“When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.” – Vincent Van Gogh
A mystery consumes me. I pass the morning in ardent search of last night and furrow my brows as though dreams would return in the grooves of my forehead. That is not enough. Nothing is enough. I can never go faster or slower than one second at a time. My enthusiasm teeters between the unbearable and the blissful. I want to scale the heights of human knowledge, to create art, kisses, love, peace…but the next moment carries the enormity of my desire, and I fall upon the ground of my being like an electric charge in a puddle of amino acids. So I continue, neither collapsed nor elevated. Every sight I see, every thought, however subtle, every word I read or write only adds to the fury: nothing is enough.
A mystery consumes me. It is hard to tell whether it is best to touch the heart of the unknown or to kiss the cheek, the dimples, the eyelids — to press my mouth against the furrows, the forehead, of a muse, of a woman I love, of an incarnation of the mystery, the dream, and the knowledge. This poet, on this evening, as a result of these emotions, turns all his interstellar passion toward romance like a scientist imagines the possibility of life on other planets. I am not alone. More opens up to me every day than does to a horizon at sunrise. Yet I feel lonely. Nothing is enough.
Let it be said that I am neither complacent nor decadent. Out of a deep need for running my hand across the entire gradation of life and death, I can never be satisfied with what has been done. There is a push and pull within me that in geology moves the sea floor, creates earthquakes, and makes the tide rush suddenly over the feet of young lovers. It is obvious that my idealism must be such that in order to lengthen my arm, I would, night after night, reach unceasingly for a drop of moisture in the atmosphere. Life is an ever-increasing approximation of our ideals. Nothing is enough. If we ever reached the point where it was enough, we would find heaven there. But heaven is an ideal, and our destiny is to approach it forever — the asymptote of our aspirations. Would that there were no tension in the cosmos — all the arts and sciences; all the physical, mental, and spiritual phenomena would cease to exist. Eternity is found in coming closer and closer to that state in which, unfettered by a psychological, physical, and historical upbringing, we become parents of the stars.
