In the late fall of 1888, artists Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin lived and worked together for two months in Arles, France. Weeks earlier the two exchanged these self-portraits with each other as a gesture toward what they hoped would be a fruitful collaboration:
Vincent van Gogh Self-portrait (as a bonze, a Buddhist monk) dedicated to Paul Gauguin. September 1888. Oil on canvas: 59 × 48 cm (23 × 18 in). Inscribed "à mon ami Paul Gauguin" across the top.
Paul Gauguin Self-portrait (as Jean Valjean from the 1862 novel, Les Misérables) with portrait of Émile Bernard. September 1888. Oil on canvas: 45 × 55 cm (17 × 21 in). Inscribed "à l'ami Vincent" above the signature.
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Romance and Reality
The problem with me is I'm a romantic, and I can't help romanticize my desires, situations & decisions. Inevitably, the unromantic banality of reality crashes down with all the disillusionment and growing pains that entails.
When I was a depressed student, I romanticised the hell out of that. I fully bought into the "tortured artists are the best artists" line, but when you find you can't get out of bed, you hate everything you write, you hate yourself, you both cling to friends and alienate them... there's nothing romantic about that, it's just pitiful and sad. Looking back I am just furious at the years I wasted feeling sorry for myself, basking in the righteous anguish of the tortured poet. It was just so silly and so stupid. I got over it, but you can't make up for the lost time, nor for the psychological impediments you've buried deep inside your psyche. I am still dealing with them years later.
When I was working part-time as a TA at my Alma Mater, I romanticised that too, romanticised teaching literature to students, romanticised my future academic work, the potential of an academic's life. But when I didn't hear from my team for an entire summer, I took a step back. I realized then that there were no future prospects in academia that would make for a bearable living. There is no long-term living in academia, no peace of mind, no stability, no unambiguously rewarding passion. There's nothing romantic about a lacking life-work separation, expected overworking, short-term contracts, and being resented by students for wanting them to do better. So, I quit.
The situation I find myself in at the moment seems entirely unromantic at first glance: an unromantic job, an unromantic living situation and the unromantic prospects of just writing and publishing without any acclaim or acknowledgment, fame or fortune. There's no romance here in what could be, no exciting prospects or promises of extravagant potential.
And yet, there is a profound contentment to be found in a life chosen for its simplicity; in writing and creating for yourself, in leaving the pressure of performance & productivity behind, in living with loved ones, providing and doing your part, gradually reconnecting to your roots, finding pleasure and pride in locality, in the ways and history of your family and hometown. There is true romance in quietly, imperceptibly being yourself and working at whatever makes you happy.
For the longest time, I thought the romantic life I wanted, the only life that was valid as a creative, was the big-city bohemianism of the freelance writer, academic, content creator or whatever. But I found such a lifestyle to be cold, unsound, individualistic and uncaring.
So to anyone who's like me, whose romanticism seems to compel them to live a life that seems unfit for them: you have not failed as a writer, an artist or an academic if you can't live the life of instability and precarity that is associated with the 'greats.'
You are not less creative, passionate, talented or worthy for not sacrificing the livability of your existence on the altar of conventional success.
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