clarity of sorts

a quick re-read, edit, spell check, correct and clatify - now posting (Sept 6th 2021)

heddwch,
G

I went to catch up on the latest Fox Dialed episode about the World Cup this weekend in Suisse. And on the youtube page of recommendations Robin Williams face, in black and white with his eyes standing on in blue was staring at me.

Loaded obviously no? The man who made us all laugh more than anyone, made us cry, feel, and care, he was also passionate about cycling, and a deeply emotional alcoholic. 

Bourdain, empathic working hard fighting for what was right, bringing cultures together with food in his own way, also emotional, passionate and an alcoholic. Both of these people were also heavy drug users at times...

And they share the most terrible similairty, for us perhaps, for them? we can never know, they chose to end their work, their spark, at their own hand, nearly at exactly the same age...

That's the inspirational video i saw, and watched, it was tough. I  have, in the past, after 2014 more than any other time, gone through the videos, the clips, the films, again and again. I haven't seen all of his films but all the films with him have been impactful. Dead Poets? Good will hunting, Patch, Good Morning V, Doubtfire, even remember that we went to watch Popeye in the theatre...

That pain, the hopelessness, the many other friends who've chosen this route as an escape from it... as it feels like perhaps the only way... my grandfather perhaps, it wasn't outwardly deliberate but i think he deliberately didn't take his meds, was tired of everything and said goodbyes at three parties while i was working late... but being old, ill health, and from that generation, there was no talk about it, or if it was, it was never phrased  in the way of self determination.

Contrast it with my dad, stubborn, hanging on, he's  really having a hard tome communicating, but mentally he's there, the atypical parkinsons makes it  even tough to form words now. There was some point we thought that he might just wander up into the woods and take the old native way out. But you know, many talks, years ago, bringing up depression, suicides, he said no matter what or how bad it gets, living beats the alternative. 

Ties back into that quote... from the other day:

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

― Henry David Thoreau

And to my sobriety, I saw in myself the potential to follow the road RW or AB chose, and it scared me and I didn't like it, maybe that's why it was possible to so completely turn the corner. 

I've finally been able to understand me more, sure, ADHD brain, mild autism whatever you want to call my particular blend of neurodivergence played a huge part in this whole delayed awakening... 

But if you swing back to those Sevens I brought up that Mike F wrote about that 7th 7 cycle was the time for it - the optimal time for that awakening and reckoning and transformation. 

Feel like I need to break this more serious introspection up with a joke, or bikes or something, and no RW and AB weren't perfect humans, neither was my grandfather or is my Dad, RW loved Lance, super fan... the rest of them well in some ways good models of how not to be and an inspiration to fight the patriarchy, even if just me on my own  with actions and life choices.

I'm very very grateful to be where I am today, and for the warning and ultimately the wake up call with the news of Bourdain's passing.

Yes. I know. Kind of have been talking a lot about this since that morning, and making that choice, knowing that going back to it will fast track me to the likely hood of a similar demise. 

Going to pause here, save as draft, re-read  at some point, some point that isn't September 1st 2021, edit - add to it and then publish.