Every now and then while scrolling through theFacebook, I occasionally get a glimpse of someone posting some picture of Anthony Bourdain with some evocative quote he said at some point during his living life, probably from one of the television shows he hosted throughout his career.  Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the things he was paid to say on television were pretty good things and sounded pretty inspirational, but when the day is over, what perplexes me is why people hold him in such high regard still – last time I checked, the guy committed suicide; I’m not entirely sure that I’d want to take any sort of influence from him anymore.

If it’s something I haven’t said before, I personally don’t really have a lot of respect or sympathy for those who kill themselves; sure, every case is different, any maybe some people have such miserable lives that suicide is somewhat of a mercy, but in the cases like celebrities like Anthony Bourdain, who had celebrity, had money, influence, access and basically the easy life, all I can really do is shake my head and tilt my head like a confused dog at notion that their lives were so difficult and nobody understood them that they somehow rationalize that the only logical thing for them to do next is to kill themselves.

That being said, I’m often wondering why people still hold him, or at least the shit he’s said to such reverence as it’s done to this day?  Not that I had a tremendous amount of respect for some celebrity whose shows I never watched, but I didn’t really have any opinions against the guy, until I heard that he hung himself.  All I really wanted to ask was if his life were really that tormented and baseless that the only possible next step was to leave it?

It then got me thinking about the finale to The Good Place.  And as much respect and admiration I have for Mike Schur for having created Parks & Recreation, I did enjoy The Good Place, but the ending really got me thinking about the metaphorical implications of the finale, especially in comparison to the topic before.  Requisite spoiler warning ahead:

Continue reading “Why are people still inspired by Anthony Bourdain?” →