Around 1796, Ludwig van Beethoven began suffering from a loss of hearing. By 1814, one of the greatest composers of the 19th century—and perhaps of all time—-was completely deaf.

Imagine yourself in his position: You’re quickly gaining fame as a virtuoso pianist and an accomplished composer. But in public conversations, you, whose hearing is critical to your craft, can hardly hear what the person next to you is saying. It was this very social paradox that led Beethoven to withdraw from society towards the end of the 18th century.

At the recommendation of friends and medical practitioners, Beethoven retreated to rural Heiligenstadt, Austria, where distance from city life (and noise) was believed to a means of remedying his loss of hearing. It didn’t work. In fact, isolation might have only increased despair about his condition and about life in general. He contemplated suicide in earnest, but fortunately for all of us, he eventually rejected the notion.

It was during his stay in Heiligenstadt that Beethoven composed, in my opinion, one of the greatest “works” of his career. It came in the form of a letter written to his brothers Carl and Johann, and has since become known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. Penned in 1802, about halfway through his life at age 31, the letter was found in his room after his death in 1827.

Among other things, his letter addresses reasoning for withdrawing from society, as painfully evidenced by these examples:

“[W]hat a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing… Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended me life—it was only my art that held me back.”

And then Beethoven writes the following, which unequivocally manifests a yearning to produce all that he had the capacity—not just capability—to produce, in whatever amount of time his life would lend, and irrespective of his deficiencies; a yearning I think we all have the capacity to achieve:

“Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me. So I endured this wretched existence—truly wretched for so susceptible a body, which can be thrown by a sudden change from the best condition to the very worst…. Perhaps I shall get better, perhaps not; I am ready.”

And strive Beethoven did. Two of his greatest works, Symphony No. 5 (1808) and Symphony No. 9 (1824), were composed in the years following Heiligenstadt, even as he was nearing complete deafness. Which leaves one asking just one question: What do I have yet to bring and have the capacity of bringing forth before leaving
this world?

From Cameron Moll’s brilliant Good Design vs. Great Design