Paint

Vincent van Gogh’s birthday was this past weekend, and he’s easily my favorite artist. I’m sure that’s cliche to some, but it’s because he genuinely was a wonderful artist.

I remember the first time I ever saw “The Starry Night.” It was in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and was hands down the best moment I’ve had in an art museum. It’s a piece of the permanent collection in The Museum of Modern Art in New York, but it must have been on loan at the time.

My senior yearbook quote was by Van Gogh, and it’s a quote I carry with me still today. If I ever get an office, I’ll get a piece of art to hang on the wall with this quote.

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

There have been so many times in my life I’ve found myself thinking this was worthless. I should stop. No one was reading this, so what was the point of writing it to begin with? What was the point of writing a book that would probably never get published, and would never be read by anyone?

When I begin to hear that self-doubt creep in, that’s when I write my best work. My main focus is to make the self-doubt shut up.

I do it to be better. I do this not because I want to, but because I need to. Overall, I am a cheerful, happy person to be around. Deep inside me, though, like so many other people, there is some darkness. Pain and anger live there, and it’s hard. Writing helps control this darkness and helps manage everything.

I’ll never be a wordsmith the way Van Gogh was a painter, but I can try my hardest. This clip from Doctor Who is arguably one of the most beautiful moments in the show. We as humans won’t always know what kind of impact we have on the world. We continue to follow our passions anyway.

Vincent never knew his paintings would be anything special. He still kept painting.

My writings may be nothing special. I’ll still keep writing.