Three days ago I was moving at the speed of light. Well, at least the speed of sound. And everyone could hear me. Don’t you ever get days like that?

Where everyone else seems to be moving in slow-mo by contrast – where you’re like the cartoon Tasmanian Devil, spinning here, spinning there, spinning damn near everywhere.

In conversation, my comebacks were witty and damning. My attention in meetings was so viper-quick, I nearly got whiplash. So did everyone else.

And it made me think of Robin Williams.

The man whose unexpected death last week so unexpectedly upset me.

When a celebrity dies, we tend to have conflicting thoughts on it.

We may have loved them as a personality and feel sad that we’ve lost them.

And then some tiny, cynical part of our brain screams: you didn’t even know him! What do you have to feel sad about?

You’re still alive. They were probably arrogant and self-righteous anyway.

I find myself apologising for feeling sadness at the loss of someone I never met – I’m still, for example, embarrassed about how upset I was when Princess Diana died despite the fact I was a pre-teen. But last week, when I heard the news about Robin Williams, it was a shock, first. But then it became a kind of empty, dreadfully sad realisation.

If you’d have asked me a week before whether I was a fan of his, I would’ve said yes – I’ve always loved his characters and watched his stand-up routines numerous times. But I was never a fan-fan. The ones who pay to go see people. The ones who know every detail of their celeb’s life, down to their shoe size.

So when they announced his death I was surprised at just how sad I felt.

It really felt like I’d lost something. And it still does.

Here was someone whose mental acrobatics made The Road Runner look slow.

His voices were funny, sure. His one-liners were unique. His characters were utterly believable.

But what we loved most about him was his speed – and the way we could never tell in which direction he’d go next. And he never went the way we thought he might.

This energy of his – to which the rest of us could only react at a slower frame-rate – was a little bit of magic, right here in the real world. I’m nothing like Robin Williams – alas. Nobody is. I think that’s why so many of us felt so unexpectedly sad – we know that very few people are born special. And he was.

But the teeny bit of energy and Road Runner zaniness I sometimes feel is special.

I feel utterly powerful and so at one with whatever I’m doing.

Now, every time I am blessed for a day with that little spark of creative goodness I will think of Robin Williams and smile. Or perhaps laugh maniacally. His fabulous burst through life was shorter than we would have liked – but wow, how we enjoyed it.

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