It’s been almost eleven years since Robin Williams left us, yet I still catch glimpses of him everywhere. A poster on X recently blared “ART WILL SAVE US.” For my generation, his art already did.

I grew up inside India’s infamously rigid school system—uniforms starched, curiosity punished, compliance rewarded. Questions were deviations; dreams were errors. Students cracked under pressure, and the system never flinched.

Then I found Dead Poets Society.

On screen, Welton Academy looked nothing like my classroom, yet it felt exactly the same: boys of every talent hammered into one dull mould. Into that gray march strode John Keating—Robin Williams—who tossed conformity out the window and reminded his students that poetry is not a worksheet but a heartbeat. He coaxed a shy boy to believe he mattered, nudged another to chase love, pushed a third onto the stage he feared. Even his simple exercise of having four boys walk until their steps snapped into unthinking unison exposed how easily freedom erodes into lockstep.

Keating resonated because Williams understood teenage storms. He had survived the hormones, the heartbreaks, the system’s bruises— and turned that empathy into a performance that set off fire alarms in my own head. Suddenly literature felt dangerous in the best way; learning felt like rebellion; life felt editable.

Every great Williams role hides that same pulse. Patch Adams, Good Morning, Vietnam, Awakenings—each pits one incandescent human against an institution that claims to know better. Sometimes he wins; often the system does. That pattern can feel like defeat, but I think he meant it as a dare. By showing us exactly how the squares usually triumph, he forced us to recognise the moment our hearts begin to sink—so we can choose a different ending.

I’m at that choosing-point now, carving out the next chapter of my life. I move forward armed with the freedom Robin Williams loaned me, determined to see every person I meet as a private island worth exploring. He gave millions what, perhaps, he himself lacked. The least I can do is pass it on.

Robin Williams is gone, but the stories he told are still scouting exits in the walls we build around ourselves. All we have to do is follow.

Carpe diem.