Vanity, vanity, all is vanity
On Monday, noted actor Michael K. Williams was found dead in his New York City apartment.
Those who knew him poured out their reminiscences on Twitter. But this is the one that stuck out to me:
I never had a scene with him as an extra, but I was on the set with him, had conversations, just a cool down to earth person, didn’t make me or anyone else feel like an extra. Man…. 💙🕊😢 #TheWire #MichaelKWilliams pic.twitter.com/xB5NpGr7nW
— Double L must Rock The Bells (@LoveThePuck) September 6, 2021
So many of our fellow humans think of success in terms of power, wealth, fame. Success is getting up that next rung on the ladder, that next million dollars, more likes and clicks. When in fact all that is vanity, and pointless.
Mr. Williams came from straitened circumstances. He often wondered why he survived when so many of his friends growing up didn't. And this is why: His work wasn't his latest role. His work was being the best human being he could be. And to do that, he had to be present. He had to be outside of himself, as he was with the person who wrote this tweet, who still remembered that kindness, that effortless humanity all those years later.
Power and wealth and fame are not markers of success. If those are your goals in life, I will gently suggest that you're not getting the point of what life is. A decent life, one which fulfills your mind and your soul, is not concerned with outward trappings. Don't get me wrong: I'm quite fond of my creature comforts. But there has to be something more than acquisition. In Donald Trump we see what a life centered solely around acquisitiveness is. It's empty, soulless, dead. As I wrote the other week, a life centered only on the self is a life wasted. If you're not connecting with other people, if you're not leaving the world better than you received it, what was the purpose of your life? People try to fill the emptiness they feel with external things, with addictions of various sorts—bigoted religious beliefs, authoritarian ideologies, mindless pursuit of pleasure—because to examine the true causes of that emptiness is too great a task. What a truly fulfilling life is to look inside you, so that you can go outside of yourself. That's frightening, and many would rather not do that. Pain comes from that, yes; but it's the pain of release, of letting go of the hand of death. It's escaping from the other pain we try to mask with fripperies. Once you escape that pain, once you confront it and take it into yourself and release it, you find your true purpose. And that purpose is to be a light unto the world.
The accolades Mr. Williams received from those who had encountered him all spoke to that light which shone from him. He was not "Michael K. Williams, actor," but a mere, fallible, wonderful human being who touched those around him. For that to be one's epitaph is greater than any monument to any dead emperor. Affecting people's lives so that they come off being better than they were before they met you is like saving the world.
Rest in eternal peace and power, Mr. Williams. The world needs more men and women like you.