's merciless. All it wants is to get you in a room alone and kill you."

There have been those, as there often are, who talk about suicide being "cowardly." I don't beleive they have any idea what it is to live with deep depression.  In fact it is not a failure of courage, but often the exhaustion of a constant battle - a battle that you fight over and over again while feeling that you will never win, but you keep fighting for years and years - that results in suicide.  At some point you are so tired that you just give up.  The support of friends and relatives, and good health professionals, allows a person like Williams to fight his fight for a long as he did.  Lacking courage? I don't think so.  This was, by all accounts, a person who instead of giving in to his depression, instead of lacking courage, chose to make the world laugh, he chose generosity of spirit, he chose to help others, he chose to be a great artist, he chose to fight the fight every day until he could not bear it any more.  He is to be mourned and revered, because his inimitable courage gave us so much.