Van Gogh.

The rumor has it – happy things are addictive. Van Gogh is said to have eaten yellow paint to get happiness inside of him. The theory following the surprising fact is that we all have our poisonous sources of happiness – love, an unhelthy relationship with food, drugs, alcochol, friends who make us feel like nothing but something at the same time... The list goes on and on. And it is commonly believed that despite the hurt these feelings of happiness and fulfillment are irreplacable. I do agree with that statement. Things that makes us the happiest tend to hurt us the most due to strong attachement and emotional investment. But the Van Gogh rumor is far from truth. The artist didn't want to get happiness inside of him. He simply wanted to kill himself - commit suicide with the closes tool available - which happened to later on develop a symbolic meaning. There's nothing poetic or inspinational in his actions and vulnerability shall stop being glamorized. He was just like every other depressed person at their lowest point. He was looking for a way out and he found it in a small tube of paint. So in reality, the yellow paint doesn't represent a desperate journey towards the feeling of happines... or does it? Maybe true happiness can hide underneath the ground level (or perhaps above it)?  Maybe death wasn't so much happiness but relief. The best way in which pain could be stopped rather than the final find of freedom. And for some maybe that's enough? I mean at the end of the day I truly stand by the statement that – happiness isn't constant, it can only come and go, appear and dissapear. It's an impulse of euphoria or joy surrounded with all the other emotions. Happines is not a constant. Sadness is not a constant. Depression may be. And to those, just like Van Gogh, suffering and choking on a fresh, morning air – the impulse of happiness may be found in the actions of selfviolence and selfdestruction.