{"id":66215,"date":"2015-11-09T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=66215"},"modified":"2015-11-09T11:10:19","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T11:10:19","slug":"vincent-van-gogh-on-fear-taking-risks-and-how-making-inspired-mistakes-moves-us-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/11\/vincent-van-gogh-on-fear-taking-risks-and-how-making-inspired-mistakes-moves-us-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Vincent van Gogh on Fear, Taking Risks, and How Making Inspired Mistakes Moves Us Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHowever meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth \u2026 steps in and does something.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"everyours_vangoghletters\"<\/a>During our recent conversation at the Boston Book Festival<\/a>, the wise and wonderful Amanda Palmer<\/a> spoke about the harrowing experience of watching her best friend die and reflected: \u201cEveryone in this room is going to be gone pretty quickly \u2014 and we will have either made something or not made something. The artists that inspire me are the ones that I look at and go, \u2018Oh my god \u2014 you didn\u2019t have to go there. It would\u2019v been safer not to \u2014 but, for whatever reason, you did.\u2019 And every time death happens, I\u2019m reminded that it\u2019s stupid to be safe\u2026 Usually, whatever that is \u2014 wherever you don\u2019t want to go, whatever that risk is, wherever the unsafe place is \u2014 that really is the gift that you have to give.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As the words poured out of Amanda\u2019s mouth, I saw a kindred hand reach across space and time to catch them. A century and a half earlier, Vincent van Gogh<\/strong> (March 30, 1853\u2013July 29, 1890) had articulated the same sentiment in a beautiful letter to his brother Theo, found in Ever Yours: The Essential Letters<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>) \u2014 the same treasure trove that gave us the beloved artist on talking vs. doing<\/a> and the story of how he found his purpose<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Self-Portrait<\/a>

\u2018Self-Portrait with Straw Hat\u2019 by Vincent van Gogh<\/p><\/div>\n

In a particularly impassioned letter to Theo from October 2, 1884, Van Gogh writes:<\/p>\n

If one wants to be active, one mustn\u2019t be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, not afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good \u2014 many people think that they\u2019ll achieve it by doing no harm \u2014 and that\u2019s a lie\u2026 That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity. Just slap something on it when you see a blank canvas staring at you with a sort of imbecility.<\/em><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t know how paralyzing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can\u2019t do anything. The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerizes some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas IS AFRAID of the truly passionate painter who dares \u2014 and who has once broken the spell of \u201cyou can\u2019t.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Life itself likewise always turns towards one an infinitely meaningless, discouraging, dispiriting blank side on which there is nothing, any more than on a blank canvas.<\/em><\/p>\n

But however meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, doesn\u2019t let himself be fobbed off like that. He steps in and does something, and hangs on to that, in short, breaks, \u201cviolates\u201d\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Ever Yours<\/em><\/strong><\/a> is an infinitely enlivening read in its totality. Complement it with Van Gogh on art and the power of love<\/a>, depression<\/a>, and his little-known sketchbooks<\/a>, then revisit the great social science writer John W. Gardner on what children can teach us about taking risks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Brain Pickings<\/em> is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large obsessed with combinatorial creativity who also writes for <\/em>Wired<\/em> UK and <\/em>The Atlantic<\/em>, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 brainpickings.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHowever meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth \u2026 steps in and does something.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}