Vincent van Gogh most famously created the painting “The Starry Night”, so it’s somewhat surprising when the context that he had close to no recognition for the works he created and actually didn’t even develop any infamy until around 21 years after his death is added to the end of that statement. Quite frequently after these things disappear, the sentiment that surrounds them is almost always about not appreciating and caring about something until it’s gone, so it is often a concern for people that they must do something spectacular in their life at a young age and immediately try to live as fast paced as possible in order to be considered successful.
Oftentimes a staple of success is considered creating something that can be considered timeless, recognizable, unique and or simply being particularly talented at something. It can be somewhat discouraging when you put a lot of effort into a project of some sort and never get any sort of recognition for it, and it can become a point of anxiety that you may never get to see the pay off for your work, and, potentially worse, you will get recognition for your work but it won’t be received within your lifetime and thus become posthumous fame. This has happened with numerous artists, notably this includes Vincent van Gogh and Jeff Buckley. Due to this, it’s quite enticing for people to try doing something spectacular and capitalize on it as much as possible so that you don’t miss your moment in the spotlight and get to experience as much fame possible so that they can know their work paid off and feel completed, which can be a somewhat damaging way of thinking.
As previously mentioned, Gogh was a somewhat was only a painter for the last decade of his life and didn’t see much of a profit for his paintings, which is deeply ironic considering now most of his paintings are literally priceless due to his unique style and being the source of inspiration for thousands if not millions of artists that succeeded him. His story, while somewhat tragic and partially inspiring, is something that isn’t common and a somewhat irrational fear and or goal. In fact, the only reason this sort of situation is thought to be common is because of the ironically named term survivorship bias, which simply put means people looking at instances of an event that has experienced a selection process and solely focusing on the instances that passed the process and ignoring those that did not. Knowing this, it should become more understandable to grasp the idea that the legacies of these artists are quite literally a one in a billion occurrence which don’t warrant much worry or anticipation; only pondering at best as to maintain one’s own sanity.
In another (but less tragic) example of this sort of posthumous legacy, the dodo bird comes to mind. The name for the bird was first “Walghvoghel”, meaning “tasteless bird” in Dutch; which was used due to the fact that the bird was lacking in intelligence and in reality was almost exclusively used as something to be eaten by the settlers on the island it inhabited and originated from, that being Mauritius in the Eastern Coast of Madagascar. It’s not exactly known for one thing besides the fact that it was hunted to the point of extinction by humans and only years after the fact became an example of what exactly not to do to environments and species after the fact. While the life of a species is strange to compare to the lives of an individual human, they share the commonality of importance. Both lived lives which they could not expect to outlive, to affect the future in ways that are borderline incomprehensible, and improve the lives of others which they could never get to experience.
It’s not necessary to say you need to live your own life for yourself, but it is something that is trivial to forget. Though the idea of pay-off most-mortem can invoke a myriad of emotions, it is crucial to always add onto that thought that it is simply an idea and less likely than winning the lottery several times over in a single day. It may be discouraging to never receive the credit you deserve for something you spent time on, but instead of focusing on the failures you have made before, it is important to keep looking forward and focus on the successes you can still experience and create; don’t bother worrying about what will happen when you are gone because you are still here and can still live your life for you.
Works Cited
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo#Etymology)
