There is enough written about Vincent van Gogh that most people should know who he was, and what he left behind for us to learn from. Most people, however, seem satisfied to know that van Gogh was an artist who was crazy, cut off his ear over a woman, and that he killed himself.
He did not suffer execution like Jesus or Socrates. He did not die naturally like Swift, Ricardo, Marx, and Keynes. He shot himself in the chest, though some wonder if he really intended to actually die. I don't know. I suspect he did not fear death, and may have needed the experience for his own personal growth, at least from his perspective.
Vincent was not noticeably different from other children, except for his insatiable thirst to read. His father was a minister, so he read much about religion. His mother was an art dealer, but he had little interest in art both in the creation or sale of it despite having some success as a late-teen, early twenty-something.
Rejected in love as a young man, Vincent turned his desires toward religion. He used some familial connections so he could be accredited for knowing which number goes on which line. He failed. Though his environment as a child included religion, and despite reading insatiably on the subject, he could not get the answers 'correct.' He suffered for his inability to have blind faith.
He sought missionary work. He was sent to some very poor places. He would sleep on straw in huts just as the people who lived there would. He would sometimes be heard crying all night. He was told by those who sponsored him that he could not sleep on the straw as it did not give proper respect for the word of God. He thought is unconscienable to belabor those others saw as lesser for his own reward, and he did not stop sleeping on straw. He was fired. He suffered for his inability to violate his principle of compassion despite the opportunity for personal reward.
After that, he decided on art. He developed his talent by imitating styles of the great artists of the day; later he would add uniqueness. His famous works were done within the last couple of years of his life.
To others, Vincent appeared to be self-destructive. He would become extremely depressed such that his family sought medical attention for the depression. He smoked and drank despite doctors and family urging him to stop both. He cut off part of his ear to demonstrate the equivalent physical loss to the emotional loss of losing companionship with a fellow artist upon whom he thought he could rely. (He gave the portion of the ear to a prostitute; it is often mistaken that she was the cause. She was only the recipient.) He eventually would shoot himself in the chest, and just go back to bed. A couple or a few days later he would die from his injury.
The only person who was always reliable for Vincent was his younger brother Theo. Very shortly before he killed himself, Vincent wrote a letter to Theo. It is not the ramblings of a madman; it is a concise, well worded demonstration of his innate knowledge of economy, efficiency, use of time, and sincere regard for the welfare of Theo and his family. Vincent could not be understood by anyone, not even his doctor as he alludes to in the letter.
No one recognized that Vincent van Gogh was a genius during his lifetime, except for one writer for a periodical about art about six months before he would be dead. I doubt the author knew how 'right on' he was about Vincent's genius. It seems that Vincent didn't even recognize his own genius, but he did recognize that he was different in every conceivable way from 'normal people.'
Don MacLean wrote that Vincent 'suffered for his sanity,' and that 'they would not listen; they're not listening still. Perhaps they never will.' Think about those words in relation to the things Vincent suffered for.
He was unable to come up with 'correct answers,' yet he seemed to understand life and time. He personified that which Socrates, Jesus, and Swift had urged us to do: factor in human suffering. He was rejected for factoring that in.
The lineal conclusions we can draw from individual episodes from Vincent's life form another entity in itself, that of futility. Genius operates independent from convention. It is often not publicly recognized unless one can present credentials, and credentials are not evidence of genius. It creates a vicious cycle of self-examination and calculated attempts to persuade others, which, predictably, will not be accepted for violating conventional thought.
It is met with rock-solid arguments and constitutions from those who are not patient enough to notice that rocks don't grow, but, to the contrary, rocks erode.
It seems like such a simple concept to relate, but most people won't take as much time to contemplate the comparison as they will in deciding which shirt to wear today. What's the point? Why try? My own experiences in futility would have to be magnified many times to come anywhere near the futility that van Gogh experienced in fewer years. The degree to which he experienced futility notwithstanding, the lesson would seem to be about genius that is not recognized. That seems relatively unimportant compared to the lesson on futility.
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I've slept on this now. The doctors were never able to 'pinpoint' Vincent van Gogh's 'mental illness.' Doctors even today disagree on what his mental ailment truly was.
In addition to some of the finest art of his day, Vincent left a study on 'unrecognized genius,' and a basic suffering genius is forced to endure. It is a suffering of futility at trying to get others to factor in human suffering. For the sake of giving it a name, though it likely is already known as something else, I'll call it 'philosophical funk.' I've experienced this feeling; in fact, I've been in one for several months now, and people around me are concerned.
They just don't believe what they see, and they don't believe what I tell and prove to them. It's as if math doesn't work at times; of course, it does: I'm just missing the factor. I've considered planetary retrograde, but I haven't figured out how that would explain it.
Maybe it's always been this way, and odds are just catching up to me. If that were the case, though, it seems more like something would finally work!
This project seems to be a factor. I receive rewards if I do it; I am frustrated if I don't. It appears to be external, but there haven't been enough experiences to determine if it's really just an internal perspective manipulation.
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