'You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it'

The death of comedian Robin Williams yesterday has prompted tributes from everyone from Steven Speilberg to Barack Obama. The 63-year-old died at his home in California of asphyxia in an apparent suicide. Our contributors share their thoughts.

This piece includes frank discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available.

Tim Batt, comedian, Auckland

I wasn’t going to comment on the passing of Robin Williams because it seemed like there was nothing to add to the collective outpouring of grief among my friends and the wider world online. It seems that all of us can agree on the fact that he was a genius and juggernaut of comedy, and meant a lot to anyone old enough to enjoy even one era out of his long career and huge body of work. But one thing I kept encountering online was people saying how he was a great man “in spite of” his demons. No.

 It would be lovely to see one outcome of the passing of this phenomenal man to be a greater effort to support those around us who are wired differently.

Robin Williams was great, like so many individuals, because his brain worked differently to everyone else’s. His struggles came from the same place that allowed him to seamlessly slip from one character to another, or write and deliver some of the finest stand up of his generation, or improvise characters and scenes to a basically unparalleled degree. The people who contribute the most to our collective experience are often wired differently. And this makes perfect sense. It would be lovely to see one outcome of the passing of this phenomenal man to be a greater effort to support those around us who are wired differently. Often, they have much to give us and we have much to give them. Rest in peace, Mr Robin Williams.

Hadley Donaldson, illustrator, Auckland

Mork & Mindy was still on the air when I was a little kid. I was just old enough to enjoy it, but too young to really understand it. Today I feel the same way about life.

Seeing the online outpouring about the sad and sudden demise of Robin Williams made me think about how prominently he figured in many of our lives/childhoods as an entertainer.

In the last couple of decades he’d became something of a worn-out gag, a punching bag.

Hell, I found him annoying about as often as he made laugh. But that’s neither here nor there.

It’s too easy to forget the good people did, to take their presence in our lives for granted. We expect they’ll always be around, or more accurately, we never truly considered them being gone. Yet, we forget it over and over again, rudely reminded when someone else leaves.

Thing is, I don’t think humans are built to appreciate everyone and everything around them at all times. A nice idea to be sure, but it’d drive you nuts. Worth a good go though.

Let's try to take one another, and just as importantly, ourselves, a little less for granted.

Adam Goodall, The State of Things blogger, Dunedin

In 2002, Robin Williams dropped three movies: Insomnia, One Hour Photo and Death to Smoochy. These weren’t the types of films Williams normally made. Insomnia was a bleak neo-noir where he played a villainous foil to Al Pacino (I’ve still never seen it); One Hour Photo saw Mark Romanek cast him as a creepy, low-key photo developer; Death to Smoochy was an aggressively vulgar black comedy about children's television with Williams as its corroded centre. I rented Smoochy from Video Ezy when I was 13. I watched it with my parents. It was two of the most awkward hours of my life.

 I doubt that door would've been opened were it not for Williams, a genius at the height of his powers. We just didn't know it at the time.

A lot of my friends were sharing pictures and clips from Aladdin, from Dead Poet's Society, from Mrs Doubtfire and Good Morning Vietnam and Hook. That was their Robin Williams, but it was never mine. My Williams was the profane, sociopathic Rainbow Randolph, a pitiable wretch of a villain who consumed everything in his path.

Not many people saw Death to Smoochy. But for me, it was formative, opening a door to a style of comedy I barely knew and helping mould me as a writer. I doubt that door would've been opened were it not for Williams, a genius at the height of his powers. We just didn’t know it at the time.

Elle Hunt, The Wireless producer

Though the loss of Aladdin in a burglary hit me harder than that of the VHS player I’d neglected to take it out of, I wouldn’t say I was any more a fan of Robin Williams than anyone else who was a child in the early 1990s. The last time I gave his body of work any thought as an adult was as a point of reference, after my dad commented that my sister’s then-boyfriend bore him resemblance.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” I texted back. “Dead Poets? Mrs Doubtfire? One Hour Photo?”

“Not sure,” he replied, failing spectacularly to bunt the banter ball back.

I was saddened to hear of his passing yesterday in the sort of abstract way that any death you’re not directly impacted by is sad. But it became clear as the tributes filled up my Facebook newsfeed that he meant a lot to a lot of people.

And then there was this post from the Herald.

It’s evidence of the compulsion to zero in on ‘the New Zealand angle’ – often to the exclusion of hundreds of other equally or more relevant voices – taken to the most tasteless extreme. As though the facts that Robin Williams was a fan of the All Blacks and had once paid lip service to the scenery here (no doubt at the behest of another reporter looking for their ‘New Zealand angle’) made his death any more tragic or important or noteworthy to the good readers of the Herald.

I didn’t understand how the man I grew up watching as Mork could be someone who couldn’t cope with the world – how someone with that much frenetic, chaotic, baffling energy could be sad.

The only opportunity presented by death, if we must be so cynical or opportunistic as to look for one, is to remember that person. Their influence, their legacy, the lessons they taught, the impact they had on us. Not the one we – or, for god’s sake, bloody Jonah Lomu – had on them.

Megan Whelan, The Wireless senior producer

I always feel strange when a celebrity dies – a person I didn’t know but I feel like I did. Feeling sad seems wrong when it’s not my grief, but on Facebook and Twitter I watch friends post their thoughts into 140-character sound bites, and for a few minutes, everyone is just that little bit sadder.

When someone died by suicide, it’s even worse, because there but for the grace of medical intervention and a lot of hard work go I.

I remember reading about Robin Williams’ addiction to drugs and alcohol, and thinking “How can someone so talented, so funny, so apparently light-hearted be that messed up?” I didn’t understand how the man I grew up watching as Mork could be someone who couldn’t cope with the world – how someone with that much frenetic, chaotic, baffling energy could be sad.

But it turns out there are lots of people like him. Some of them are funny. Some aren’t. I don’t like the trope that great creativity only comes with a little bit of madness – I know plenty of creative people who don’t have any sign of mental ill-health, and vice versa. But there are so many who know what it feels like to not be able to see any light at the end of the tunnel, who don’t have an audience for their every joke. “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world,” he said. His did. Na-nu Na-nu.

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Cover image: Reuters