Fortunate Life

 Late again, though the Friday deadline is self-imposed, and the next of my readers, whoever they might be, to complain about this will be the first.  So here it is…

 This weekend I watched a film on DVD, “Foxcatcher”, featuring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo.  It takes place in the late 1980s in the US, primarily featuring Olympic wrestlers Mark (Tatum) and David (Ruffalo) Schultz, who enter into a bizarre relationship with John DuPont (Carell), heir to the vast DuPont fortune.

 Through the course of the narrative it becomes apparent that something is seriously wrong with DuPont, and he ends up shooting and killing David Schultz for no apparent reason.   Evidently an insanity plea was insufficient to keep him out of prison, where he died in 2010. 

 So here’s this multi-millionaire, with vast resources at his disposal, who nonetheless has all sorts of issues.  Not mentioned in the movie is his riding accident which resulted in him having to have his testicles removed.  And whatever mental issues he had were evidently not being diagnosed, much less treated.

We’ve also seen wealthy and successful celebrities like Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain fall victim to depression and kill themselves.  These weren’t people who fell into debt or addiction and their whole lives were collapsing around them:  they were rich and successful; Williams was famous for being perpetually cheerful and positive.  What induces them to do this?  Surely a powerful form of depression which eclipses all else and renders reason and religion, plus the strongest anti-depressants modern medicine can offer, impotent. 

 My own life has taken a deep downturn, for reasons I’d rather not go into until everything has finally been resolved conclusively, and it’s been a task to keep a positive attitude.  Fortunately, whatever other problems I may have, the severe strain of depression to which the aforementioned celebrities succumbed is not one of them.  I’m not under indictment or facing imminent criminal charges (that I know of) and thus in that regard I’m arguably better off than President #45.   Actually, his older brother Fred Jr. couldn’t take the pressure of meeting his father’s standards and expectations and slipped into an oblivion of alcoholism and despair.

 I’m neither married nor divorced and have no children, and at this age, short of becoming John Tyler (President #10) I’m unlikely to have any.  To my knowledge, my sole health issues are high blood pressure and high cholesterol, both of which seem to be under control with medication.  I exercise regularly and notwithstanding a prior blog entry to the contrary, am not Jabba the Hut.  I still have my man-eggs, and somehow managed to come out a bit ahead in the puberty lottery.  This is balanced by a suboptimal social life, but I’ve had enough long term intimate relationships that I can’t complain too much. 

 I’ve been a Beatles fan for ages.  In high school I was able to visit the USSR on a school trip in 1983, singing along to “Back in the USSR” in our hotel room in Kiev with my classmates.  McCartney wrote the song in 1968 without ever having visited the USSR; he meant it as a kind of counterpoint to Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys waxing poetic about the USA.  What’s even stranger is that he didn’t make to Russia until 2003, 13 years after the USSR collapsed.  This is Sir Paul McCartney, of all people.  I’m no one special.  How is this possible?

 I was also watching “The Crown”, the story of Queen Elizabeth II.   While Prince Phillip consistently comes off as a jerk, it’s also apparent that his childhood was difficult.  There was that horrible boot camp school up in Scotland, and his bizarre relationship with his sister, who died in a plane crash before WWII and he had to attend her funeral in Nazi Germany, of all places.  Princess Margaret had her relationship with Peter Townshend – confusingly, NOT the guitarist for The Who – sabotaged by royal concerns.  For all their wealth and power, the Royals are restricted in many ways which ordinary people don’t have to worry about; the tabloids at the checkout counter at Giant and Safeway will tell you that..  Fortunately, mortal risks are considerably attenuated since the UK is a parliamentary democracy, in which “supreme executive authority” indeed derives from a “mandate from the masses”, so the head of state is the Prime Minister, not whoever happens to be king or queen at the moment.  But the four Romanov princesses, the Tsar and Tsarina, and the Tsarevitch met a deadly end in Sverdlovsk in July 1918 at the hands of the Bolsheviks.   That boy had the additional affliction of hemophilia.  So not all is necessarily sunny and rosy for royals of any country.

 I’ve handled umpteen divorces as an attorney, but fortunately my own parents remained happily married until my father’s death in 2004 of a stroke at age 76.  My mother died of COVID last winter at the age of 86.  By this time my brother, sister and I were adults – my father lived to see my brother’s two older children born, making him a grandfather.  My mother lived to see my sister pop out two daughters, raising the tally of grandchildren to 5.  My aunts, uncles, and cousins are all – so far as I can tell – decent people.  And I’m on good terms with my brother and sister.  So family-wise, I lucked out as well.

 So here was simply my daily affirmation… and life goes on.