Dear Philip Seymour Hoffman,
In addition to your films, I feel incredibly blessed to have seen you in the stage productions of Sam Shepard's, True West and Chekhov's, The Seagull in New York City. You're one of my favorite actors of all time! You've made made me laugh and cry as much if not more than any other performer - and in both instances I owe you for expanding my capacity to love. Thank you Philip! And you can understand why perhaps the news of your death earlier this morning came as quite a shock and left me with a bit of heavy heartedness. Knowing what I know, I feel quite sure that your being, your identity outside the physical form continues. I'm comforted by that. Yet instances such as this have to give me (and hopefully others) pause for thought, an opportunity to contemplate some of the signs of our times. It was a Saturday night. I'm not sure about New York City, but here in southern California, the night sky was filled with stars and I stood admiring them for some time. My husband and I danced like crazy to Pharrell Williams' new song Happy in our livingroom. Neither of us have any notoriety to speak of and the bank account isn't a source of security to lean on. Yet we found joy and a reason to live in the stars and a silly song. At the same time, you, with more money than you could spend in a life time and more fame than most will ever experience, thought your best option was a drug and a needle. Why? You live under the same stars. I feel sure if you had an awareness of your value, you would've made a different choice. Your thought would have gone beyond you. You would've remembered, if nothing else, that there was someone or something that you could have helped in some way in that moment. Once again you leave us with yet another example of someone who feels the emptiness of having "everything" the world convinces us we need to feel good, to feel loved, to feel satisfied. But over and over again history has shown us that this isn't the case - think Elvis, John Belushi, Whitney Houston - but for some reason we keep falling for it. Jim Carrey, who would know as well as anyone said:
“I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know that its not the answer.”
So often those of us who are committed to magnifying good and making a difference in the world focus our energies on those who are materially poor - who lack food, shelter, and what we consider basic necessities. Though, many studies show that often those people are among the most genuinely happy in the world. We forget about offering our support - even if that support is in the form of a prayer or healing meditation - to those who are spiritually poor, empty on the inside, who have gotten it all and still fill depraved because they've never found their connection to the only thing that matters. Where is there to go from there? What predicament that must be.
I have a heart. I'm walking this earth so I cannot help but shed some tears and feel deeply for you. But as one who is committed to light, I will use your example to remind me how blessed I am that I can feel pure delight when my bare feet touch a blade of grass, that I still notice the trees, and have a deep desire to help others and make a difference in the world. I could have chosen your path. I have all the human reasons to support that if I wanted to build a case. But I won't. I gave myself to the Light a long time ago. And there is no turning back.
I will always CELEBRATE your work, your amazing gifts. I will hold you up in my consciousness as one who continues and who ultimately WILL find freedom, will find the fountain not made by the hands of men (to paraphrase The Grateful Dead song). I'll remember to help the spiritual have-nots as much as the material have-nots and I hope those who have everything will never forget the simple pleasures of life and if they ever have a similar inclination on a Saturday night, I hope they will choose differently.
There is nothing wrong with having things as long as the things are in addition to, not instead of, a deep sense of self-worth born of feeling connected to Source, to Spirit, God, the Universe - whatever you name it. There is no substitute.
Journey on Philip, journey on.
