After the laughter? – Reflections on Robbin Williams’ suicide

Hare Krishna. After the laughter, reflections on Robin Williams’ suicide. The news that the famous actor and comedian, an Academy Award winner, Robin Williams had committed suicide shocked the entertainment world.
He was a celebrated comedian. But, he also suffered from depression for quite a few years. And, he had a relapse into substance abuse which caused him to go into further depression.
So, he reportedly committed suicide first by trying to slash his wrists with a knife and then by hanging himself with a belt. Now, depression is reported as the primary cause because of which he committed suicide. And, according to statistics, 80% of all suicides happen because of depression, especially in the first world.
So, now, that depression affects even the wealthy and the famous is well known. Because, even in the first world countries like America, despite all the facilities, medical and other facilities, still, antidepressants are the third largest prescription drugs. So, when depression is known to be widespread, still, the death of Robin Williams has jolted many people because he was not just a wealthy and famous person but he was also a comedian.
Normally, comedians are thought to be jolly people. They make us laugh, they make us happy. So, naturally, they must also be happy, isn’t it? But, not necessarily.
Now, the ability to make others laugh is simply a skill. It has very little to do with happiness. It’s a cerebral skill, just like there is a skill, I mean, somebody is good at mathematics or somebody is good at oratory or somebody is good at memorising things or solving crossword puzzles or to differentiate more between abilities on one side and happiness on the other.
Let’s consider a different set of abilities. We can consider singing or skating, which are largely physical abilities. Now, there can be excellent skaters and singers who can, by their performances, dazzle us.
But yet, we intuitively know that being a good skater or being a good singer does not necessarily mean the person is a happy person. We understand that happiness is a different ballgame. So, just as being a good singer does not mean being a happy person, similarly, being a person who is a good comedian, being a person who can make others laugh does not mean that that person will be happy.
So, the difference in the first case can be easily discerned. But in the second case, the difference can be easily missed. So, we can easily conflate.
Conflate means confuse by mixing up two categories. We can conflate humour with happiness. Now, this case of Robin Williams has forced us to recognise the difference between humour and happiness.
So, a person can be having a lot of humour and have very little happiness in life. So little happiness that a person may even end up committing suicide. So now, underscoring the difference between humour and happiness, what is the point of it? The point is not to say that humour is a bad thing.
It’s not to give humour a bad press. No, humour does have its place in life. It can add spice to a dry and demanding life.
In today’s culture, when our life is so fast-paced and ultra-stressed, we could all do with more doses of humour. But humour, when it is divorced from a happy life, then that can be misleading. That means, normally humour should be an expression of happiness.
But in many cases, humour is a mask for concealing unhappiness. So, humour has its place, but sometimes we may overrate humour. For example, in Reader’s Agenda, there is a humour column, which is called as Laughter is the Best Medicine.
Now, that’s a tall claim. Is laughter really the best medicine? From the recent example of Robin Williams, you can say that this person could administer, was so expert at administering the medicine of laughter to so many people. And yet, what happened? That medicine could not save an expert comedian from depression.
In fact, the depression became so aggravated that eventually it terminated in suicide, tragically. So, even then, if we look closer at this title Laughter is the Best Medicine, what we can understand is the very fact that laughter is being marketed as a medicine points to some underlying melody, some inner emptiness that people try to cope with by laughter. So, if laughter is not a result of inner happiness, but is a means to conceal inner unhappiness, then laughter acts not like a medicine, but like a painkiller.
It doesn’t cure the pain, it simply covers the pain. So, now let’s move forward and consider a little bit more about the causes of depression. So, laughter itself is not happiness and lack of happiness can eventually lead to depression.
So, what causes depression and what are the solutions that our culture offers to this depression? So, now, firstly, depression is at time. Depression is often caused by lack of success in life. Now, it is, if you look at today’s culture, it offers a certain definitions of success and we all pursue that.
So, the definition of a successful person is famous, successful person is wealthy, successful person is talented. These are the definitions of success we have and from those definitions, Robin Williams was a phenomenal success. He was an exemplar, means one who is a living example of, he was an exemplar of ability, of prosperity, of popularity.
And yet, it is a telling statement about our culture when one of the quintessential success icons had to battle with depression lifelong and eventually lost that battle disastrously. So, what is it that is wrong with our culture? Now, let’s look at its definition of success. Our culture seduces us with worldly pleasures.
Get this, own this, enjoy this and you will be happy. And we start pursuing those things. And we try to climb up the top of the ladder of success.
But most of these things are very difficult to achieve. Struggle, the competition itself is very draining. And even if you are among the few who do manage to reach the top, the joy of getting up there is unbelievably short-lived.
The high of being high up doesn’t last for long. What seemed glamorous earlier turns out to be monotonous. The charm of newness fades and the thrill, the euphoria of success, it dies out.
And then we are just left to continue with the grinding, competitive, draining routine. And that is the fate of those who are successful in reaching to the top. And there are many more who are not successful at all.
So now, naturally, either way, those who do get to the top, they feel unfulfilled. And those who are unable to get to the top, they feel frustrated because of not getting to the top. So, either way, people are unhappy and then they seek some sort of fulfilment.
Some sort of, sorry, not fulfilment, relief. Now, where do they get that relief from? What does the culture offer? Culture offers addictive pleasures prominently. There is no pleasure that alcohol can’t give you.
Just drink away and forget your sufferings. Or smoke. And let the smoke give you relief.
Or drugs. Now, unfortunately, even if they offer some relief, that relief is extremely short-lived. But the hold that these indulgences get on us, that is not short-lived.
That drags us again and again to repeated indulgences. And with each indulgence, the hold becomes tighter and thicker on us. Till they become addictions.
And when they become addictions, at that time, we just can’t believe. Firstly, we can’t break through them. What we thought were escaped ways turn out to have become trapped ways.
What we thought will give us relief ends up causing greater misery. We had some misery and now we get into greater misery because of the addiction. And misery because of addiction is greater because it is often self-inflicted.
And because it is self-inflicted, it batters our self-esteem. How does it batter our self-esteem? Because, firstly, we feel I was so foolish. I knew this was a trap.
I knew if I indulge in this, I’ll get addicted. And still I did it. How could I have been so foolish? And then after that, we further are battered in our self-esteem by thought that I want to break it and I’m not able to break it.
How can I be so weak? So, this combination of the feeling of foolishness and weakness. Foolishness that I fell for this and weakness that I can’t get out of this. This combination is extremely debilitating.
It causes our self-esteem to fall down to terribly low levels. And as the self-esteem falls, then we also fall. And we go deep into the ditches of depression.
So, this is how the feeling of worthlessness, the feeling of not wanting to do anything in life because I’m worthless, because I’m foolish, because I’m weak. There can be various emotions within that. They all cause depression.
So, now, of course, depression can also be a chemical condition, a medical condition rather, which requires treatments at a medical level. So, Prozac and some other drugs have been used and people use them very widely. As I mentioned that antidepressants are among the top three prescription drugs.
But although Prozac has its benefits, those benefits are limited and uneven. Limited means they cannot restore a person back to happiness and drive and zealful living. At the same time, they can’t even take people.
They don’t necessarily benefit all people. So, they are limited and uneven. That’s what their benefits are.
But still, the point is that this approach, neurological approach to problems like depression, neurology means the study of the brain. So, by trying to find out what is the biochemical deficiency in the chemicals in the brain and trying to counter that by taking some drugs, that is a very fragmented approach to the problem of depression. So, in the New York Times, there is an article post Prozac world.
And in that, it is mentioned how, first of all, the neurological approach is limited because consciousness and emotions within that have to be only studied indirectly. We observe and after observing, we try to infer what is it that is the problem. So, that’s why we can’t be sure.
So, Dr. Siddharth Mukherjee writes that we can only mix chemicals and spark electrical circuits and hope indirectly to understand the brain structure and function through their effects. So, that’s why it’s a very indirect approach. And now, this indirect approach has to be used because consciousness is beyond material methodology.
Consciousness cannot be materially measured or quantified or replicated. And that’s why it has to be studied indirectly. So, consciousness is essentially non-material.
John Eccles, a Nobel laureate neurophysiologist, he stated that the brain is the messenger to consciousness. That means consciousness is the message sender. And the brain is receiving the message and delivering that message to the body.
That means we have to understand and tackle the problem of depression. We have to look at a deeper level. We have to look at the level of consciousness.
So, if we mistake consciousness to be neurochemistry, to reduce consciousness to neurochemistry, that is as misleading and as superficial as reducing the brain, as reducing humour to happiness to humour. Now, it’s something of a different category, something higher being reduced to something very superficial. Now, we know that if a small child is tickled, that child laughs.
Now, just because the child is laughing, does that mean that child is happy? Well, we could call that one kind of happiness. Yes, the child is laughing. But if that were truly meaningful happiness, then we could all get perpetual tickling machines for ourselves and we tickle ourselves and we remain happy throughout our life.
We don’t do that. Why? Because we understand that laughter is not itself happiness. It is a characteristic of, it is a result of happiness.
So, now going further, if we look at the substance, substances, as John Eccles says, that consciousness is the messenger, the brain is the messenger of consciousness. That means consciousness is something different. And it is that consciousness which we need to understand and it is that consciousness which is the source of depression, wherein the depression occurs and wherein depression needs to be countered.
So, what are the causes of depression? If we are not, if you are saying that it’s not just, the problem is not just in neurochemistry, then what is the cause of depression? There can be many causes, but a primary and often unexamined, unspoken cause of depression is the erosion of meaning and purpose in life. We all have experienced that when we have something purposeful to do, then we naturally become enthusiastic, we become focused, we become energetic. If I have to catch a train and I know the train is going to leave in 10 minutes, then I’ll be purposeful, I’ll not waste my time in sightseeing and chit-chatting, I’ll just go straight to the station.
And if I don’t have any such purpose, then maybe I’ll sightsee, maybe I’ll chit-chat, maybe I’ll think what is the need to get out of bed only, just let me sleep. So, our energy level is often connected to our purposefulness. The stronger our purposefulness, the greater is our energy level.
So, now as I mentioned, what happens in materialism? Materialism strips our life of purpose. How? First of all, at a higher non-material level, materialism means that matter is all that matters, or matter is all that exists. That is fanatical materialism, matter is all that exists.
And slightly more moderate materialism is matter is all that matters. So, now, what about such materialism? Such materialism, first of all, denies any non-material goals to life. And once non-material goals are denied, then what is left? Then what is left is material goals.
And these material goals, as we discussed earlier, they are unfulfilling. Even if we achieve them, we are not satisfied. And if we don’t achieve them, naturally we are frustrated.
So, as John Ruskin put it well, he said, every new position we acquire adds a new layer of weariness to us. Every position burdens us, it makes us exhausted. So, materialism, it actually strips our life of meaning and purpose.
Because firstly, there is no non-material meaning and purpose to life. And the material meaning and purpose of life is unfulfilling or frustrating. Unfulfilling because even after I achieve it, it doesn’t make me happy.
Frustrating because I am unable to achieve it. That’s how people’s lives become meaningless and purposeless. Now, Dr. Viktor Frankl was also a psychiatrist and he wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning.
And in this book, it’s a book that is analytical and autobiographical. He himself was trapped in the concentration camps by the Nazis in Auschwitz and other places. So, he therein describes how people were living under inhuman conditions.
And he saw in front of his eyes, those people who were suffering like this, if they could not find any meaning and purpose in their suffering, then they just vegetated away. They succumbed far earlier than their biological capacity to survive. They had no purpose.
Why am I living? Why should I suffer? Better let me die. And they would die. And others who had some purpose for their lives.
For example, there was a scientist who had made some significant discovery and he wanted to publish that paper. And that’s what kept him going. I have a book and I have to publish it.
That’s what kept him going, kept him going, kept him going. And then eventually not only did they persevere far beyond their body’s capacity to endure, but also eventually they grew through their harrowing experiences. So, his point was that meaning and purpose is not essential not just for joyful living, but it is essential for living itself.
In fact, if we look at the contrary, why do people commit suicide? Because they feel that their life has no meaning or purpose. That’s ultimately, they have no purpose for living and they have reason what they feel right for time. So, therefore, what is important is to recognise that we all need meaning and purpose in life.
Now, there is a subjective meaning and purpose which we may impart to our lives individually. Somebody may say, I want to become an engineer. That’s the meaning and purpose of my life.
Somebody else may say that, okay, I want to become India’s number one tennis player. Somebody say, I want to become the next Jason Tendulkar. These are all purposes that can animate our life.
But these are our individual purposes. Now, beyond the subjective individual purposes that we may assign to our life, is there any universal objective purpose to life itself? Life, what is it meant for? So, there is such a purpose and that is talked about in the great wisdom traditions of the world. The spiritual wisdom traditions explain that the ultimate purpose of life is harmony.
Now, we need to harmonise with the supreme who is the source of everything and everyone, things around us and us too. So, when we harmonise with him, with that supreme being, with God, and therein we find life’s highest happiness. So, it is that which we are meant to strive for.
Now, harmonising with God is what ultimately the various theistic traditions, the various religions were meant to do. They were meant to provide a support system. Okay, you want to know about God? Okay, there is a church, there is a synagogue, there is a mosque, there is a temple, go there.
So, these are all support systems for us to harmonise with God. Now, it’s interesting that if we do something which serves its purpose, that means to be purposeful means to be in its place. For example, if I have a screw, now if the screw is lying on the ground, it may just be swept away and may go to the dustbin or it may just come under somebody’s leg and the person’s leg may get scratched or wounded.
So, now something is not being used for its purpose, is out of place and that is disharmonious. So, either it becomes useless or it becomes harmful also, just like the screw. So, similarly, when something is not used for its purpose, then it becomes either useless or harmful.
So, same applies to us also. You know, our lives become unproductive or they can become counterproductive also. They can become harmful to us, harmful to others.
So, harmful to ourselves means we become depressed, we commit suicide. Harmful to others means some people become psychos, pathological people who cause harm to others. Sometimes people become serial killers.
So, now just as a thing in its place being used for its purpose restores harmony, similarly, if we return to harmony, then the result of that will be, if we return to harmony, then we will be happier, isn’t it? The thing in its place will be better used. So, what does science tell us about this? It’s significant that science says that if we, science has found through repeated surveys, that people who live in harmony with God are healthier, both physically and mentally, as compared to those who don’t care for God, especially those who are atheistic. So, the Handbook of Religion and Health is a classic research overview that has been published by the Oxford University Press.
And Dr. Harold Kenning and other researchers have studied over 2000 published studies. These 2000 studies related, studied the correlation between religion on one side and health on the other. Health could be heart attacks, strokes and other physical health parameters and depression, addiction, suicidal urges, such mental health parameters.
And in all of them, they found universally that religion promoted health. That those people who were religious, they had a longer lifespan, they had better life quality and pertinent to our discussion. They had lesser percentage of depression, lesser suicide, lesser addictions.
And overall, they were mentally, they had a greater sense of well-being in life. So, the conclusion of this study, this book is that religious faith is something that benefits people of all ages, all economic backgrounds and all social levels. Everyone, it is one, it is a medicine that works for everyone.
So, that would also, that universality can also be said to be a scientific vindication. Because just like if we have a medicine, that medicine works for everyone. It doesn’t care whether the person is young or old or poor or rich or of this religion or that religion.
Just as medicine works for everyone, so religious faith also works for everyone. So, what this means is that religion in and of itself is good and it improves health. So, therefore, religion, now religion does give us a purpose to life.
It tells us that now if we live in harmony with God, then we can attain lasting happiness with him. That itself is one purpose and beyond that, it also tells us while we are in this world, we are meant to use our talents in his service and service of other living beings who are all our brothers and sisters in God’s family. And this is a vision of harmony.
So, this, as the research has shown, leads to better mental health and better physical health. So, in this particular case, there was addiction, there was depression and there was self-destruction, suicide. And what has been shown is religion in and of itself, religion’s practise benefits on all these three counts.
It helps the religious people have lesser depression, lesser addiction and lesser self-destruction. Now, of course, someone may say that Robin Williams also was, he was not an atheist. He also believed in religion.
Yes, but religious affiliation is not just a matter of some religious practise or religious faith, not the matter of some nominal affiliation. It is a matter of higher realisation and of inner transformation. Transformation, redirection of our life from this world to Krishna, to God.
So, now, if we look further, within the various religious traditions of the world, the Vedic wisdom tradition offers a very profound philosophy and a profound and a very practical yogic methodology for transforming our energy, for getting, helping us to gain realisation and bring out transformation. The Bhagavad Gita explains that we are actually souls and as souls, the soul is the source of consciousness and this soul which is the ultimate person who can be either animated by endless purpose or who can become depressed and become purposeless. So, now, the Bhagavatam, which is one of the important, the devotional classic, one of the most important books within the Vedic canon, it describes how purpose was used, how purposefulness, how a devotional purposefulness can counter melancholy.
So, melancholy refers to feelings of sadness, which are often inexplicable. I don’t know why I feel sad, but just as I feel sad. So, the Srimad Bhagavatam, by describing its own genesis, how it came about, it describes the narrative of Vyasadeva, who was phenomenally literary productive.
So, he wrote a large canon of the books that are there in the Vedic library and yet after writing all this, he was not satisfied. He felt some sort of emptiness within him. Now, what did he do? He did not turn towards addiction or depression or certain destruction.
He turned inwards and he turned upwards. He turned inwards means he did introspection. What could be the cause of my dissipation, my dissipation, my unfulfillment? And he turned upwards.
He looked towards God and towards God’s representative in one’s life, that is the spiritual master. And his introspection and the instruction both led to the same conclusion. Both helped him to understand that actually, I am, I have not used my talents to glorify God.
And when he decided to glorify God, he wrote the Srimad Bhagavatam, his magnum opus. And then his heart became fully content. So, now, similarly, by looking upwards, inward and upward, we can also animate our life with spiritual purpose.
And when our life is animated with spiritual purpose, we can find achievement externally and fulfilment internally. Now, if we don’t do this, we may say, OK, so many people get depressed, so many people commit suicide. Why make such a big deal about it? The problem is if we don’t make a big deal, then we remain small beings.
That means we never, never realise our spiritual potential. We don’t practise spirituality. And that way we stay deprived of so much inner happiness that is available for us.
So rather than trying to reduce depression to neurochemistry and just waiting for some drug to be developed for curing it, if we become more proactive, more responsible and try to go inwards with the light of yoga, then we will find within a treasure of wisdom that will animate us. So that will help us to lead to inner fulfilment and outer achievement. So we’re not against humour.
Laughter is, there’s nothing wrong with laughter unless that is not all that we are after. All that we are after means we shouldn’t think that laughter is the ultimate goal of life. The ultimate goal of life is actually to go back to God and to live a meaningful and purposeful life.
And when there is laughter within such a meaningful and purposeful life, that laughter and the underlying happiness will be enduring. So if at all some people suffer from depression, there’s nothing wrong with causing it. They can take that also.
But they shouldn’t assume that, they shouldn’t buy unthinkingly into the assumptions of materialism that actually the brain is nothing but neurochemistry. So to conclude, our title was After the Laughter. So what does it mean? It means that actually there is life after the laughter.
And the comedy shows, there is laughter. After the laughter, there is life, not just for the spectators, but also for the actors. And that life for the actors is offscreen life, is nowhere as jolly as the onscreen persona that they manufacture for themselves.
So that life is often not all rosy and that unflattering picture is often not given in the public media, in the culture, in the mass media. But when it comes out because of yelting incidents like this, then it’s up to us to see it, to take a hard look at it and to learn from it. So as we offer our prayers for the departed soul of Robin Williams and we offer our condolences to the bereaved, we can also hope that we all turn inwards and find deeper spiritual purpose in our lives also.
Thank you.