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BoMToons
So many times, it happens too fast...you trade your passion for glory. Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, you must fight just to keep them alive.

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Van Gogh

Posted by BoMToons - September 19th, 2016


Time for an out-of-context update:

Van Gogh never achieved great recognition during his life. He continued to make art, moving closer and closer to clinical insanity until he committed suicide thinking his life's work was a failure.

Dr. Who took him to a modern museum, imagine how this would feel:

 


Comments

Saw that episode a few years ago and I can only attempt to imagine the feeling. I'd feel I would still go insane from knwing what is possible? ya kow?

Yeah, you'd feel conflicted about NOT committing suicide for fear of ruining it!

Ach, now imagine if they showed Poe or Lovecraft their popularity now.

Yeah, Lovecraft would love Metallica songs...

So touching

I cry evry tiem

Oh Man I actually watched this one

beautiful moment.

Yeah, I liked the idea of the whole situation.

@Riveet099 brought up Poe... I like this quote from him in a letter:

"I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass…You speak of “an estimate of my life” — and, from what I have already said, you will see that I have none to give. I have been too deeply conscious of the mutability and evanescence of temporal things, to give any continuous effort to anything — to be consistent in anything. My life has been whim — impulse — passion — a longing for solitude — a scorn of all things present, in an earnest desire for the future."

Dang @tom that quote is a bit depressing... and I think it's not entirely true for Poe's actual life (even though he said it) - He was creative and a "maker" but maybe ultimately he decided it was all a waste? Maybe he didn't do it to make a mark on history but just because he couldn't contain his creative impulses? Maybe the letter was just him being humble?

You want Newgrounds to have a place in history right? You don't see it as ultimately futile?

Would definitely like to see NG have a place in history but on any given day I can feel kinda like Poe, too. Depends on the day :P

I think they are 2 sides of the same "contentment" coin:

1. True happiness is not created externally. Those in the past were as content as we are even without all the "luxuries" we enjoy. Gaining awareness that contentment is generated within can stabilize and center your life. "We are the dust of the earth" can lead to release of stress over ultimately unimportant things. Buddha said: "Desire is the root of all suffering."

2. In paradoxical contrast: Mankind has potential to become great, even in the scheme of billions of years (intergalactic colonization, cloud consciousness, breakthroughs in the nature of existence, etc.) People like Elon Musk (and @TomFulp :-D) dare to dream big and fail big and their leadership and vision pushes everyone else to excel/step up.

The balance between those 2 ideas is life imo. It wouldn't be right to succumb to meditation all day without acting to improve yourself and the world around you (or crashing into depression at the pointlessness of it all), and conversely it can drive you insane or give you an ulcer to spin out of balance obsessing over "leaving a mark."

The people I look up to most are skilled at balancing that double-sided coin.

Really beautiful moment.

I hadn't considered it before, but maybe I should start watching Dr. Who...

I have trouble with getting into Dr. Who in general... but this was a highlight.