HIS NAME WAS NOT NEIL

I really appreciate the IMDB. It painstakingly chronicles a person’s body of work; lifetimes of collaborations, achievements, awards, hits, misses, and obscure efforts. You’d think, when perusing some profiles, that some beloved individuals would be the happiest, toughest, wealthiest, most carefree, grateful, well-adjusted people on Earth. Look at what they were a part of! Did we even know they DID that? Look at how they entertained and poured out their talents to delight others. Look at how fit and  beautiful they are! Oh, what we would do if we were in their shoes!
That’s the dilemma. That’s the mistake in meshing ordinary human beings with the characters they portray. In real life, problems— internal and external— don’t get resolved by the time the commercial is done, the curtain closes, or the credits roll. Popularity, fortune, and fame, to those who don’t have it, should fix everything, right? Clearly, they don’t. Suffering doesn’t discriminate.

You’ve got to have more than the superficial trappings of life to overcome the ugliness, heartbreak, disappointment and sadness in this world— something that cannot be bought; something that cannot be manufactured by human ingenuity; something inside.  

The enemy of our souls is not partial. His M.O. is still “steal, kill, destroy. It seems it’s the beautiful people; those whose lives and good fortunes we covet; those we hold in higher esteem than ourselves; those whose fictitious paths we hope to travel; those we only pretend to know; those we imagine are close to us, that he targets most. “If the beautiful people have to suffer” we foolishly think, “what hope is there for the rest of us?”

“What a pity”, we say. Then we go back to our routines because our sense of loss is fleeting. Our mourning is brief. There’s no real connection, because there was no real relationship. The screens, large and small, that were between us when they lived, will remain, and we will always be able to access those familiar strangers we called by fictitious names, and never feel the intense loss their loved ones endure. 
We didn’t know Kristoff. We knew Neil. Anytime we want to see him, he’ll be where we always encountered him— in living color. There's no such luxury for his loved ones and true friends.