Norm Macdonald was depressed
see also: Douglas Adams. With a cameo appearance by Sting.
It’s been quite a while since I wrote my post on Douglas Adams, which is good and you should read it.
Today we’re going to talk another very funny, very depressed man, Norm Macdonald. A man who should need no introduction.
Norm died of cancer at age 61 in September of 2021, having told approximately zero people in the world that he had been ill.
The comedy world was shocked. We were all shocked.
Norm was a man of faith (in a strange way). He was also incredibly depressed. I want to talk about the nature of his depression and what we can learn from it.
Last year I listened to a longish interview with Norm. I’m trying to find a link to the entire interview, but right now I can only find it in / several / parts. Here are some excerpts:
Norm: I don’t believe in psychotherapy.
Interviewer: You don’t?
Norm: No.
Interviewer: Really? Why is that?
Norm: Because I’ve read psychotherapists, and I don’t agree with their … I have my own beliefs.
Interviewer: But do you spend a lot of time in self-reflection?
Norm: Yeah. I ruminate, I have a theory that, uh, that people are in deep denial of death. And I’m not.
Interviewer: You know you don’t want to [die]?
Norm: I think most people don’t think they’re going to die. …
Interviewer: You know what’s funny that you say that, because even in the last week I’m like, nobody really thinks they’re going to die. You just can’t get your head around it because you’re too busy living.
Norm: Right, it’s almost impossible to comprehend, and everything you see is living, even if someone else dies it’s always a shock because they’ve always been alive. So it’s very hard, it is a hard thing to wrap your mind around….
Interviewer: Are you a happy person, like in general? You always have a slight smile. But … are you a sad person?
Norm: I mean, I think things are funny, so I laugh a lot.
Interviewer: But that doesn’t necessarily translate to happiness.
Norm: If I’m laughing I’m happy, I guess.
Interviewer: Where do you live?
Norm: I live in southern Califronia
Interviewer: Do you have a nice house?
Norm: No, I live in a very small apartment.
Interviewer: I’m surprised that you don’t have a big, you know, you’re Norm Macdonald.
Norm: Well I don’t like things. I never have. I’ve always felt very burdened down by them. The only thing I can’t throw away is when my child gets me a present, so I have those things, but otherwise I just have a bed.
Interviewer: You don’t just have a bed!
Norm: Well I, well I …
Interviewer: You have a coffee pot.
Norm: No I don’t.
Interviewer: A tea pot?
Norm: No.
Interviewer: A microwave?
Norm: I always eat at Joe’s Diner, which is near my apartment.
Interviewer: So you bring a girl home, or a friend, and there’s no place for them to …
Norm: I don’t bring girls home. I don’t have sex with girls … or men.
Interviewer: Wait a minute, Norm Macdonald. You’re a sexy dude,
Norm: Yeah but I don’t … I mean I have had sex …
Interviewer: When’s the last time you had sex?
Norm: Probably ten years ago.
Interviewer: Shut up!
Norm: I find sex very repetitive and dull and kind of pointless.
Interviewer: You’re kidding! This is a bit!
Norm: No it’s not. I had a lot of sex when I was a young man, when I was young, when I was 19 or 20, I had a lot of sex, and it’s just the same thing over and over.
Interviewer: Right, it feels really good. So start from the beginning and do it again. I mean, why wouldn’t you?
Norm: Well I mean eating ice cream is good too until you get tired of it.
Interviewer: But the next day you try a different flavor. There’s thousands of flavors of ice cream.
Norm: But not of women. ….
Interviewer: This attitude you have could be said for anything though. For anything!
Norm: Yeah, well, I don’t do very much.
Norm: I came to the realization that we’re all plunging headlong into death. So to me, if you’re plunging down an abyss, headlong into death, the idea of grabbing on to another human being just to touch them for a moment on your way seems futile to me, it seems more pathetic than facing it. Just to me, personally. I don’t condemn people for doing it. But I like looking, I try to look life square in the eye, as terrifying as it is, and it is the most terrifying thing there is.
Interviewer: What? Being alive?
Norm: Yeah.
Interviewer: But it’s not!
Norm: Because being alive means dying.
Interviewer: But Norm, that is such a fatalistic way to look at it, there is so much in life that you are denying yourself, and I think that you think you have reasons for it. But … if you don’t have someone that you can … do you ever cry? Do you cry all by yourself?
Norm: Yes. Of course I cry.
Interviewer: There’s no one you can call? You need a therapist?
Norm: Oh no no no.
Interviewer: You need to be in therapy. I think somebody broke you.
Norm: No, no.
Interviewer: Somebody either hurt you, or broke your heart, or you were betrayed by a friend, you don’t trust people, you won’t let anybody get close to you, you hide it all behind this smiling clown.
Norm: No-one did anything to me, I was just alone, I live alone and I’ll die alone, just like my father did.… He died alone, because everyone dies alone. I mean all you can hope for is someone watching you die, but I don’t really want that.
Interviewer: Well you won’t have that beacuse you don’t have any friends!
Norm: I don’t want someone to watch me die. … Anything to stay alive. Wouldn’t you like to stay alive?
Interviewer: Not really.
Norm: You’re only saying that because it’s impossible.
Norm: The problem with antidepressants is, then you don’t face life. I mean, why not just do heroin?
Interviewer: I have a news flash for you. You’re not facing life, you’re not living your life, you’re waiting it out. You are waiting it out, Norm. Norm you have everything, from the outside: you’re hilarious, you are a good looking guy, you’re famous, you have beautiful blue eyes. You’re Norm Macdonald! And you are, you’re, you’re, you’re shattering my image of you, like, you could be a player, you could have whatever you want, and clearly you want nothing and you just want to be depressed! You’re depressed! You need to see someone!
Norm: No, no, no, I’m not depressed at all. I’m in no way depressed. But having nothing and having something are exactly the same thing ….
But all I’m saying is, since eternity, since life is, if you know mathematics, a fraction of infinity is zero, no matter what the fraction is, you know what I’m saying. You could live a hundred years, a thousand years, a billion years, it’s all zero if it’s on a continuum of eternity. So it doesn’t matter what you do or what you don’t do.
Interviewer: So why don’t you go crazy? Why don’t you go effin’ crazy?
Norm: I don’t go crazy because I don’t allow myself the delusions that other people allow themselves. I know that you have to go crazy to in some way to survive life, but I try to not do that.
Interviewer: Let me ask you this about women though. So you don’t even have physical attraction before you get to the point of talking yourself out of it? There’s never a moment where you’re like, wow, she’s really pretty, I think she’s really hot.
Norm: No, I’m not. I mean, I can see that she’s pretty and stuff like that, but I’m far beyond. I’m not a child, I’m not a child! You know what I mean? If I look at a game of Monopoly, I don’t go “I gotta play that.” If I look at a shiny bead, I don’t go “I have to have that” and roll it around in my fingers. You know? As the scriptures say, you know, when you’re a boy, you do boyish things, and when you’re a man, you …
Interviewer: Men still do it! I don’t know if you’re …
Norm: Well I know, they act like boys.
Interviewer: Why is that boyish? It’s human. Human!
Norm: No, it’s a child, it’s being a child for your whole life. I know most people are children for their whole life, and it’s a way of having fun.
Why do I say Norm was depressed?
Norm tells us, in the clip above, that he is not depressed. He’s quite certain that he’s not depressed. I am 100% certain that he was, in fact depressed. Even though I never met the man, I know this about him and he did not. Having read through the above, you’re probably also pretty clear that he was depressed.
How do we make this judgment? Why do we think we are correct and he was incorrect? And what does all of this tell us about the nature of depression and the human nature in general? (As usual, we’re diving into the big questions.)
Norm Macdonald and Douglas Adams
I’m sure you went back and read my old piece on Douglas Adams that I linked above. I’m going to link it again here just in case somehow you forgot to click on it the first time. And to make it even easier on you, I’m going to screenshot a couple of the key paragraphs.
The similarity between Douglas Adams and Norm Macdonald is really cool.
For Douglas Adams, space is so big that life is inherently pointless. Most people do everything they can to avoid noticing this simple, obviously true fact about the world. If you think about this very obvious fact, you will realize that nothing in life is worth doing.
For Norm Macdonald, time is so long that life is inherently pointless. Most people do everything they can to avoid noticing this simple, obviously true fact about the world. If you think about this very obvious fact, you will realize that nothing in life is worth doing.
Cool, right? Douglas Adams: space :: Norm Macdonald: time. Both of these brilliant comedians — two of my absolute favorites — turned a fundamental aspect of the universe into a reason to be depressed!
Interestingly, Douglas Adams knew that he was depressed, while Norm Macdonald denied that he was depressed.
Norm’s view of himself was something like this: «I’m not depressed! It’s just that, you know, nothing in the world is worth doing, and anyone who says otherwise has not understood the fundamental nature of existence.»
Douglas Adam’s view of himself went more like this:: «It seems like nothing is worth doing. Part of me knows that this belief is the depression talking, but also it seems to be true.»
A subtle distinction, but an important one! Douglas Adams had a clue about his own depression, and he eventually felt better. Norm did not have a clue, and he never recovered from his depression. As they say: the first step in healing is understanding that you have a problem.
I want to talk about Norm’s intellectual defense of his own depression. To re-quote a couple of the key lines:
I came to the realization that we’re all plunging headlong into death. So to me, if you’re plunging down an abyss, headlong into death, the idea of grabbing on to another human being just to touch them for a moment on your way seems futile to me, it seems more pathetic than facing it. … I try to look life square in the eye, as terrifying as it is, and it is the most terrifying thing there is.
…
[I]f you know mathematics, a fraction of infinity is zero, no matter what the fraction is, you know what I’m saying. You could live a hundred years, a thousand years, a billion years, it’s all zero if it’s on a continuum of eternity. So it doesn’t matter what you do or what you don’t do.
Now, it’s really difficult to say what I’m going to say next. I’ve been trying to work out how to say it for years now! I’m sure I won’t get it right, but it’s time to start trying. This next bit, in fact, is the entire reason I’m writing this. Are you ready? Here goes.
YOUR MIND IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS YOUR FEELINGS.
Well shit, I said that before.
But stay with me. See if you can see how it links up to Norm Macdonald in particular, and maybe you can understand why I keep saying it.
Let’s go inside Norm’s mind. Or inside Norm’s self, really: his mind, body, beliefs, soul, everything that made him what he was. It’s an imaginary journey into a place we’ve never been and can never truly go, but I think we can find our way forward anyway.
This is how Norm would describe his situation:
«I look at the world and I notice some things. I notice that time is infinite, and as a result I feel that nothing I could ever do or say could ever really matter. I notice that life ends in death, and as a result I feel terrified. I notice that no-one around me seems to realize that nothing matters and that life itself is terrifying, and I conclude that all of them are simply stupid, or oblivious, or perhaps just intentionally distracting themselves. If they were to be brave, and intelligent, as I am, and fact up to reality, then they would realize the same things that I know, and they also would act the way that I act. Therefore, I am not depressed! It is everyone else who is foolish.»
In other words, Norm believes that the mind comes first. Norm believes that this is the way human nature works. You look at the world, and you notice facts, and those facts naturally cause emotions. The emotions are secondary. The facts are the causes and the emotions are the results. Or, to be more precise, the noticing of the facts is the cause, and the emotions are the results.
In yet other words, Norm believes the following: The world is the way that it is. Anybody who notices the world is the way that it is will have the same reaction to it that I am having, because the correct and true order of things is.
TL;DR version: Facts exist —> human notices facts exist —> emotions naturally result.
This is where Norm goes wrong.
Also, I think, more or less everyone in the history of the world other than me agrees with Norm. Everyone is wrong. All of you.
Emotions and sensations exist in your body, right now. To an unrecognized and incredibly important degree, all of your beliefs are sensations in your body. This includes your beliefs about “things that matter” and “things that don’t matter” and “time” and “space” and “life” and “death” and “fear” and literally everything else. Other people, who have different sensations in their bodies, will NOT will NOT will NOT have the same reactions to these things that you are having. Because those reactions themselves are, in large part, sensations in their bodies! (And those people are not you, and their feelings are not your feelings.)
The actual order of things goes like this.
Facts exist —> human notices facts exist —> human processes facts through human’s pre-existing bodily/emotional/sensational/belief state —> emotions result but the resulting emotions reflect the human’s pre-existing bodily/emotional/sensational/belief state in relation to the human’s beliefs about the underlying reality.
In short — and this is true about everything, all the time, for all of us. Nothing in the universe requires you to have any specific emotional reaction to any specific event. The details of your emotional reaction are due to your pre-existing state of being plus your beliefs about the appropriate emotional reaction.
Now, Norm is going to have a rejoinder to me.
Am I saying, Norm will ask, that it is not true that we are all plunging headlong into death? Am I saying that it is not true that death is terrifying? Am I saying that it is not true that 100 years divided by infinity years equates to zero point zero zero zero zero percent? Am I saying that it is not true that most people are afraid of death and afraid to notice how short life is?
My answer to all of those questions is the same: “yes, but also no.” There is some truth in each of the ideas, yes. But in each case, the truth does not authorize or require any particular emotional response. None of these rhetorical questions gives anyone a reason to be depressed or to believe that nothing matters. None of them gives anyone a reason to be afraid of death — or afraid of anything else, for that matter.
If it feels like it does give you a reason: well, that’s because of your pre-existing emotional state. Look carefully into yourself and see what was in there, inside yourself, before you started thinking about it. Because the sensations always come first.
I’m really proud of this next bit
Imagine that God himself, dressed as a combination of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, came down to earth, and told Norm the following.
Hey Norm, I know you’re upset that time is infinite and your life on earth is short. Well, here’s some good news! It turns out that the universe is only going to be in existence for another 25 years. And because I like you so much, I’m going to let you live through all 25 of those years. You will see the end of the universe itself. What comes after that? Nothing. Nothing at all, ever! Also, you won’t have to die. Death is simply not something you will go through. The universe itself will wink out of existence, and be replaced by nothing at all. Also, despite what people have told you, it is in fact the case that the universe did not exist before you were born. Your birth coincided with the creation of the universe. So the time frame of your existence is not zero percent of all the time that has ever existed or will ever exist — in fact, it’s 100%.
Would this cure Norm’s sadness? Or would he find this new universe just as sad and pointless as the old one?
I’m pretty sure I know the answer. (Don’t you?) My answer is: Norm would still be just as depressed. He would just find new reasons to justify his depression. (“The universe will only exist for 25 more years? How depressing!”) The problem was never the nature of the universe or the length of time or the insignificance of a single person’s life when balanced against the infinity of the universe — none of that. It was always the sensations in Norm’s body.
Norm Macdonald was depressed, and changing some facts about the outside world was never going to change that fact.
Or so I say, anyway. What do you think — am I right?
I imagine Norm’s response. “But when I think about the universe being infinite and myself being tiny, it feels true that I need to be depressed about that.”
Exactly. It feels true. That’s a feeling. It’s a sensation.
Feel the sensation. Feel your feelings. Notice that your sensations authorize other sensations. Notice that your belief is also a sensation! Notice that all of it forms a loop: the sensations generate additional sensations, which in turn generate further sensations. And then your mind notices the sensations forming sensations forming sensations — and your mind, somehow, convinces you that it is the mind that’s been in charge this whole time.
That’s the trick. That’s the thing to look for. How does your mind get away with lying to you all the time? Because of course it’s not just Norm — it’s all of us who suffer from any sort of depression (or anxiety or OCD or PTSD or etc. etc. etc.). The psychologists call it a mental illness — they claim that the damage is located in the mind. But if you pay attention, you’ll realize that’s not where the problem is.
There’s an old Sting song that come back to me all the time, no doubt in part because it came out when I was a teenager. (Have I talked about this before?)
“I’ve been to every single book I know / [try to] soothe the thoughts that plague me so.”
I freaking love this song! But sadly, in this line, Sting is simply confused. Because like all of us he has never really paid attention to his sensations.
Sting, my lifelong friend who of course I’ve never met: Your thoughts have never plagued you. Only your sensations can plague you. I mean, your thoughts call up sensations, yes, of course they do. But the relationship between your thoughts and your sensations is always contingent. It can change. You can have the same old “painful” thought, but without any painful sensations. Pay attention! Pay attention to the relation between the thoughts and the sensations! Find the difference, find the space between thought and feeling. There’s no need to try to stop the thoughts, or soothe them. All your thoughts are just thoughts. Your sensations are the problem.
From this same song, I also really like one line near the end: “I struggle to avoid any help at hand.” That line is so real. And it brings us back to Norm Macdonald, with his intentional refusal to look away from his own fear of his own death. There is a nobility to that struggle, in its many forms. I share in the struggle. None of this is easy! It’s incredibly difficult! But it becomes easier when you look carefully and notice where the problem actually lies.
One more time, I leave you with this plea, this time addressed (far too late) directly to Norm Macdonald:
Your problem is not in your mind, in your thoughts, in your ideas. Your problem is not even in death itself. Your problem is in your sensations, and only there. Once you stop fearing your own fear — once you realize, all the way down in the body realize, that even your fear of death is only a sensation in your body — well, you may not stop fearing death, but you will stop letting that fear destroy your ability to find joy in life. Your depression is just depression. It does not reflect a deep truth about the universe. It only reflects itself!
As always, thanks for reading. Please leave comments, complaints, or anything else in comments.
Very interesting and tragic. These comedians—surely one of the most traumatized/dissociated group of successful/attractive people in the world. Have you seen Hannah Gadsby? She’s the only one who feels real to me. I imagine Macdonald didn’t like sex, therapy and possessions because they all triggered him. Other people triggered him, there was so much pain in his past that nearly everything triggered him. I imagine he didn’t think he was depressed because he was so dissociated from his own experience and memories that he didn’t feel much. I imagine he didn’t feel much because feeling a little led to more and he learned to cut them off. I imagine he was glad to die of cancer. Well, this is my understanding. He says: “No-one did anything to me, I was just alone" Probably someone did do something to him, abuse him, but just being unloved and unwanted is enough to make a person this way.