As a creative director what I do for a living is totally contingent on what I do with dots. My challenge is never about how to connect the dots as much as it is about finding the dots in places nobody looks. When I fail to give birth to an idea, and I do more often than not, I literally have to make up the dots and then connect them. I get most of my inspiration from comedians. Not for comedy but for using their blue print to build ideas. Robin Williams was an exceptional dot-connector.True comic geniuses, from George Carlin to Jerry Seinfeld and Stephen Wright to Robin Williams, have one thing in common; seeing dots nobody sees and connecting them in ways no average person can. I was exposed to Robin Williams when he was Mork as well as when he was Simon Roberts and all the amazing acts he pulled off in between. While, like many, I am dealing with a knot in my stomach at the news of his death I am, frankly, more taken back by the ripple effects of his death.
In America everything lasts about a minute until the next thing takes over our attention span. Especially, celebrity deaths. It is not until the Oscars when the “In Memoriam” segment reminds us of those stars who passed in the past year. So, what’s up with the Robin Williams factor? Every water cooler conversation, every cabbie, every social media chat, every waiting room topic and every media outlet persistently stayed on this news since Monday morning. This out-of-character behavior by our culture where the death of a celebrity is top-of-mind for days has got to be more about how he died then who died. The sudden surge of calls to suicide hotlines, cries for help by those who are suffering from depression and the subsequent dramatic rise of our awareness regarding depression has transcended the news of a celebrity death. It is ironic that even in his final act Robin Williams, inadvertently or not, has inspired many to connect the dots about depression, suicide and addiction. As a result millions more now know that mental disease is as prominent and as dangerous as cancer.
Thank you Robin for the laughs and the dots.