Stephen Fry is always entertaining (to me anyway!) and usually gives interesting reflections on the absurdness of life. Mainly known as a television comedian in the UK, he can present as annoyingly clever and full of self confidence. Actor, comedian, writer (of plays, novels, newspaper column, poetry) - he even built his first website 10 years ago, his current site comes complete with blog and forum..
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My recent posts have highlighted the less than perfect starts of people who went on to great success in their chosen fields. Despite an affluent background, Stephen Fry described his teenage years as having a “tendency to lie, cheat and steal“. So much so that at 18 he was sent to prison for 3 months for credit card fraud!
He recovered from this setback to get to Cambridge University, where, apart from academic success, he started his long running comedy partnership with Hugh Laurie. They first appeared on stage together in 1980 at the Edinburgh Festival, along with future actress and Oscar winning writer Emma Thompson.
In recent years he has been very open about his bipolar mental illness (or manic depression), to which he attributes his wild mood swings. In 1995 he walked out of a play at the beginning of its West End (London) run and vanished. After many lurid front page headlines, he turned up in Belgium having contemplating suicide as a way out of his depression.
This is a very potted history of a very interesting, talented person. I include it simply to show that whatever talents or gifts Stephen may have been born with, going to prison when you’re 18 isn’t usually a precursor to a glittering career! And having met many people with bipolar mental illness over my years in psychiatry, those of us who aren’t prone to extremes of mood we have little control over have even less reason to feel sorry for ourselves.
Do you agree with Stephen? Is self pity a worse deadly sin such as envy? Do you find yourself prone to ruminating about your misfortunes and what is lacking in your life? As I have said before, apart from hacking off others, you will only feed your negative thoughts and perpetuate your lack of “whatever”.
