Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Yellow Paint


Vincent Van Gogh used to eat yellow paint because he thought it would get the happiness inside him. Many people thought he was mad and stupid for doing so because the paint was toxic, never mind that it was obvious that eating paint couldn’t possible have any direct correlation to one’s happiness, but I never saw that. If you were so unhappy that even the maddest ideas could possible work, like painting the walls of your internal organs yellow, than you are going to do it. It’s really no different than falling in love or taking drugs. There is a greater risk of getting your heart broken or overdosing, but people still do it everyday because there was always that chance it could make things better. Everyone has their yellow paint.

22 comments:

  1. i've only just found your blog. i hope you blog again x

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  2. This is powerful. I think I'm going to keep that last part around... "Everyone has their yellow paint". love it.

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  3. this is fantastic, do you mind if I use your blog as a source for an essay I am writing? xx

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  4. As nice as this is, it isn't true. The only mention or documentation of any sort of Van Gogh eating paint is regarding his suicide attempt. It is frequently mentioned that yellow was his favorite. It's actually speculated that the paint chips on the paintbrushes he held in his mouth while painting made him delusional & physically ill as well. As far as eating the paint to "get the happiness inside him" though, that's made up. What you wrote is nice, & the message is clear, but it's just so false I could die I hate the internet

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    1. Lie or not, it's a pretty nice story.

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    2. Shannon, would you lighten up.
      Seriously!
      Were you there?

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    3. No but his assistant was who documented what Shannon is saying

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  5. Is this the origin of this paragraph? It appears unsourced all over the internet. It is really nice.

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  6. I love this.

    Would you mind checking out my blog?
    www.lostwhereverr.blogspot.com

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. Hello, I had forgotten about this blog completely until I saw a post on tumblr that looked really familiar, but the quote was marked done as unknown. I remembered this post I did years ago. I was surprised to see all these comments and over 16,000 views. I had no idea. I decided to dig more and have found this post quoted all over the Internet, with most people saying they wrote it or that it came from an unknown source. I wrote this when I was still a nervous ungrad, lonely, and afraid of their uncertain future. I just wanted to thank everyone on here for reading this. I never thought anyone would actually see this.

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    1. Hello, I'm looking for the author of this quote. Is it really you? I preparing a performance and I want to use it, if it's possible :)

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  9. Can update that a Tumblr post with your quote on it has 628,000 notes (: Your words have touched many. The source of the post gave credit to your blog (which is how I came here), but sadly people removed the credit over time (I kind of hate people).

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  10. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/125-questions/questions-and-answers/question-63-of-125 look this. All lies. You poor fools.

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  11. Van Gogh ate paint not because he thought that it would make him happy, but because he knew it was toxic. He was trying to kill himself. Using such a tragic story to make a pretty and inspiring quote is simply not okay. Mental illness is complex and nuanced and it isn't just a matter of being unhappy. It wasn't beautiful, it was tragic. He had severe clinical depression, and it irks me when people make mental illness appear beautiful and romanticize it.

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  12. This is absolutely disgusting, he used the yellow paint to harm himself, and there is documented proof from his doctor who had said so. Jesus christ, this isnt inspirational at all. Dont use his self harm techniques for inspirationm

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  13. He never ate yellow paint for that reason! he used it to try and kill himself! I absolutely hate it when people say it was for a good reason! please actually use facts and tell the truth other than spreading a lie.

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