An Open Letter to Henry Rollins

On August 21st Henry Rollins wrote an article criticizing the suicidal, including the late Robin Williams. A few days later he posted an apology, preceding another article in the same magazine retracting himself. This is my letter to Henry.



Hey Henry,



I'm Susan. 10-22-65.



I've been a listener for years.



I once asked my Buddhist priest, "How can I be so into the whole idea

of Buddhism, and still love listening to Henry Rollins and Denis

Leary, people with whom nothing seems to be okay?



He said, "'Think of them as the loyal opposition."



I'm still not sure what that means, but it's true anyway.



OK, on to Robin.



When I saw you'd written an article with the gist, "Fuck Suicide", I

knew just where you were coming from, I had a pretty good idea of what

I would read, and why you felt that way. I've been listening for

years, and yeah, I've felt that exact thing. When a guy I only

peripherally knew committed suicide, it hurt a friend of mine far more

than it did me. I ended up despising him for causing pain to my

friend, but expressing my anger kind of confused her, and I don't

think it made her feel any better.



In the end I decided that the reaction was really just about me. I

know it sounds awful, but anger at death comes down to that - "How can

you do this to me?" I know, right? You can judge it and hate it all

you like, but death is pretty fucking personal, isn't it? Let's face

it, if we feel someone's death it just means we're alive, and that we

cared. Or maybe that we're scared.



For a guy like you, anger is your sacrament, it's what helps you see,

it's what fuels you, and you work hard to make sure that *you* burn

*it*, and not the other way round. So I kind of knew what you were

going to say, and why. I know it was coming from that part of you that

hates weakness, and wants to annihilate it in favor of strength. I

know you want other people to be strong, and that's partly why you do

what you do.



That's OK, Henry. In a lot of ways it's what we need you for.



So yeah, you being very much who you are wrote an article condemning

suicide and its practice. And in the process essentially called Robin

Williams a selfish coward who couldn't spare a thought for his (grown)

children. Ouch.



Let's make this simple, Henry. You don't get special rules, right? Here it is:



We try not to fuck up. We try hard.



We're going to fuck up anyway.



When that happens, there is only one thing to do.



You say you're sorry, and then you try to do better. Become the guy

who wouldn't do that.



That's really it, man. You don't have to kill yourself. You don't

have to bleed, you don't even have to punish yourself with days of

self-hatred, which is a *huge* time waster.



You grow.



I mean, you get it, I'm pretty sure - you get where you fucked up?

That Williams' action wasn't a "decision" - it was a moment of madness

with permanent consequences. It wasn't remotely the same as British

author Terry Pratchett finding he has Alzheimer's, flying to Sweden,

and going through the long process of interviews, legal papers and

self-examination involved in setting up legally assisted suicide for

when the time comes. We don't have that in this country. We might

have rather different attitudes about suicide if we did.



Anyway you hardly need my input on that.



Williams' death did make me sad; it was tragic in the finest and most

exquisite way - that guy who brought joy, who made us feel that we

knew him, having that moment of pain so intense that he lost all

purpose. Anger is a natural reaction. But I wasn't mad. I've been too

close. I've been in that place where I was glad I didn't own a gun.

I've been in the place where I was *sorry* I didn't own a gun. In the

labyrinthine ways that our minds can take as we get older, we can

round some corner and end up in that place, looking at the abyss. I

wanted to respect his decision-- except it wasn't really a decision,

any more than a running fox jumps a cliff to get away from the hounds,

or a man on fire throws himself through a window. When a man loses

his reason he will do anything. All we can do is stand at the cliff

and say goodbye. And try never to let it happen to us. And hope our

trying is enough.



You're getting a lot of letters from people who are going to dwell in

their damage, and say you hurt them, yadda yadda yadda. Other people,

well, they wrote it out, got it out of their systems, now they don't

even feel that thing you just read anymore. You know how it goes. Me,

I read your whole article, and I wasn't mad. I get that it was your

gut reaction, and that reaction is what you live out of. What you did

may not have been right, but it was natural, it was human, and it

spoke for a lot of people. So make your apology, accept the lesson,

and then do what you do best.



Talk about what you learned.



I'll be listening. :D