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Look here, I often feel the same in more than one respect - not just in financial things, but in art itself, and in life in general. But do you think it's anything exceptional? Don't you think every man with a little spirit and energy has those moments? Moments of melancholy, of distress, of anguish - I think we all have them to a greater or lesser extent, and it is a condition of every conscious human life. It seems that some people have no consciousness of self. But for all that, those who have it may sometimes be in distress, they are not unhappy, nor is the distress anything exceptional.

Vincent Willem Van Gogh#65

Van goghConsciousnessEmotionsHuman nature

About this quote

What does it mean?
The author suggests that moments of distress and melancholy are universal conditions of conscious life, not exceptions reserved for the sensitive.
In plain terms
Feeling distressed or sad is normal for anyone who is aware of themselves.
What can you take from it?
Accept emotional distress as a universal human condition.

Where it applies

  • mental health reflection
  • existential inquiry
  • personal growth

Putting it to work

  • normalize emotional struggles
  • recognize shared human experience

Questions to consider

  • Is suffering necessary for awareness?
  • How do you handle universal distress?

Another view

It risks minimizing the severity of clinical depression or trauma.

More from Vincent Willem Van Gogh

  1. Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.

    Permalink to quote #64
  2. Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.

    Permalink to quote #66
  3. It would be difficult for me to express all my thoughts about it. It remains a constant disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to b…

    Permalink to quote #63

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