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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Letters.
From a note to a blogland friend...
I'm reading a book of letters. I'm fascinated by letters. I love sending and receiving mail and feel that letters, like these from the 1800s, are the blogs of today. The raw unfiltered moments of fear, grace, hope and comfort open the reader (both the recipient then and the voyeur of a reader that I am now) to something so exquisitely personal. The letters I'm reading now are from Van Gogh and are all written to his brother Theo.
In a letter he wrote Theo in July of 1880 Van Gogh talks about how withdrawn he has become. That he has become a stranger to his family, losing contact with them for quite sometime. Throughout the letter he explains to Theo just why he has become disconnected and his plans to reconnect with those who love him. He admits to being a "man of passions" who is "capable of and subject to doing more of less foolish things." He admits that the path he is on, while it is weary and at times sad, he must keep on it.
"That is how I look at it; to continue, to continue, that is what is necessary. But you will ask: What is your definite aim? That aim becomes more definite, will stand out slowly and surely, just as the rough draught becomes a sketch, and a sketch becomes a picture, little by little, by working seriously on it, by pondering over the idea, vague at first, over the thought that was fleeting and passing, till it gets fixed."
I'm reading a book of letters. I'm fascinated by letters. I love sending and receiving mail and feel that letters, like these from the 1800s, are the blogs of today. The raw unfiltered moments of fear, grace, hope and comfort open the reader (both the recipient then and the voyeur of a reader that I am now) to something so exquisitely personal. The letters I'm reading now are from Van Gogh and are all written to his brother Theo.
In a letter he wrote Theo in July of 1880 Van Gogh talks about how withdrawn he has become. That he has become a stranger to his family, losing contact with them for quite sometime. Throughout the letter he explains to Theo just why he has become disconnected and his plans to reconnect with those who love him. He admits to being a "man of passions" who is "capable of and subject to doing more of less foolish things." He admits that the path he is on, while it is weary and at times sad, he must keep on it.
"That is how I look at it; to continue, to continue, that is what is necessary. But you will ask: What is your definite aim? That aim becomes more definite, will stand out slowly and surely, just as the rough draught becomes a sketch, and a sketch becomes a picture, little by little, by working seriously on it, by pondering over the idea, vague at first, over the thought that was fleeting and passing, till it gets fixed."
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