I Don't Even Make Sense to Myself, Sometimes

I started reading "The Moon and Sixpence" by W. Somerset Maugham because there's a pub of the same name in my neighborhood and it's one of the best places on Earth.  I finished it today, thanks to jury duty, and this was my favorite part:

"Each one of us is alone in the world.  He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain.  We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them."

I've often felt frustrated when it comes to communication but of course I haven't been able to sum it up so eloquently.  I guess that's part of the frustration.  Unfortunately I think that's just the way things are.  Without the struggle to communicate, what would be the purpose in life?  Without the struggle to say the unsayable, what would be the point of art?  Without humankind struggling to overcome his and her limitations, we wouldn't get anywhere.

Or as Ed Wood wrote:

"Only the infinity of the depths of a man's mind can really tell the story."

And now a painting by Paul Gauguin: