Jim Carrey dropped by Michael Moore’s one-man Broadway show on Thursday night, and had some emotional words to share about the power of hopelessness.
You read that correctly. In conversation with Moore, the “Ace Ventura” star revealed that he’s embraced the idea of giving up hope when confronted with tough times.
“There’s a virtue in hopelessness,” Carrey told the crowd, reports People. “I’m not kidding. You’re off the hook and you don’t have to worry about what’s coming. ‘Okay, the world freaking ended. That’s great. Now what?’”
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Carrey’s solution: “Give up! Surrender to the idea that things are bad and yet still, from 3,000 feet up, we don’t matter,” he added. “Things are happening and we’re going to happen along with them whether we like it or not. But we don’t matter. … Once you lose yourself, you’re pretty okay. Just get you out of the way.”
While admitting that “we’re all so afraid of the river of tears,” he explained that “going down the river of sorrow and suffering is the way to freedom. I’ve gone through it and I’m telling you, you don’t survive it. You don’t come out of it on the other side. You might come out of it with a body, but there’s no you attached to it,” he said.
“It’s tough to be yourself if you don’t have a self,” he added.
Carrey, who has candidly discussed his lifelong struggles with depression, added: “Know that no matter what happens, this is not who you are. You choose the part you want to play in this life. I want to be a good guy. I want to do good things. I want to make people happy and I want to help out when I can. So you do what you need to do.”
