time, aesthetics and life-living

Nature offers the self an outlet to express itself as authentic being, an endeavour to-survive and to-be in a creative way that goes beyond mere functionality. It is the process of the will-to-survive and will-to-be represented in the infinite modes of aesthetic-life-expression, an identity within the confines of time and its eternality. The aesthetic life takes root in living authentically "in time". From this perspective, the self no longer has idle time to swim in its own imagination as a being devoid of practical purpose. Meditation no longer becomes a day-dream, but a practice to fulfill the eternal moment with intent of expressing its ideality onto the course of its own life in the present-ness of the moment. The self emerges out of the darkness of its own slumbers. The conquest of time!

Identity!

How do we begin to express in language our experience of Being. The obliteration of all boundaries of self with nature in which we are left in total awe of existing – a process of self actualization in its most pristine state unworthy of a mortal’s “words.” We are left to ponder and contemplate the unfathomable experience of consciousness on such a subtle beatific vision, where everything infinite makes sense in perfect harmony while in unison with pure confusion of what any and all of Being and existing truly entails. Let me begin by stating: “Life is Beautiful!”


Art is an expression of the different modes of being in the infinite particularities of finite beings in a futile attempt to transcend the experience of autonomy in one’s own realization of self-isolation. The artist reveals his art as pure expression for an abstract telos, where to interpret and appreciate the art is to redeem the essence of the artist in his being-extended in the form of creation. Art abstractly defined then, is all expression in the form of appreciating and communicating the experience of existing and the radical departure and rejection of dualism for an immanent appreciation of being-“in”-the world expressed and interpreted. Dualism characterized as a separation of the domain of the transcendent intellect-soul and the material-physical-phenomenal, and the production of art to unite the two with the medium at hand.


Beauty and our aesthetic taste for subjective particularism must come to terms with the task of finding a standard beyond some hypothetical abstraction such as “the” beautiful in the realm of transcendent form. To fully appreciate beauty in all of its infinite expressions in nature, interpretation of the “is-ness” of experience is crucial. To create boundaries or parameters on “what is beautiful” and “what is not” without close scrutiny of ones inherited tradition of aesthetic categories then is counter intuitive of being able to experience “life-being” as it truly manifest itself. Yet, one can argue even in our liberation of judging with subjective standards and categories of aesthetics, we are still left to reconstruct and develop our own appreciation of beauty. Can anyone, even a nihilist, dare to argue that the angelic are more beautiful than the beasts, or that the philosophers are in someway more pleasing than the politicians? It is as if there is some intuitive realization that a (thirteen-petal) rose in its eternal becoming is pleasing to the soul of the mystic than a field of weeds in its chaos. To create then, a subjective standard based on qualitative-aesthetic judgment, to refine oneself towards the “aristocratic” cannot be rejected, for rejection is to blindly appreciate the perverse standards of oligarchic and tyrannical. [Even these subjective standards of beauty can be argued against for the alternative view that everything is beautiful in its own way no matter how we judge from our own aesthetic taste.]


Contemplation or pure thought, when expressed in the form of language, to paint the picture one comes to be represented in the mind must come to terms with the process of actualizing the vision. Before we will the representation of thought’s vision, the internal dilemma arises – for what purpose is any and all of expression/art? Why extend myself at all? Have I not, through toil earned the freedom and right to my own existence? To offer my words to the most wise and distinguished as if to not realize my youthfulness is to transcend boundaries too daring even for my own standards, while to offer my words as some prescription as if I were already a distinguished physician of the soul is to glory in an arrogant delusion. To extend my thoughts for my own sake, although novel, seems to be an effort not worth embarking on. Can I not exist trying to fully actualize my full potentialities by learning to refine my portrait as an idealization in contemplating my eternal becoming? The infinitesimal task of appreciating the other as a manifestation of nature, to appreciate the “thou” of life can be best, in my own judgment be best accomplished in passivity and being a student of the moment at hand. But the impulse for the artist to shed all vestiges of corporeality, to undress himself and recreate the finer moments of his process to actualize his freedom beyond all costumes that may identify his own being as something “this worldly” is then a process worth embarking on beyond any simplistic explanation. To show himself in pure expression, absorbed in the moment, as if to say “here I am” knocking at the gates to the kingdom of thought, I believe is worthy beyond any need of explanation.


The artist creates “out-of nothing” from the void and chaos that exists in himself, a representation of the world that he comes to behold. Of course, out-of nothing is also symbolic of his own existence from nothing that has culminated in something not definable as chaos or a perfect systematization of anything “specific.” Why should the Monarchy of Beauty be defined and categorized as something distinctly definable by the inherited categories of human language? Is it not an imaginable possibility for the soul of the artist to transcend all boundaries of existence as if to leave behind even his own citizenship in the simplistic “given” political order that modernity has produced for a more aesthetically pleasing existence as a “created being” in the truth of the revealed world? With this self-refined view of the artist’s ideal place in the world comes the realization of a responsibility to uphold imperatives to the transcendent standards (abstractions they maybe) that have come to be embodied in the artist’s soul, the ought to the true, the good and the beautiful – “The lover of love!”

spectrum of modes: "will-to-be","will-to-survive" and "life-living"

As the self reflects on the past narratives of its own life in the present moment, the process of change can be seen as taking place incrementally. Is it not apparent that the future is taking hold of the present?

The self can create in its being, the diversity of modes that it can Will dependent on the characteristics of its phenomena (i.e. the enviornment that molds the self in the present). Life is found between the spectrum of "will-to-be" and the "will-to-survive". The "will-to-be" is described inwardly as philosophical reflection as a meditation to bring the ideal self, the telos as an authentic character, onto the phenomenal appearance as projection. Outwardly, the "will-to-be" observes the phenomena without motion, as it reveals itself as a being viewing the particularities in the multiplicity of life existing as individual expression of its individual will in the totality of the encompassing All. This is only one mode on one end of the spectrum that can be contrasted with the mode of "will-to-survive". This contrasting mode is a pure will that makes itself known as a being striving to survive in the continuum of life-nature. The self in this mode has little to no room for philosophical reflection, and can be described as the is-ness of its being reflected in the actions of preforming the task at hand for survival. Both modes are expressed during the rhythmic cycle we call "day".

What persists through this spectrum of change is the expression of the artist represented as "life-living" in authenticity!

wonder

To be aware of the extended world while remaining in a state of meditation about the self's relation to the world makes the phenomenal experience one of wonder. The self begins again to rediscover itself hidden in the depth of its own soul. It looks upon the world of phenomena with curiosity. This curiosity brings to the fore of life-living, an inner expression of authenticity - as the self reflects on the world through the gaze of philosophical perspective. The All encompasses everything except the freedom of its own will and consciousness to be. As the world of the mind separates itself from the extended world, thought sees itself clearly as an artist expressing its world-life-view. This is the beginning of the present-ness of experience through its own meditation.

We are by nature confined in the dual worlds of the mind and body. What unifies the two in the present is the will to express itself in the form of authentic being. Consciousness manifests itself as the extended body and its world of thought unifying itself in the grand narrative we call life-nature. How the self experiences the world is like a single drop of water flowing in the stream of life. To see momentarily the river as it is and to realize that through extension the self has a specific place in this process is to come face to face with the All. In a momentary epiphany it sees its own creaturely-ness in nature as it contemplates its will to be. The is-ness of the moment reveals the artistic will expressing its wonder.

Freedom and Autonomy

To make oneself an artistic being in the world of phenomena, the self must create imperatives that dictate its own actions represented by the Will. To express the self's freedom to act in accordance to its own will is to have autonomy. Freedom and autonomy does not necessarily mean that it has limitless options in the world. The artistic being ought to create its own categories in which it must abide by in order to express its freedom in the phenomenal world. The Self knows its moral nature and its ability to abide by laws that are apparent through its sensation, but beyond this self-knowing lies other laws that have been created by the mind in order to make the self more free. It is to will the mind's world (a projection of the ideal Self) onto the extended self that relates its being to the objects and other particulars of the natural world. The Self, must identify with the minds own aesthetic categories and make it a reality in the world of its phenomena. How else can the artistic and authentic self come to be expressed in the extended world? This "will" must bring its own world-life-view into the world of phenomena through its expression in philosophic language. The self as artist.

Purpose - an age old question (previous post)

The unknown world of other "selves" and the peculiarity of their subjective consciousness, is of concern to the "I" of the Self, who struggles to understand what it means to live in the current narrative of existence. Changes to the web of societal existence is so rapid that the "I" dwindles to the size of an ant mindlessly carrying on its own function for the good of the survival of the species. However displaced, our existence and our conscious experience has some meaning at least to our own subjective perspectives. We exist not aimlessly in the dark for a new darkness of the next generation, but we exist as beings created for a purpose. It is this "purpose" or telos that drives us consciously or subconsciously to move ourselves for the light of something more.


What is more to the Self can or cannot be the same as the other selves that exist. With this division in purpose comes a great divide in the narratives of our lives. Yet, the narratives converge on a spiritual level to create what may be a "objectivity" of existence. This hypothetical objectivity is quickly dissolved into narratives of  illusion of the current social system. When the bubble burst and the individual "I's" are left to there demise to find the narrative that suits them best, all is left for the Self to pray to a harmonious story of the objective world. It is nothing more than goodness, and simple existence of contentment for the ability to be alive.


How is it that the Self's subjective experiences are congruent with the realm of other subjective beings? Do we not live in our separate worlds blinded by our own world-life-view, without a clue to the existence of the other?  The existence of an "I" so confidently stated in the mind of the Self, is nothing more than a scared-squeak as an existent in the phenomenal realm. How to "bridge" the gap between existence in the noumenal world while conscious of our existence in the material world is the philosophical task of contemplating truth.


The Self is nothing more than a construction of itself, looking to understand how the "I" relate to "others" to create a narrative of how and why we exist. It is a process to find meaning - an age old question.

the bridge between worlds

Is creation of the world an experience that transcends logic?
At once the soul is uplifted into the noumenal world, where phenomena becomes a process-reality for the believer. Isolation is momentarily transcended for a world that seems to point to redemption. However, the Self is by natural law, apart of the extended world as a being with multiple modes. Dependent on the narrative one takes, fruitful realities appear in the day light of lived-life. How else are we to find a bridge between the nouminal world and that of the phenomenal - is it not dialogue?


Darkness looms when one re-enters the phenomenal world without the basis of the ideal world. Chaos of the mind, narratives of delusions, clouds the path to awakened self-authenticity. It becomes the imperative of the will to unify what is divine in the soul with that of the self that is apart of the extended world of materiality. Being, encounters the created world of the Mind as a momentary we.