The tears of a clown

You could have knocked me down with a feather when I first heard that Owen Wilson was in hospital after a suicide attempt.

He’s got to be one of the few Hollywood stars that is never snapped without a big goofy grin on his face and always gives the impression of being happy.
And, as far as we’re concerned, why wouldn’t he be?
He’s popular with a number of box office hits under his belt, a slew of beautiful women on his arm (including up until recently, the lovely Kate Hudson) and he obviously isn’t short of a few bob either.
I guess it just goes to show that we really don’t know what goes on behind closed doors and highlights the pressures that success can exert on a person.
Suicide in itself is a selfish act although at the time of committing it, few people think of it that way.
If you’re so desperately unhappy with life that you choose to leave it, it stands to reason that you don’t feel loved enough to go on, so the fact that you’re leaving people behind that love you and have to cope with the knowledge they weren’t able to help you doesn’t really compute.
It’s hard to imagine a comedian being unhappy but when you think about it logically, as humans we often hide our true feelings behind a smile and a joke.
It’s therefore not really that big a stretch of the imagination to realise that someone who is always making jokes has many more problems bottled up inside than anyone around would realise.
In truth Smokey Robinson had it right when he sang: “there’s some sad things known to man, but ain’t too much sadder than, the tears of a clown when there’s no one around”.