RePost: The Last Line Intrigued | The Secret Museum: Van Gogh’s Never-Before-Seen Sketchbooks – Brain Pickings

While this post in particular was about art and sketching, I was hit by the very poignant last line.

Sometimes if we know we’re going to win without fail, incur no risk, take the prize, and already know without a shadow of a doubt, not just merely in our hearts or undying spirit, does it make the journey easier? Better?

Sometimes not knowing serves us better. Drives us harder. Makes us work when an impossibility exists that we may.not.make.it. We push with the strength of 1,000 men, urging ourselves towards an end to bring to ourselves a success that we thought was out of reach.

If we’re handed the end result before the journey starts, isn’t the ending less rich for it?

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I wonder, if he had known what would become of his paintings, would he have shot himself? And, if he had not, what other paintings might he have produced?

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