I was at work today when I heard the news that Anthony Bourdain took his own life. I wasn't sure about my feelings. He is someone in this world I have looked up to for a long time.
I loved the way he looked at the world. I aspire to one day have even half of the talent he had with words. He described food, life, travel, and the world in ways only a true artist can. The world has become a bit dimmer today.
I see a lot of people criticising him for choosing suicide; calling it selfish or the easy way out. I hear things like, "how could he do that? He had THE DREAM JOB." But we only see what the camera wants us to see of his life.
We don't know what he went through. We can't contemplate what his sufferings were. Just because someone has the best life in our eyes is it really all glitz and glamour? More and more we see people in the limelight committing suicide. Most can barely live a normal life because they're being stopped by their admirers and their critics every 5 minutes.
Yes he struggled with drugs and alcohol much of his life. He lived to be 61. Was he diagnosed with cancer? Could he have been diagnosed with a disease that takes away his mental cognition that would remove his way with words and change him into something he never conceived? We may never know.
As I look at my own life, I've been sick for about 2/3 of the last 2 years of my life. I've been in and out of doctors' offices. I've been to specialists and no one can figure out what it is or how to fix it. It goes away and comes back. Currently all my body wants to do is sleep and I probably do so for about 12-16 hours a day on average. If I find out what I have is worse than just a sore throat, lost voice from time to time, and a hacking cough that won't go away would those thoughts come to mind? Would I be willing to fight through something worse than what I have now?
Mental illness is even worse. Too many times we hear, "if only they would have reached out to someone," but is that always enough? It's almost as if we don't want to understand it. "If they just would have reached out. If they just would have called the suicide prevention hotline." These things are not going through their minds. To these people putting out their candle is the easiest. It takes away the pain. We can say these things looking from the outside in, but how thick is the darkness trying to hold back their light?
We don't know what his reasons were. We don't know what he was fighting. We don't know what anyone is truly fighting in their own mind. Until then I hope we can have the empathy to understand someone's pain.
The world is a little dimmer tonight without you. Here's to your life Anthony.... thank you for brightening mine.
“Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.” - Anthony Bourdain
