Vincent van Gogh
PART TWO
Life is like a game.
We play as best as we can.
We hope we are on the right team, with the right people, everyone working together for the right cause.
And then there are the curve balls.
Those unexpected throws can come in many flavors.
-Losing a childhood friend.
-Being confident of a fact, then learning it’s false.
-Trying a new recipe and falling short.
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This is the Human Game.
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We’re all in, whether we want that or not (I didn’t ask to be here. Did you?).
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And that’s why I want to muse over Vincent van Gogh again.
He is the most human of us all.
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Another section of ‘Dear Theo’:
“[My brother Theo], you say: ‘You have impossible ideas about religion and childish scruples of conscience.’ I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, of inward moral, spiritual, and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and that all that is bad and wrong in men and in their works is not of God, and God does not approve of it. But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something, whatever you like, but one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and one must always try to know deeper, better, and more. That leads to God; that leads to unwavering faith.”
~Dear Theo, Autobiography of Vincent van Gogh
This is what we all contend with.
Our human consciousness of self
of thinking
of opinions
of an ability to forge a destiny
...it is also part of a human experience.
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But what if you are in a unique position? Where those that you love (and who hopefully love you back) are far removed. And instead of understanding you, they unwittingly oppress, rather than uplift?
I believe that happens to us all.
Van Gogh brings this up in countless paragraphs in his autobiography.
By deducing from his writing, he felt misunderstood.
Others view his ideas as “childish”.
In one letter, he states that his father and mother “are not people who understand me.”
This is heartbreak.
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What do we do with it?
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As Gandalf said in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, “you have to decide what to do with the time you’re given”.
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As conscious humans, we decide.
The misery is something we either learn from, or get stuck in.
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And let’s discuss other examples of misuse of our opportunities.
For instance, Paul, of the Bible. He’s an apostle who at one point brutally killed Christians, then became a Christian. He said to forget the past.
But it’s possible that he wasn’t talking about his sins. I think he was talking about the time he wasted.
Timing can feel like the only leverage we have on Earth.
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In Hemingway’s novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, in the first chapter, there is a discussion about the timing of a military plan. If the plan went well, fantastic. If it went badly, that was critical to lives lost, plans disintegrated, and the hope of victory was lost.
Sometimes, the timing IS everything.
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And personally, I recall a girl I met in 2009. She had just pivoted her life dramatically. She finally realized her true calling! And was she excited? No. She wasn’t as excited at all bout her new focus. She was angry about the time she’d wasted beforehand.
Again, timing is like a 6th sense.
In sports, we hope the players can see beyond time in their plays... like magic.
And when that magic occurs, the audiences in the rows of seats suddenly have faith again.
And sometimes, an artist doesn’t understand their time either.
Most of the beautiful work by van Gogh was done while looking out the window of a psychiatric hospital.
Sometimes our timing or expectations are not in line with the reality of things.
My desire to create work for myself didn’t materialize until I was 41 years old, but I had been discussing it since I was 14.
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So how about you, dear artist?
What are you doing now that matters, even if you don’t see it? Do you feel it?
Keep going!
xoxo
You never disappoint Jesse!!