174 thoughts on “Home Now”

1. Quite the emotional roller-coaster you’ve been riding as of late.
   First, losing your funny a little while back.
   Then later, the Enron pisstivity.
   Now, a dam-burst of existential sensitivity.
   What’s been going on in your life lately that we’re not privy to? It seems like there’s some underlying stuff that’s coming to the surface…and it seems like you’re slowly but surely letting it bubble to the surface.
   Then again….I’m totally lame and a dork so what do I know.
   Damn my social-work background…damn it to hell!
   🙂
   Peace.

2. One of the best examples i’ve ever seen of “rolling down the window” was at my school. A girl was walking in the hallway between classes, crying with mascara running all down her face, everyone giving her sneers or pity stares, and then this one teacher (one of my favourites) walks up with a sheepish kind of look on his face and hands her a tissue, not asking anything or judging, just giving a tissue. That gesture shocked me, i don’t know why, just the simplicity of it.

3. You know, what you say about Wil’s company…
   …is, I think, what you say about society.
   So, y’know. watch the witness, catch the wit, catch the spirit, catch the spit.
   The world is…the world is…
   Um…Love and life are deep, maybe…oh, as his skies are wide.
   So, in conclusion, exit the warrior, today’s Wil Wheaton.
   He gets high on you.
   AND the energy you trade.
   Then he gets right on to the friction of the day.
   Amen.
   Brah.

4. I’m glad some of you get it.
   I’m truly sorry for the rest.
   Bummer.

5. Who are the ‘rest’, Wil? Probably a stupid question.

6. Pay no attention to the post behind this one.

7. Hey Wil. I think it’s really cool that such an epiphany came to you at a very random moment. Perhaps the girl WAS listening to “Return of Saturn” also. I know if I was listening to “Simple Kind of Life”, I might be inclined to cry too.

8. Man I know how that goes. A few years ago I was walking around campus at school and there was a girl that I didnt know, and she was crying and crying, but I didn’t know why. I felt sort of bad for her, but didn’t think much of it. Then, later, when I got home, I just started bailing really hard for at least fifteen minutes, because of this girl I didnt know. sympathy is alive.

9. I think your website is the ‘rolled down window’. Thanks for caring enough to extend your energies and creativity to your fellow netizens, and for letting share a little of each others lives. Life in this world is difficult enough, if we don’t help each other, in our most dire times of need, then we don’t deserve to be here. Generosity is a cornerstone of a spiritual life.

10. Annessa’s story above made me think about kids, in relation to Wil’s story today. Kids are a whole lot more willing to roll down that window and say “Hey” to people.
    I know, we advocate “Do not talk to strangers”, but kids are just plain friendly. They don’t put up walls, they don’t judge. They think everyone is their friend, and wants to share cookies with them. Seeing the world with eyes wide open, ready for a new fresh experience.
    One of the first lessons I learned in Film school was to learn to see the world through the eyes of a child. Try to see it as fresh and new and exciting. This lesson has proven useful through my life as well.

11. Wil you have just put into words the exact reason why I post so much personal stuff on the box.
    I had been walking around trying not to see or feel the pain of my fellow man. I had been trying to hide my pain and feelings as well.
    A few years back I was in New York on The Eve of New Years. I was going through some tough shit. I was in hell. I wanted to scream for help. I wanted someone, anyone to to understand what was happening to me. I cried through the streets of New York and no one even glanced my way. They didn’t care about me or my little life. They were in their own little castles of the mind. I wonder how many of them were suffereing. Needing human contact. someone to tell them it would be okay. I was so alone in that crowd of people. I felt more alone then, than I ever have by myself. Planets never connecting, just orbiting around one another. It’s things like this that make me stop and ask how a stranger is doing or invite that loney old lady to my table when I’m having dinner in a resturant. I try to interact with people more, because you never know when that one little slip of kindness might make a difference. You never know when It might save someone’s life. I nearly threw away my life that night. I had no one to tell me to hang on, that things would eventually get better. I think of that when I see the said legion of faces on the street each day. Which one of these people has given up hope. Which one has lost the will to struggle with the mundane facts of living. I’ve learned to try and be more understanding with peoples mistakes and flaws. You never know what got them to that level. That moment when you allowed yourself to feel that womans pain is so important to remember in our daily lives. What can I do to help people who are suffering? I can’t approach evey stranger. So we must start withen our own lives. Pay attention to the people around you. Are they really okay? Are they on the verge of breaking down? We must first open ourselves up to people before we can begin to see that they have opened themselves up to us. Less Judgement more understanding. Less isolation, more giving and taking. That is truly the only way. Thanks Wil once agian you have opened up my own little window of understanding.

12. Wil and everyone else here,
    I just wanted to say that I have always found that I go through periods of hightened sensitivity to my environment and my feelings in response to it.
    Lately I have been feeling extra sensitive to these sorts of things and have found myself on the verge of (or in) tears on many occasions.
    Just reading something that strikes me as particularly beautiful or touching, seeing something that makes me think about how privlidged I am or just getting lost in my own thoughts has been enough to set me off recently.
    Unlike you I have felt sort of silly about these feelings and haven’t shared them very openly with anyone.
    I commend you for your fearlessness.
    Your message and the warm responses have really made me realize how many other people feel this way.
    It is nice to know. I don’t feel so silly about my hightened empathy now.

13. I’m a pessimist. If I could afford bullet proof glass, I’d have it installed.

14. What a cool post. Yes, we all need to let down our windows and let others in and let ourselves out.
    A really fine example of this is in clean up in aisle six. I found this on one of my favorite journals tonight and it brought tears to my eyes.
    *crosses fingers that link appears the right way*

15. freak. Didn’t show up….. so here ya go the other way……
    http://www.sysblog.com/archives/000175.html#000175

16. Xopher,
    Would you cry with the woman equally hard if you found out she is crying because
    a) she lost her beloved grandmother
    b) she is an Enron exec who just found out from a reporter that she is busted.
    People do feel bad for selfish reasons, too, you know. If you haven’t met people like that, I’m glad, but I sure have. People holding up signs that say “homeless, need money for food” aren’t necessarily going to spend it on food, either, but there are ways of helping if you really do care beyond just feeling some pity (eg. by donating to a food kitchen).
    I think most of us learn to put our energies with those who we think will deserve it – we become selective out of experience and a realization that we don’t have infinite energy. I think it’s important to keep trying to find out where we can help, though, because the alternative is so cold. So I again I think Wil’s basic instinct here is great, but I’m just saying you have to be careful.

17. >>>hey wil, I’m a bit concerned about your mental state.. I mean, it’s good that you care and you’re empathetic, I’m just concerned because you’re crying really easily lately
    Posted by t at May 7, 2002 07:49 PM

18. The great thing about you Wil is that you have a great deal of empathy..among other things.
    K

19. Hey Wil, Your desire and ability to connect and empathise with people is pehaps the very quality that attracts WWDN readers…certainly that’s a significant aspect for me. And, with the obvious occasional exception, it’s that quality that pervades the posts and has made this a nice community.
    Your own posts, particularly the early ones, made me cry because we have all had similar experiences…like being given so much crap about something that it just plain hurts or losing a dear relative like your great aunt. I don’t need to know you to connect any more than you need to know the girl in the car next to you.
    Obviously not everyone connects as deeply or in the same way as others, as some of the posts indicate, and not all our efforts to connect will be successful. But making the effort and developing a sensitivity to others and a sense of compassion is a good thing. Never let go of it…

20. I have been lurking here for quite a while, but haven’t posted.. Until this time, I haven’t had anything to say….
    I have been having problems with my neighbor for about a year. He does weird shit, and he’s scary. He just got out of the nuthouse. Today, the neighbor jumped over the back fence and stabbed my dog with a steak knife in the side, and on the way to the vet, (Chingu bleeding profusely in the back seat) my car broke down. I don’t carry a cell phone, and I didn’t know what to do.
    I am not a panic person, but I finally lost it, seeing my dog dying in the backseat, covered in blood, and me helpless. A man saw me crying and losing it shamelessly, and he pulled over. I was sitting on the curb with my dying dog’s head in my lap.. He pulled over and opened his car door. Chingu bled all over his back seat, and I cried all over the front. Chingu is lying at my feet right now, uncomfortable, but alive. I don’t know who that man is, but I want to say thank you for taking a minute, and being a person.. Sometimes strangers are all we got..

21. Wil, this is a tough thing to say, but you really should listen:
    These admissions of yours are eating away at your hard man image, and the chances of you appearing with Vinny Jones in the next Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels movie are severely diminished.
    What you should have done is got out of your car, stepped over, opened her car door, politely excused yourself in a Cockney accent, took the phone, dropped it to the ground and crushed it into pieces, told her to “get a life, luv”, rolled your shoulders, and strutted back into your vehicle once more before driving off into the smogset.
    She’d have appreciated it later, told the media, the offers would have flooded in …
    Nuff said.

22. Hello Wil,
    I know what you mean Wil. I found myself all teary eyed watching you in the Highway to Heaven episode you were in as 7 or 8 yr old. Then as your father yelled at you in, Stand By Me. And even in your t.v. movie “The Last Prostitute”.
    then, as the small boy-andriod Daryl, drowning,
    wait, that was the Oliver Barret kid, whatever happened to him? anyway…
    These t.v. / movie stories helped me in a way raising my step-son. to help me see things through his eyes..(he’s now 27,trying to make it on his way in life.)
    I thought I’d send some “thoughts”
    for you to ponder;
    We do not drown in tears;
    We wash away our sorrow.
    Anonymous
    There are tears in the heart
    that never reach the eyes.
    Anonymous
    No one needs a smile more
    Than the person who doesn

23. I probably don’t need to point out Senor Jackass up there going by the name of “JesusHChrist” (although I must admit some grudging thumbs-up for the name, as it amuses me).
    I remember one time when I was a little late for a club meeting when I went to school in San Diego. There was this chick, and she was puking all over a tree.
    It was not pretty.
    But sometimes, you just can’t walk past, you can’t let it slide. I asked her if she was ok, if she needed some help. She said she was fine, just feeling a little sick.
    I know that sometimes, when you’re really feeling nasty and sad in public, you just want to be invisible, and I can dig that.
    But sometimes you just want to scream out for a hug, even if it’s from some random dude who’s walking by.
    Geez, I need to stop reading this blog. I feel like I’m getting to be a Close Personal Friend™.
    So, yeah. Stop and ask the sad person what’s bugging them. It’s like smiling at someone in a nonthreatening fashion. The world is a better place, if only in a teeny tiny way.

24. That was so insanely positive, I’m disgusted.
    ————-
    Stundups said:
    >>There are clinics you can go to if your testosterone is running a little low.

25. Jesus, Man, pull yourself together. What’s with all the clowns acting all Sally Jessy and telling you what a winner you are? It’s called being a little Blubber Boy.
    Pussy.

26. Don’t listen to ’em. That entry got me teary eyed, and I wasn’t even there.

27. People who respond with nasty comments on this site are understandable, but not excusable. Yes, Wil has been an actor, but go ahead and give’m the benefit of the doubt. I am saturated from the media and society about how L.A. is: shallow, plastic, and fake,
    but there’s no way to know whether people from there are for real, or if they are just wanting an audience.

28. wil
    thank you for being human, and having the nuts to do it so unapologetically.
    bonus dude,
    christy

29. Perhaps you should’ve knocked on her window and (using your inherent Powers of Celebrity) Commanded her to turn her frown upside down, punctuating the “encounter” with a stern “Make It So!”. Odds are, she would’ve immediately requested you autograph some part of her anatomy. Here’s an idea, kick [her] down some Ronald McDonald Bucks 😉 Phasers set to Mood Enhancement!

30. The fact that your humanity is still fully intact
    after so many years in the Hollywood entertainment system
    is no small feat, Wil.
    Keep it up.
    The world needs more like you.

31. I just followed the link mentioned by Pegasong. If you haven’t already looked at the site, you should. (I do not know how to make links actually link, so please cut and paste if it doesn’t work right.)
    http://www.sysblog.com/archives/000175.html#000175
    I found the story of a man who risked reaching out, and probably changed three lives; a father’s, a son’s, and his own. All for the better.
    There are people outside of our restrictive little worlds that reach out for human connections. Some take chances, and actually touch the lives of others, like the guy in the web journal at sysblog… Others feel empathy and experience the emotions on a different level.
    I’ll bet that if Wil’s interaction hadn’t happened while driving in a car, he would have stopped, smiled at the young lady, and asked her if she was okay. Maybe a dialogue would have started. Maybe not. The smile would have helped her nonetheless. It would have helped Wil, too.
    Wil is exactly the kind of man I want my sons and grandsons to emulate. He thinks, he feels, he acts. He cares about the world around him, and isn’t afraid to take unsteady steps toward becoming whole. I admire him more than I can say.
    A quote from my favorite teacher. I’ve never met this man, but I have learned more about living from reading his work than from any other source – ever.
    “What we live with, we learn.
    What we learn, we practice.
    What we practice becomes habit.
    Habits have consequences.”
    http://www.earnie.com/default.asp
    Thank you, Wil, for reminding me to keep my eyes open. Even if it means that sometimes they are temporarily filled with tears….
    (and, thanks Pegasong, for the link.)

32. how is it I come to wwdn and sometimes get blown away? I was having a crappy few days and then I see this and realize how much humanity there really is in the world.
    we had a student at my school die in a car wreck to days ago. the kids found out yesterday. I didn’t even know this kid, just his younger brother, but I still found myself crying all day yesterday because of what I was watching my students go through.

33. Synchronicity,
    You ask, “Would you cry with the woman…if you found out she is crying because…she is an Enron exec who just found out from a reporter that she is busted[?]”
    HELL no. That’s why you heal first, THEN find out, THEN judge. Get it?
    You go on: “People do feel bad for selfish reasons, too, you know.” And: “I think most of us learn to put our energies with those who we think will deserve…I think Wil’s basic instinct here is great, but I’m just saying you have to be careful.”
    Yes, I agree, when you’re deciding whether to give money, whether to stop your car, etc. NOT when you’re deciding whether to cry for someone. That you just do. Wil allowed it in, because he’s empathic (and those who are dissing him here, in his own house as it were, can all twist their ankles and fall as far as I’m concerned: no crying for THEM from me, OK?), but note he did NOT stop and talk to her. His instinct served him well on both choices, even if he felt bad later.
    I also think that Wil wouldn’t cry for your hypothetical Enron exec, even if he didn’t know. I don’t think his empathic sense would “hear” such a person. Now an Enron exec who just lost her beloved grandmother he might hear. Bad people cry for good reasons sometimes too. That’s just my sense of how empathy works (and I’m talking about the “psychic” (bleah, hate that word) kind of empathy, not the learned “counseling” kind, not that it’s easy to draw that line sometimes). IMHO, IMHO, IMHO.

34. Hollie, I’m really glad Chingu is fine and with you today. That man was an angel in disguise.
    Corky, I’m glad you enjoyed the link.

35. That is really cool Wil. If more people were to let the situation of others personally effect them like you did yesterday the world would be a lot nicer.

36. Great, now I’m crying at work! So not good.
    A lovely story though, Wil, it’s great to see that some people can still care, and also manage to be honest about it 🙂
    Must now compose self before end of lunch break!

37. {I cried, really hard, for close to 5 minutes, because of a person who I have never seen before, and will probably never see again.}
    Damn beautiful.
    There’s a story in there, and if you don’t write it, Wil, someone else will.

38. Wow, Wil. It’s not always easy to show your feelings like that- thank you for sharing that situation with us. I think it’s great that you not only learned something from that experience, but you shared it with the rest of us. I was never the kind of person to cry at movies or anything, but I find as I get older (I turned 30 yesterday!) that I am more emotional, and I cry at things a little more now. I tend to keep it all inside, though, and I’ll only let it out to my husband, who is the kindest and most understanding human being I have ever known. In my family, I always felt that my mom and sister were overly emotional, so I followed my dad’s way and kept it inside. Anyway, Wil, don’t let those jerks who are telling you that you’re not a man make you feel bad. Realize that they are the ones who are not truly men, since they aren’t in touch with their real feelings. Most of us here are your friends- please ignore those who aren’t. And you know, I know we live in a democracy and all that, but don’t you own this site? Why not just delete those jerky posts before they show up? 🙂 I hope that that crying was cathartic for you- it usually is for me. Have a great day, Wil! 🙂 ~~~lots of love to Wil~~~
    Love, Alicia
    http://www.thewagband.com

39. A few Thanksgivings ago, I was driving back to school, on a 2 lane, country road. It was in a neighborhood section of the road, I saw something up ahead that looked a tire in the road, but as I got closer, I saw that it was in fact a dog that had been hit and killed, lying in the road. The dogs brother/sister was lying at the edge of the yard, obviously sad. It was obvious that children lived at this house also.
    I started thinking about this family, coming home after a happy Thanksgiving meal, and finding one of their dogs dead in the road. Being a dog lover also, I felt very sad. I began bawling over this, alone in my car, crying hysterically.
    Compassion is a funny thing. The good thing is, it reminds you we are all humans.

40. this is so true and so cool.
    thanks

41. and after i posted that, i meant to say, it was cool that you realized that. and it sad that we live our lives like this. that is all.

42. thanks for such a poignant and beautiful entry, wil. the fact that you wrote about this speaks volumes about your character.

43. So you’re not such a bad-ass after all, Mr. Wheaton.
    And as your story unfolded, I was convinced that you will reach out and somehow interact with that woman.
    p.s. I hate it when I cry in public.

44. Oh, and I mean it with great fondness 🙂

45. Oh, and I mean it with great fondness 🙂

46. HELLO EVERYONE!!! HI WIL!!!!

47. Thom Yorke of radiohead fame once said “The most essential thing in life is to establish a heartfelt communication with others”.
    Somebody else also once said “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.

48. Wil, Now you realize how we felt when you posted “I’m a Loner Dottie, A Rebel”. Some of us did actually roll our windows down, and let you know we cared…

49. More people need to think like this. So many isolate and don’t even try to connect with others. Wil, thanks for giving me hope that people do care. If I’d seen you crying in your car I would have cried too.

50. Why was my comment last night deleted? It wasn’t mean, vulgar, or in any way inappropriate. Some of these comments are personal swipes at Wil, and they don’t get deleted. WTF?

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