Originally published June 2018
Last week, the country lost a towering talent and the world lost a true friend. Anthony Bourdain was much more than a television personality. He was a gifted observer, a marvelous writer and despite his tough persona, a man who easily loved people for their core humanity. To me, he was a teacher and role model. It misses the point to say that his work focused on food or travel. Food and travel were present in his work but both played supporting roles. I believe his work was about the diverse, beautiful ways people create culture and express humanity. Travel allowed him to discover the world’s myriad cultures and food permitted him to communicate with people intimately.
If it had been reported that Tony suffered a heart attack or died in a plane crash, it would not have surprised me. I would not have been shocked if he had relapsed and died of an overdose. He might have found some dark irony in going out like Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin. But suicide, that surprised me. It wasn’t because he had most people’s dream job or that he was wealthy. It wasn’t that he had a young daughter or that he exuded a cool confidence. What surprised me was that he had walked through the fire, experienced the depths of human existence, and found the inner strength to rescue himself. In doing so, he learned to live more skillfully. People who do that are not people I consider major suicide risks.
I know a fair amount about depression and suicide. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees are in Psychology. I worked as a mental health therapist for twenty years, much of the time as a supervising clinician assisting other therapists with their most difficult cases. Then there is this… The early years of my life were a kaleidoscope of violence, addiction, poverty, pain, abuse and neglect. By the time I was 22 years old, I was sick of it all. That’s how I found myself sitting on the edge of a bed with a pistol in one hand and a bullet in the other. I was fully ready to take my own life. It would not have been difficult. I wasn’t mentally ill or irrational. I just wanted the pain to stop. And being clear-headed, I posed for myself one last challenge. If I could think of just one reason to live, something I would miss, I wouldn’t do it. I gave myself one hour. So, I sat and thought about all I had done, all that had been done to me, all the things I had been through, all the people I knew and all the grim prospects I saw for myself. It took me about 45 minutes, but I finally thought of one thing I would miss. So I set the gun aside and resolved that if I was going to live, I couldn’t continue to live as I had been living. I would rescue myself.
Over the years, I have come to see suicide as a failure of mindfulness. Mindfulness is a radical, clear-visioned acceptance of reality. When we are mindful, we are free to experience positive and negative emotions with the knowledge and acceptance that everything changes. When we are mindful, we do not attach ourselves to these feelings or the events from which they arise. We don’t reject or attempt to flee from that which is painful. We don’t cling to that which is pleasurable for that, too will end. We don’t spend time worrying about what might happen and we don’t spend time reliving that which has passed. We focus on the present, knowing that if we live skillfully in the present, we will have a beautiful past and a promising future.
So R.I.P. Tony. You taught me that travel is not about the what and the where but about the who, the how and the why. You taught me that writing is most universal when it is most personal. I will mindfully accept your action knowing that nothing is permanent. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
But don’t take my word for it. Investigate for yourselves.
Take care.