I wanted to show you all a painting. Tell you what life is about, because I was thinking it might make us all feel a little better.
I painted this because I felt like the play was about life, and life is full of color, and we each get to come along and we add our own color to the painting. And even though it’s not very big, the painting, we still have to figure it goes on forever, you know, in each direction, so like to infinity, because that’s kind of like life.
It’s really crazy if you think about it, isn’t it? That 100 years ago some guy that I never met came to this country with a suitcase. He has a son, who has a son, who has me. So at first when I was painting, I was thinking maybe up here, that was that guy’s part of the painting, and then down here that’s my part of the painting. And then I started to think, what if we’re all in the painting everywhere? What if we’re in the painting before we’re born? What if we’re in the painting after we die? And these colors that we keep adding, what if they keep getting added on top of one another until eventually we’re not even different colors anymore, we’re just one thing? One painting.
And my dad is not with us anymore, he’s not alive. But he’s with us. He’s with me every day. It all just sort of fits somehow, even if you don’t understand how yet. People will die in our lives, people that we love, in the future, maybe tomorrow, maybe years from now. It’s kind of beautiful if you think about it, the fact that just because someone dies, just because you can’t see them or talk to them anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re not still in the painting.
I think maybe that’s the point of the whole thing. There’s no dying. There’s no you, or me, or them...it’s just us. And this sloppy, wild, colorful, magical thing that has no beginning, no end...that’s right here. I think it’s us.
It’s really crazy if you think about it, isn’t it? That 100 years ago some guy that I never met came to this country with a suitcase. He has a son, who has a son, who has me. So at first when I was painting, I was thinking maybe up here, that was that guy’s part of the painting, and then down here that’s my part of the painting. And then I started to think, what if we’re all in the painting everywhere? What if we’re in the painting before we’re born? What if we’re in the painting after we die? And these colors that we keep adding, what if they keep getting added on top of one another until eventually we’re not even different colors anymore, we’re just one thing? One painting.
And my dad is not with us anymore, he’s not alive. But he’s with us. He’s with me every day. It all just sort of fits somehow, even if you don’t understand how yet. People will die in our lives, people that we love, in the future, maybe tomorrow, maybe years from now. It’s kind of beautiful if you think about it, the fact that just because someone dies, just because you can’t see them or talk to them anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re not still in the painting.
I think maybe that’s the point of the whole thing. There’s no dying. There’s no you, or me, or them...it’s just us. And this sloppy, wild, colorful, magical thing that has no beginning, no end...that’s right here. I think it’s us.
From This Is Us.
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