Existentialism and Art as the Meaning of Life

In his book The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche tells a story about king Midas, who:

hunted a long time in the woods for the wise Silenus, companion of Dionysus, without being able to catch him. When he finally caught him the king asked him what he considered man’s greatest good. The daemon remained sullen and uncommunicative until finally, forced by the king, he broke into a shrill laugh and spoke: “Ephemeral wretch, begotten by accident and toil, why do you force me to tell you what it would be to your greatest boon not to hear? What would be best for you is quite beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best is to die soon.”

The moral of this story, for Nietzsche, is existential in nature. When one holds the perspective that beings create the meaning and essence of their own lives in their minds, Silenus’ taunt is only threatening to the degree to which one denies the sacred and temporally valuates their existence. Or rather, Selenus is correct if meaning is innately objective—he’s correct unless we do something to prove him wrong.

Absent idealism, the existential life careens into fatalism. If the world is “finished,” in an objective sense, then we are doomed as beings of accidental, ephemeral meaninglessness, our only options being that of denial of reality or suffering under the oppression of inevitable damnation, in which case Silenus’ strident advice is advantageous. However, if, as Arturo Fallico suggests, the state of the world is “not-done-and-having-to-be-attended-to,” then idealism, the manifestation of transcending phenomena, is not only our most beneficial option but our duty as conscious beings. We are behooved to disprove the proverbial Selenus.

From an existentialist perspective it is better to have meaning and fulfillment in life than disenchantment and psychological vacancy, so idealism makes the most sense, even if the transcendental process is endless, because the ideological application itself fills the attendant world-void. The method for this can be called creative self-expression. When one uses their will to evolve a unique esoteric self-essence, as opposed to being wholly deterministic, and expresses that to the exoteric world, they are exercising their will to power to create an aesthetic that previously didn’t exist. Thus, their existence means something because it attended to the unfinished world.

It’s interesting to note that the reason the world needs persistent attendance is because it—and subsequently our—transient condition cannot absolutely validate any one change enough to consider the whole “finished.” In the context of consciousness there is always individual and group subjectivity, and as for the whole, which simply is, our moral valuations only apply to our relationship with reality and not reality itself. We mustn’t assume, to borrow Sartre, that what we think is the object of the external world is actually the being-in-itself. Thus change must be a constant.

As stated before, how one adds to this absurd condition is via creative expression of the self. There is potential paradox here, however, because we must consider how separated we are from our experiences; how determined by our environment is our “self”? If the essence we consider to be “us” is contingent upon what happens to us, then our being is made up of innumerable constituents and is inherently deterministic. No “self” is truly autonomous. But I would argue that this is not a paradox because true autonomy is not necessary to contribute to the unfinished world. In fact I would argue that the acceptance and integration of those constituents makes ones creativity more authentic.

Art imitates life imitates art. It is similar for being: self begets world begets self; one is created by the world but is also actively creating the world, simply by being there. From here the question becomes qualitative: what worth is your contribution? Surly, one is creating the world around them simply by being, but some create more than others, and all creation is different, thus a system of values must be put into place to judge the worth of the creations of the individual. A healthy ethno-culture provides such a system.

Ethnicities carry the particularity of the environment which evolved them. A traditional, homogeneous ethnicity is subsequently connected to the land, and its culture reflects that. A proper connection to reality (nature) sparks a healthy ethos, which in turn allows the people to express their characteristically prevailing attitudinal beliefs symbolically. This mythos is the highest form of art imaginable as it reflects both the world as is and the collective wisdom of tradition and heredity. It is also the most empowering kind of expression because it substantiates the fundamental identity of the individual, which opens up the opportunity for greater self definition through the creative arts; if you are constantly trying to define who you are, fundamentally, you sacrifice action, which limits your contribution to the unfinished world.

Thus the most worthy life is spent developing the mythos of one’s people. This is the active process of ethno-culture. It encompasses art, science, architecture, war, etc. so long as the focus is ethnically based (acceptance of reality and reverence for nature). Since this is lacking in the modern West, it is our duty as conscious beings to find similar individuals to ourselves with which to spark an in-group ethos (distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs) to then express mythologically through art. This is the greatest hope for civilization to transcend the absurd. It is a shrill laugh back at Silenus and the existential meaning of life.

Shayne