My Father's Words

Whitney Houston brings back echoes of my father’s words.

I don’t remember the exact year, maybe 1964 or ’65. I was about six. I was watching our first color TV with my dad. A comedian performed on his weekly show.

After it was over, my dad said, “The people who make us happy are often unhappy people.”

I remember wondering how that could be. After all, the guy was saying and doing funny things, the audience was laughing and clapping; they loved him. It looked like he was having so much fun, therefore “happy.”

I always remember that as one of the first times my father said something that made no sense to me, but I knew somehow that I should store that little pearl.

Years passed and many times over my dad’s words have proven to be true. I could start listing all the comedians, actors, musicians, singers, poets and painters who led troubled lives and died troubled deaths, but I leave that to you because they are too many.

So it is again. Whitney Houston is dead.

We are saddened at the loss of someone who had the talent, the beauty and the drive. She had wealth and the adoration of millions. Who could want anything more? She seemed to have pursued happiness and when, by all measures that society attaches to success, she caught it only to find that she was not happy.

In this day of instant news, camera phones in every pocket and the insatiable appetite for gossip and dirt, her unhappiness had been on full display for some time. We scorned and ridiculed her for not leading a life that matched the beauty that she had once shown us on stage.

We live vicariously through entertainers. We miss the fact that their achievements are a byproduct of a life out of balance. We thrill at their affluence and imagine how happy we’d be if fate smiled on us so brightly. We’re angered and contemptuous when that someone takes away our illusion of store-bought happiness. We jeer and salivate wide-eyed at the TV, Twitter and tabloids that capture every moment as they spiral back to earth trailing a tail of flame.

We’ll see and hear every lurid detail of Whitney’s long demise and terrible last few days as long as the ratings hold up. There’ll be a spike in online searches and iTunes sales. Investigative reports will be narrated with baritone gravitas in a parody of real news. Onlookers and hangers-on will get their seconds of fame telling what they saw. Everybody will care about her until she fades from the news again.

We’ll find another to marvel at while their surfaces gleam, colors shine and their song is in tune. Again, we’ll find that living our lives through someone else’s outward appearance is a formula for disappointment.

Paint cracks and peels. Rust bubbles up. Their frail inner self shows through. We hate them for that. We throw rocks at them like an abandoned amusement park ride. The only thrill left is the sound of crashing glass when we hit the mark. Then even that is gone as the ride crumbles to rubble beyond recognition.

Many still don‘t get how those who bring us the greatest joys can be so self-destructive and unhappy. It’s as though they take on responsibility for our happiness by losing theirs. If they try to shirk that responsibility, we resent them. If they take it on and fail, we despise them.

My dad's words ring true and serve as a reminder to enjoy and admire someone's high achievements, as well as our own, in the right context. Don't think that great achievements in one arena automatically translate to perfection and happiness in all of life. That's a formula for bitter disappointment.