something to see, something to think about

After another sad day at work where I was supposed to do 50 things and could only do about 35, When I go home, I go home on the train. The train It's a nice, pleasant relaxing time on the train, one of the nicest times of the day, no one hassling me, just me chilling out.   The train ride is never long enough, most especially in the morning.    I sometimes listen to songs and sometimes they fit my mood (sad, bummed out that I have a job that has unrealistically given me 115 cases).

One evening this past week, I wasn't really feeling that morose, but still....definitely not happy at all.  So, I just went to YouTube and played Don McLean's "Starry, Starry Nights". (that actually isn't the right name for the song, but I really don't feel comfortable indicating what the actual name of the song is)  Since it was a song where Don McLean discussed Vincent Van Gogh, the very famous painter, this YouTube video scrolled the lyrics, the sad story, the story of indifference and in the background were the paintings of Van Gogh.  One of his paintings is actually called "Starry Nights", one of his famous paintings and worth millions and millions of dollars.
If you want to see the song/YouTube video, it's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrK    You know what's neat about the song?  Well, it's a tuneful, bittersweet, sensitive song, but I gotta say it's kind of neat the way they scroll out the lyrics.  It's done very artfully.  & you can see the actual name of the song which I don't feel like sharing (sorry).
So, in the latter part of the song, there was a painting that hit me.  Hit me right in the eyes.
Now this blog is not about how sad I feel, and I'm not going to list the things that are really bothering me, b/c well.....that can be tiresome to read.
Why don't we take this at another angle, Ok???  
Here's the painting.  The title is called "Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate)"

This painting was done in 1890, a few months before he died.  His health was not good, and he created this painting while he was convalescing.  So, sad that if you added the worth of all of Van Gogh's paintings, you would probably come up with over $10,000,000.  An 8-figure sum!!! & the Late Vincent Van Gogh most definitely did not enjoy any of his riches.  No, just like Mozart, he died poor.

About the painting. It's striking, it really makes true the old cliche that a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Haven't we all felt bad?  Haven't we all felt pretty despondent?  Sometimes, there isn't much to do, but cry.  So, why is he crying?  I bet you it's because of poverty.  How am I going to survive when there's others that are taking my place.  How long do I get to live in this little home.  How long do I get to enjoy the warmth of this hearth (over in the lower left corner) and not be homeless in the cold. Now if you see this on Wikipedia, there's actually people that say there's a sign of hope in the painting, because the painting is entitled "At Eternity's Gate", so he's near heaven.  I just don't see that.  This guy is inconsolable.  He's had it.  Life hurts; it really, really does.
There's just so many things you could attribute his sadness to.  He's at the age where he's near the end of his life, so it could easily be conceivable that one of his friends who is his age died.  What can you do after a funeral and the sad, final burial but cry?
The painting is amazing, because it strikes a common chord.  We all feel bad at times.  We all have times where there's nothing left to do but cry.
It's funny, but I used to be very hardcore about not crying.  I wore it as a badge of honor and toughness that I would go years and years without crying.  Still, don't like crying.  I especially make it a point not to cry around my kids.  But I guess I'm not so hardcore and anti-crying as I used to be.  I guess I changed my mind a little when I found out that tears actually remove toxins from our body that build up courtesy of stress. They are like a natural therapy or massage session, but they cost a lot less! (I got that from a quote from article written by Therese Borchard.).

There's an emotional resonance to the painting for me. Not for the sadness, but for the age of the man.  I'm most definitely not a young person anymore.  I grew a beard willfully during the winter to let others know I'm not young (but the bigger more decisive  reason was so I wouldn't have to shave and it saved me time).  Every single day I work at Chicago, I see 4 or 5 homeless people. There's one I don't have as much sympathy for one of them.     He usually harangues people by Starbucks to give him money, and while I feel terrible for most homeless, he annoys me b/c he just has to be so abrasive about it.  One day he tried to flatter me to get money out of me.  So he called out to  me "young man".  I yelled back while I walked to my dreaded job, "I'M NOT YOUNG!"