Van Gogh

Today I'm playing Vincent Van Gogh. I won't produce exquisite art. I'll just play with contradiction. I'll write these words down with the sincere hope no one else will ever read them. Because the fewer people do read them, the easier it will be for me to forget them all. And in my case, as with so many other folks on Earth (over a billion), this is the best way to live, for very often only ignorance can justify hope. So I'll throw these words up, and then just forget them.

It seems like a contradiction such as the one of those Van Gogh is famous for. Everybody knows Van Gogh. He's considered one of the greatest art geniuses of all times. A painting made by him can easily be sold by dozens millions dollars. Yet when Vincent was alive, he has been mostly sustained by his beloved younger brother Theo. But this isn't the contradiction I'm referring to. The one I'm talking about is usually not deemed as such.

Most people think the act of cutting off his own ear is rather consistent with Van Gogh's poor mental health status. And in a mere factual perspective, this interpretation makes all sense. However, if one looks a bit closer, it's not difficult to realize this self-harm act was actually a clear struggle towards sanity. Very similar to my own.

When I was little, I was used to blaming myself for all the recurring social defeats I'd face. Said that way, it seems I was just harming myself like Van Gogh, which can also be seen (and it was) as a sign of poor mental health. But as with Vincent's, my case was also a big contradiction, deep down. Because for blaming myself to depression about the my consistent bad life outcomes I've started accumulating in my teenage years, I was actually protecting myself at two very deep existential levels - thus demonstrating remarkably intact mental health, despite feeling very sick.

On one hand, blaming myself would harm me by leaving me lost in confusion and uncertainty about my present and my future, which is a very unpleasant place to be. It would also be quite unfair of mine, which is usually something we don't really desire to have targeted at us. But as with Van Gogh's cut-off ear, I was actually just claiming sanity through apparent madness.

Because if I was to make myself my own slaughter, theoretically I'd be able to stop the torture when it got nasty enough. And in this case, there would be concrete reasons to keep hope for a better life one day. A life I would still be in control of. Furthermore, it would also let me keep my imagined future intact, and keep dreaming about reaching my full potential one fine day. Meaning I could still hold on to the normalcy I've fought so hard for my entire life. Of course I was hurting myself. But that would allow me to ignore something much worse.

What's indeed demanded from a highly qualified disabled person is also utterly contradictory. One has to be detached, but in an highly engaged way. She has not to care much about the relative results of her efforts, and still feel she's not considered inferior by others, thus preserving her self-worth. She needs not to dream much, but still keep motivated, because not doing so will mean an even greater level of failure and misery.

She must accept being supported by others at the age of peak of her productivity, and yet not feel scared by the fact her parents are getting older, and won't be around forever to help out. She must not feel inferior, even knowing she has to put up with conditions nobody else at her standard social position would. And she needs not to hate the world around her so she has some belief in the status quo, although she knows there lie exactly all the underpinnings of her deepest fears realization.

Since I'm meant to live in these contradictions, I'll myself seek sanity and hope to figure them out by writing down every single one of them. Forgetting is the only way my inner peace can reemerge at some point. And as in all the countless other times before, this is exactly what's going to happen. At least until I get blind with all this worldly clarity and once again have to pierce my own mind's eye while seeking some darkness to be able to finally see again.