Everybody's Got a Special Kind of Story

Hearing that Gary Coleman was hospitalized yesterday after an apparent suicide attempt has got me thinking about the strange impact his career has had on my life. Anyone that knows me well knows I often referenced situations his character Arnold Jackson acted out on his hit TV show Diff'rent Strokes to explain what was going around me in the 90's. I learned a lot about life by watching back to back reruns of his TV show Diff'rent Strokes after middle school. Most of it proved to be useful later on. Sure, I was using it to make fun of the absurdity of modern life but the fact remains that I deeply identified with the poor little guy. Just look at that photo and tell me a millennia old soul that knows what life should really be about isn't staring back at you from the karmically challenged body it chose to inhabit.

Gary, your last name is the same as mine except with "man" after it. Peace.