We Are All Pagliacci

There’s a sad clown in every creative soul.

When Anthony Bourdain died, a friend asked me why I thought that such a kind and worldly person would kill himself.

I wanted to tell her what I really thought, but I didn’t think that she would understand.

Are you ready?

I wanted to tell her the joke about Pagliacci.

A joke that I once read in a comic called Watchmen.

It’s one of those jokes that make you think instead of laugh:

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci.”

And that’s why I thought Anthony Bourdain killed himself.

I don’t think he did it because he was sad or depressed; he did it because there was nothing left to do.

He reached the zenith of his creative form, and there was nowhere left to go.

In spite of all that he accomplished, in spite of everyone he ever loved, in spite of everything, there was a melancholy that seeped into every pore, swept into his blood, burrowed into his heart and became part of him.

It was always part of him.

And then it took over.

He couldn’t make it go away.

So, he killed himself.

I think it’s something that every creative person struggles with, to different degrees.

I’m not glorifying death, romanticising mental illness or discounting the fact that depression leads to suicide.

I believe that melancholy is the other side of creativity.

It is the opposite of the happiness that overwhelms us when we create things.

It is what we experience when we’re not being or feeling creative.

It is our ‘inactive’ state.

When we’re not creating, we’re taking in the world around us.

We’re processing, absorbing everything, and it gets overwhelming, at times.

But it’s like day and night.

It’s part of a cycle.

Part of what makes us creative.

This inactivity, this limbo, is what leads us to do something.

To wonder. To question. To take action.

Melancholy is the driving force of our creativity.

But it can also be the ultimate withdrawal; the feeling of uselessness and lack of inspiration that creeps into our minds when there is nothing to create.

Or say.

Or think.

Or do.

With every stroke of a pen, every pat of a brush, every click of a shutter, every note of music that resonates across the room, we’re chasing a high.

When that high goes away, what is left?

Melancholy.

A stoicism sets in, a heightened sensitivity to human suffering, an empathy that is boundless and so very often, helpless.

And a loneliness that most people will never, ever comprehend.

Some of us will find ways to fight it; we’ll find ways to stave off this melancholy.

Some of us will find peace through love or devotion.

Some of us will find solace in drink or drugs.

But for Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Robin Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Francesca Woodman, Diane Arbus, Chester Bennington, Tobi Wong, Wendy Williams, James Whale, Yukio Mishima, Kay Sage, Chris Cornell, Alexander McQueen, Robert Dickeson AKA Apex (RIP, junglist), Mark Rothko, Phyllis Hyman, Ian Curtis, Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Sylvia Plath, Hai Zi, Gerard de Nerval, Virginia Woolf, Wally Wood, Christiane Pflug, Hunter S. Thompson, Osamu Dazai, Stefan Zweig, Anton Furst, Arshile Gorky, David Foster Wallace, Spider Martin, Van Gogh, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Avicii, Jonathan Brandis, Emil Fuchs and many others, the only release was death.

It makes sense, though, doesn’t it?

The truth is, we are all Pagliacci.