The Cold, Dark Well

Last year, I was shocked, as so many must have been, by news of the suicide of the comedian and actor Robin Williams.  Robin Williams seemed to be at the pinnacle of his career, and an extremely distinguished career it was, in both movies and television.  In the testimonials made of him by fellow comedians after his death, they described his incomparable gifts, and many who had known him when they were just starting out described how, upon seeing his act, they despaired of their own success, because they realized that he was breaking new ground, and was clearly in a league of his own.  He was a comedic genius, and his legacy is an impressive one.  Some of his films are among my personal favorites, and I am grateful for having seen them.

But the death of Robin Williams at his own hand serves to dispel an enduring and popular myth, that with success comes happiness, and that, indeed, a personal metric for success in one’s own life is how happy one has become.  Many motivational speakers and gurus of personal fulfillment preach this very thing: that the guide to accomplishment is the feeling of well-being that one experiences as one follows the correct path in one’s life.  I remember such a prescription by the late Joseph Campbell, who attempted to distill lessons of life from the mythologies of our civilizations, when he counseled that one should “follow your bliss”.  (I have always admired Joseph Campbell’s work, and in fairness to him, he perhaps meant by “bliss” something much more sublime than simply happiness.)

One day I realized, however, that even a casual perusal of some of the most accomplished and successful people in history seems to refute this claim of a correlation between achievement and general happiness.  Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln, for example, both suffered from recurring bouts of extreme depression.  Martin Luther exhibited behavioral traits that seemed characteristic of what today would be labeled a manic-depressive personality.  And Vincent Van Gogh, the great artist, suffered emotional torment that culminated in the infamous act of cutting off his own ear.  I suspect that if one examined the life of any great artist, or leader, or inventor, or social reformer, one would find a mental state that could rarely be characterized as happy, and might sometimes in fact be better described as a tortured or troubled existence.  As the late John Lennon of the Beatles once put it, “Genius is pain.”

And yet, we live in a culture that is obsessed with happiness, and the idea that happiness is something that can be achieved: through right thinking, right living, religion, spirituality, meditation, therapy, medication, or some combination of the above.  An entire “science” of happiness has come into existence, and books have been written by happiness experts that include step-by-step programs on how to attain it and sustain its presence in one’s life.  I have often suspected that the pervasive belief that happiness should be the natural state of being in everyone’s life has actually been one of the principal causes of depression.  And while studies have tended to refute the popular belief that suicide rates are higher around holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, they have found a seasonal elevation in these rates in the spring and summertime: the time of year when we would probably have the highest expectation of being happy, and would therefore be particularly discouraged if this were not the case.

It is disheartening to think that success would not bring happiness, though, and that an extremely gifted person such as Robin Williams, with such an impressive legacy of accomplishment, could actually be unhappy enough to commit suicide.  What motivation is there to aspire to bring out the best in oneself, if doing so won’t produce happiness as a result?  And why have so many tried, in spite of this fact?

I believe that there is another more powerful, but more subtle, motivation than the simple goal of attaining happiness.  It is difficult to put into words, but the most eloquent description of it that I ever heard came from the late comedian George Burns.  When asked why he had chosen a career in comedy, he told the following story:  There is an experience, he said, that every comedian dreads.  It is the “bad night”.  That is a night when the comedian goes up to do his stand-up routine, and he is completely ignored.  Members of the audience converse among themselves, or mill about, or simply walk off and find other diversions.  For the performer, this is a waking nightmare, a living Hell, because it constitutes a general rejection, in the very worst sort of way, of what he had believed was an offering of his special talent.  George Burns said that every comedian, including himself, has had to go through many of those sorts of nights.  And it was during a particularly bad one of these, he said, when he was just starting out, that he made a discovery about himself.  He realized that, as awful as that night was, he would still rather be doing that than anything else in the world.  It was on that night, he said, that he knew he was meant to be a comedian, and that this would be his life’s career.

The truth of George Burns’ remark hit home for me not long after I had heard this story.  In the particular company that I was working for at the time, I had volunteered to become part of a project to educate my fellow employees on the challenges that deregulation was going to present to our industry, and how to prepare for these.  Twelve volunteers were selected for the project, and we were divided into teams of two, with each team visiting selected departments within its large corporate headquarters, as well as other far flung locations in remote areas where the company also had offices.  Now the meetings that were done in the headquarters buildings were generally pleasant ones.  The employees were already somewhat familiar with how our industry was changing, and so they generally welcomed the training and responded positively to it.  It was a joy to conduct those particular sessions, especially when a topic would lead to an invigorating discussion in the class and it was clear from this that the training had hit home.  But in the more distant locations, in some of the satellite offices, there were pockets of employees who had convinced themselves that this program was simply company propaganda, and that it was a prelude to some wide-sweeping negative action that upper management was about to dump on them, such as a massive lay-off.  Those employees took it upon themselves to do everything in their power to disrupt the training classes they were in, and in general to just make the trainers as miserable as possible.

The training classes were generally held for two consecutive days, with each day’s session lasting six hours.  Now on one particular week, my training partner and I were called up to do a session at one of these satellite offices.  But sadly, his father had just passed away, and so he was attending his father’s funeral on the first of the two days.  Our plan was that I would do the first day’s training alone, and he would rejoin me on the second day.  I was quite content to do this.  Although this was a satellite office, there had been no prior indications that any malcontents worked there.  But to my shock and horror, as I proceeded to do my training during that first day, I found myself contending with an entire class of some thirty or so ill-mannered and ill-tempered employees, all of whom did whatever they could think of to make my job difficult: challenging some statements, ridiculing others, and turning every class discussion into a bitter argument.  When that first day of training mercifully came to an end, and I watched these employees file out of the room, I felt emotionally drained and beaten up, and relieved to see them leaving.  The following morning, as I entered the empty conference room and set up the equipment, I looked out at the parking lot, hoping to see at any moment the familiar image of my training partner’s truck pulling in.  I’ll never forget the feelings of dread, desolation, and lonely despair that I was contending with that morning, as I kept looking out at that parking lot, while in the meantime the employees were beginning to filter into the classroom, one, two, and three at a time.  It reminded me of a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror movie, The Birds, when the little winged devils are slowly massing for an attack.  But it was right in the midst of that very bleak moment when a strange thought hit me.  As miserable as I was, I realized that I would still rather be in that room, doing what I was about to do, than anything else in my company.  And it was then that I remembered the story that George Burns had told, and I understood exactly what he meant.

My training partner did show up that morning, much to my great relief, and we struggled through the second day of class together.  It was of course infinitely more bearable when there were two of us contending with the hostile crowd rather than just one.  And after this bad day we went on to do classes with friendlier audiences, who allowed us to experience the exhilaration of enlightening them and inspiring them, as well as the occasional hostile one.  But in all cases, good as well as bad, I continued to have that sublime sense that I was right where I should be, doing what I was supposed to do.

There is another experience often associated with self-expression that can rarely be characterized as a happy one, though it usually precedes a significant personal accomplishment.  I have had it on more than one occasion, and have even given it a name:  I call it “diving down into the cold, dark well”.  Rather than try to define it at this point, I will instead illustrate the phenomenon with one of my more memorable personal experiences of it.

At that same company that I used to work for, a large meeting involving several departments, including the one that I was part of, was held twice a year.  It was an all-day event, with hundreds of people in attendance, and mainly consisted of progress reports by the departmental heads.  A friend and coworker of mine, who was secretary to the particular executive who was hosting the next meeting, thought that there should be some light entertainment in the middle of the day to break up the monotony of the successive reports.  For some reason she thought that I would be able to come up with something, and I agreed to give it a try.  After giving it some consideration, I concluded that a humorous “training video” might be just the thing to break up the monotony.

Now I had never done anything like this before, but at first I wasn’t particularly worried about that.  I knew that there were a number of talented individuals in the company with an artistic and/or comic bent.  There was a fellow employee who had actually put on a short, humorous play at the last meeting, which was well-received.  And there was another coworker I knew who had been actively involved in community theater.  I persuaded these two individuals to be part of my creative team, along with the cameraman who put together legitimate video productions for our company.  When I met with this team, to discuss the plot for the “training video”, the theme of which was going to be about good customer service, we decided that it would revolve around a company that did not practice good customer service, and in fact did everything wrong.  I was feeling increasingly exuberant about the project, as my teammates produced a number of great suggestions for funny scenes to put into the movie.

But then something strange happened.  When it actually came time to write the script for the film, I found myself alone.  I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised: after all, the project had been my idea, and so ultimately the responsibility for its completion fell back upon me, and me alone.  Still, the task of writing a film script, all by myself, seemed overwhelming to me.  How, I wondered, does one write a film script, anyway?  The critical moment came one weekend.  If this project was going to be completed, on time, then filming would have to begin on Monday.  I found myself sitting in front of a blank computer screen, in my home, alone on a Saturday night, wondering what to do.  I can only describe the feeling that I had as one of coldness down deep inside of me, along with a subdued sense of terror, and loneliness as well.  It was a little like what I had felt on the second morning of that bad training session I described earlier.  I know that every writer has experienced something like what I did on that Saturday night: the terror of looking at a blank page and not knowing what to put on it.  All that one can do, at that moment, is press ahead, and do something, and hope.

And so I plunged into that cold darkness: that cold, dark well deep inside of me, during that lonely weekend.  And to my great surprise, things began to emerge from the well.  Words appeared on the screen in front of me.  Lines of dialogue.  Entire scenes.  And before that weekend was over, I had finished an entire script.  I didn’t know if it was any good – wasn’t even sure if it was a bona fide film script.  But I had produced something, and it was a good feeling.

It was, in fact, the first of a train of good feelings that followed the effort.  Filming began on the following Monday.  I cannot put into words the exhilaration that I experienced when I saw actors reciting lines of dialogue from the script – my script – as they were being filmed by the camera crew.  Suddenly, the project had become a collaborative effort again, and what had simply been words on pages that had been typed in a solitary room were now being brought to life by very talented people: the actors, the film crew, and others who were helping out with sets and backgrounds.  There was one final trial, as I watched a private screening of the finished film, the day before the meeting.  All that I could see at that time were things that I now would have done differently: improvements that could have been made to the script, or different directions to the actors.  I wondered if the audience would see these shortcomings as well.  But when the film was shown at the meeting, the next day, it was greeted with repeated peals of uproarious laughter, and a loud round of applause afterward.  The host of the meeting asked everyone who had been involved with the project to stand up and be acknowledged with applause.  I was now not just experiencing exhilaration, but ecstasy: a state of mind that would linger for many days past that meeting.

That was probably one of my most memorable personal “cold, dark well” experiences, but there have been others since, and they all share certain common characteristics.  There is that paradoxical sense of loneliness combined with a feeling that the actions that one are about to take will have consequences far beyond one’s personal life.  There is a feeling of being almost overwhelmed by the challenge, brought on by doubts that one has the inherent capabilities to meet it.  And then there is the act: the act of plunging into the cold, dark well, deep inside of one’s being, and hoping that one can draw something out of it that will provide the means of meeting the challenge.  Rarely have I been disappointed, when I have taken that plunge.  The act itself is the critical thing that creates the turning point – the transition from angst to accomplishment.  I suspect that something like this experience is universal, and affects persons in all walks of life:  The athlete who suddenly finds himself or herself called upon to do something extraordinary at a critical moment in a game.  The military commander on the eve of a great battle, or who is about to engage in a bold maneuver.  The artist, preparing to begin a new work.  And the performer, just before he or she walks onto the stage.  In all of these cases, there is probably that moment of intense doubt, followed by the resolution to forge ahead, as one trusts that by taking “the plunge”, one will be able to tap into a reserve of talents and abilities that had been hitherto unknown.

I suspect that for most people who have been called upon to jump into the “cold, dark well”, they have found, as I have, that the reward justifies the unpleasantness of this experience.  When this leap is followed by a successful outcome, as, I think, it usually is, the result is a very sublime but powerful feeling of joy that, however transient, makes everything that led up to it worth experiencing.  And the accomplishment itself generally creates a pathway to even greater successes, later on.  Sometimes, perhaps many times, the leap is not followed by success, but rather failure.  But, paradoxically enough, failure, too, when one survives it and commits to learning from it, paves the way for a greater eventual success.  The young bird, when making that first attempted leap but failing to fly, tries again and again, until it takes flight.  Instinctively, it knows that it will fly, as long as it keeps trying, and its persistence – through repeated leaps – brings ultimate reward.

The cold, dark well experience, along with those encounters with failure, and the “bad nights” described by George Burns, where one is miserable and yet knows that one is doing what one is meant to do, are certainly not happy states.  And, collectively, they may not be uncommon states in one’s life, either.  But here is where I think the contemporary scientists of happiness have it wrong.  It is not the condition of a human being – or any living being, for that matter – to be happy all of the time, or even most of the time.  I even suspect that anyone who becomes convinced that they should be happy most or all of the time will actually be made more miserable as a result of the failed expectation.  Of course, perpetual misery is not and should not be the lot of any human life either, and I believe that even in the case of those depressed, tortured heroes and geniuses that I mentioned earlier, there were moments of great joy in their lives that made their travails seem worthwhile to them.  For Churchill and Lincoln, it was final victory in the great wars that they had been destined to oversee, and for Martin Luther, it was the ability to witness the opening successes of his religious revolution.  Even Vincent Van Gogh, though almost none of his artwork was sold during his lifetime, still must have felt at least some sublime sense of accomplishment and happiness every time that he completed one of his paintings.  Joy, then, is a product of effort, and with great effort often comes the mental anguish of facing the unknown, or of enduring unpleasant circumstances, or of pushing oneself past one’s prior limits.  And for the great achievers in history, the level of joy and the level of anguish must both be correspondingly much higher than for the rest of humanity.  As the late George Harrison of the Beatles, when asked once what it was like to be a part of that legendary musical group, replied, “The highs are higher, but the lows are lower.”

Of course there are other sources of happiness, not tied to achievement, associated with love, a positive outlook on life, and a simple capacity to enjoy the good things in life, as well as a feeling of gratitude for those things that one does have, untainted by envy or avarice.  Still, I think it is the unusual person who can manage to cultivate even these sources without interruption.  And for anyone who has taken the active path to attain happiness, or at least a part of their happiness, or has been compelled to do so because of a sense of mission or calling, they must be prepared to endure the darkness that so often falls along this path.  The reward is great, but it comes at this price.

And so I come back to Robin Williams and his untimely death.  Surely he must have understood these things – understood that no level of achievement would buy him permanent happiness, and that every significant new undertaking would bring another “cold, dark well” to plunge into.  Perhaps it merely was a chemical imbalance in the brain brought about by clinical depression, that drove him to suicide, but that explanation sounds too facile, and not really much of an explanation at all.  He certainly had the right to believe that, in his case, after having exercised his immense talent to bring so much joy to so many other people for so long, he was entitled to an abundant, enduring share of that joy for himself, but, because he continued to experience those recurring periods of unhappiness, ultimately felt that life itself had cheated him.  But suicide is a very selfish act, damaging or even destroying many other people besides the person who takes his own life, as was horribly demonstrated by the recent story of the commercial pilot who in an apparent act of suicide brought on by depression, deliberately crashed his plane, killing not just himself, but 200 passengers and fellow crew as well.  There is never simply one victim in a suicide, even if only one person loses his life.  In that sense, Robin Williams made victims of all of us who loved him and his work, and perhaps, with his fundamental drive to make people around him happy, if he had truly understood that, it would have saved his life.  I can forgive him for his final tragic, unhappy act, but I will forever regret that he did not give life another chance – did not take another plunge into the cold, dark well.  I am sure that the reward to him – and to all of us – would have been immeasurable.