Image Source – Collider.com

The world is a little poorer today for the loss of the great Robin Williams – a man whose talent I have admired ever since first seeing him in the TV show Mork and Mindy when I was a child.

Like his character in the film Dead Poets Society, Williams ‘seized the day’ and ‘sucked the marrow out of life’.

And yet, at 63 he was suffering from crippling depression to the point where, allegedly, he didn’t want to live any more.

So many of us, who have lived lesser lives, would look at this man and wonder why he wasn’t happy. He was worth millions, he was adored by millions, he had a beautiful wife and daughter and a legacy any actor or comedian would be proud to have emulated. Maybe he thought he’d seen it and done it all; maybe he felt his best was behind him and there was nothing left worth living for. Whatever his reasons for leaving this world prematurely, they will never have been compelling enough for the people who loved and admired him and his work to understand.

In the words of Braveheart (not one of Robin’s films) “Every man dies – but not every man really lives”. Robin Williams’s life may have been cut short and there is no doubt he would have blessed us with even more incredible achievements; but, even as it stands, the life he lived and legacy he leaves are both far greater than the majority of us would be happy to have accomplished if we lived to be one hundred.