Mad World
A man sits in a rustic room with a guitar, his young daughter Diva beside him, a second guitar in hand. They begin to play, harmonizing in melodic easy cadence together, in flow with one another, a big hand slap for the camera together at the finish. Its Mid-March, the world is just beginning to unravel in a swirl of pandemic, politics and the teeming frustration that 8 minutes of injustice will soon ignite.
A small happy throwaway moment between father and daughter.
Thirty seven years ago, the same man is 21, singing this same song to stadiums of thousands of screaming fans. His name is Curt Smith and he is a part of a band called Tears For Fears. He is at the top of the music world, singing Mad World in a rebellious tone that gives no clue to the contented man he appear to be now. His daughter has honed her talent on her father’s work.
He has aged well and the song Mad World still rings true. But what happens next is surprising. In weeks, this YouTube clip amasses over four million views and Curt and Diva are suddenly making the morning talk show rounds.
In a world of unrest, what makes this simple moment between an aging rocker father and his talented daughter go viral? Over the coming weeks, I am drawn back to listen over and over, each time feeling it quiet the unease within myself. There is something comforting in seeing a music legend successfully thread the needle of fatherhood.
“When people run in circles, its a very very Mad World”
A girl in Costa Rica walks each morning 20 minutes to a bus that will take her into the zonas francas, the Free Zone, where she works for a technology company. She lives with her mother in a modest home where they spend every day together as best friends, cooking plantains, eggs, beans with hot sauce. Years ago she taught herself to play piano and she plays at night now to help her mother fall asleep at the end of the day. She’s earned a degree in marketing at the University of Costa Rica but waited for six months to graduate because the only professor who could grade her final thesis quit and there was no replacement.
Years earlier, her father was a senior director of a Costa Rican telecommunications company. He had a desk job but loved field excursions out to visit workers and inspect the wires and equipment. Until the day he travelled through the path near the Miravalles Volcano range to return home for dinner, his truck was trapped in an avalanche of falling rocks, burying him to the roofline under tons of stone. He never returned.
The following morning Costa Rican television crews camped outside her house where she sits hiding and confused. She’s 11. Her mother becomes her hero in the years ahead as well as both mother and father, today is her day now.
When asked what he would think of her now, she hesitates. “I think maybe he would be a little proud of me maybe?” Her voice falters and fades into remembering.
“And they feel the way that every child should, sit and listen,
sit and listen”
Another young woman lays in bed, staring up at stars from a light machine in the room, swirling in slow circles on the ceiling of her room, her eyes fixating on them to take her mind away. From this room where she’s connected to tubes, monitors blinking, nurses, surgeons and doctors who stream in and out non-stop.
Tears roll down her cheeks, she been sick for 24 hours now, 3 bags of chemo down, 3 more over the next 24 hours before this session is over. But she has fought this fight cancer for so long she remember her life before with blurred memories. She’ll sleep for 30 hours after it stops as the meds stream out of her body slowly. She runs a hand over her head, feeling the bare skin which always reminds her of the cancer inside her. Her father, a doctor himself, never leaves her side. Except for this year.
I know her father, he is a mountain of a man, physically and mentally. She’s endured unimaginable pains over the years. Her kidney failed and she underwent a transplant before the cancer, he has devoted his life to her, through Emory, John Hopkins and countless clinical trials in search of a cure, the steady drip of his only daughter’s delicate life hanging in balance.
Nothing stops him from seeing her, apartments near her hospital, trips to ensure she is home for Christmas or to her favorite place, the mountain ranges of Tennessee where she can take endless pictures of clouds, birds and feel her world enlarge again. After years of entrapment of her hospital rooms, she wants only to stare at clouds move across the sky and daydream of a normal life where she isn’t a burden upon her father. But of course she isn’t and has never been.
Coronavirus has become the only thing to ever keep him from her and as a doctor himself, the risks are magnified and so is his guilt.
His helplessness torments him, his inability to comfort her is agonizing. It’s Father’s Day and his love knows no boundaries but in a world torn apart, father and daughter know true quarantine in a way that few ever will.
She will spend the day watching the stars on the ceiling while her father will spend the day wondering how much longer, the date of a future reunion uncertain.
“Children waiting for the day they feel good,
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday…….”
Three days ago, I sit in a downtown Chicago rooftop bar waiting for a drink with a new friend. I met him two years ago, he owns his own business and we have things in common to talk about. He’s smart, Indian, funny, confident and good looking, introspective enough to make him an easy conversationalist.
He is one year divorced and it is the first time I’ve seen him since. He looks vibrant and happy, carefully weaving his company through coronavirus. He shares custody of his daughter and he literally explodes with happiness when asked about her, “Bro, she loves horses, well I think she does, but she loves riding ponies and I take her every chance I can’, beaming with pride.
I listen to him dote on his daughter, about splitting time, things planned, her future considered. Then I ask him about himself, between his business and daughter, is he making time for himself? He looks at me with a sideways smile and says ‘Nah man, I mean I know I should be but no, I’m all about my daughter right now, I only have so much time with her, you know bro?’
Oh I know, bro.
“And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad”
My own daughter is in NYC now, in more normal times we will meet for ramen noodles near her apt on the lower east side. She’s smart, independent, better informed on coronavirus and the world than I am. She tells me about The Argument on Spotify, she prefers her news balanced and not bubbled, she educates me on books, she took me to get my first tattoo and our conversations now are big and deep. She makes me playlists, shapes my thinking, amazes me daily.
She’s in Maine today, she’s escaped city quarantine into the fresh air and oceanside, renewing herself from weeks of lockdown alone to my great relief. In a life of ragged steps, she is the reward.
You are right, bro, you do have only so much time. My own daughter has become so much like me, I hope in all the best of ways and few of the worst.
But the truth is that memories are fluid, they roll forward and backwards inside of you. Even now, after our ramen lunches, when we say goodbye at the corner of Houston and 2nd I am the one who watches her stride confidently across the street, black boots, sunglasses, New York chic. But in my mind as I watch her walk into into the masses, I see her get smaller until she disappears, a backpack on her back, clenching a lunch box, looking up at the people around her.
Small girl in a Mad World. But like all fathers, I have to trust that we have done enough.
So back to the original question — why did Curt Smith and his daughter Diva singing together generate such a strong response? I think because there is reassurance in seeing fatherhood but yet why? Fatherhood can take so many shapes.
The underlying tone of this little clip is this: In a mad world, fatherhood is fluid but regardless of shape, it enlarges you.
Sebastion Junger, in his book Tribe, writes about what he calls the ‘self determination theory’ in which he states that individual contentment stems from feelings of authenticity, competency and purpose. Curt Smith and his daughter radiate all of those things, his purpose, her competency and their authentic flow together.
It is true for a father and son or daughter, it is likely also true for the larger world we live in.
Chicago reflected a city that I haven’t seen in three months, from the boarded up store fronts to the movie set quality of crowded street dining and empty tables inside, a city shifted on its axis from both protests and quarantines. I’m reminded of the other song Tears for Fears is better known for:
‘I can’t stand this indecision, married with a lack of vision’
Everybody wants to rule the world.
In your daughter’s eyes, Curt, you clearly do. In a Mad World, maybe today that is enough.
Enlarge your world. Happy Father’s Day.
