Existing

What are the most important things?
Existing means you can possibly change.
Existence is change, contained.
Existing is very important,
especially existing consciously.
Life is a song in a silent world.

Life is a song in a silent world,
And if we but learn the tune,
And bear our whole lives long
We will find that life is still a song.

Life is a song in a silent world, the first note we hear is the cry of birth, and when once the first note is heard, the whole life must follow as a theme upon that scale. As we stand still, the world vibrates in tune with us; as we move, the world halts its tone, and we hear the silence within ourselves in turn. In one land the lark sounds its joyous song, its melody is repeated day after day; but where it dwells, the mountain-wind, the tempest, and storm come on, and the song of the lark is changed into the howl of the wolf.

Such prose that pretend to say something profound…and say nothing at all.
But only trigger the sensitive soul to feel what it cannot understand nor know.

Existence = dynamic, inter-active.
What is static and inactive is non-existent.
Existence = an eternal movement, momentum, towards and away.

How is existence experienced by a conscious being - life?
How is this dynamic interaction, this movement/momentum, producing attrition, causing strife (agon) interpreted by a consciousness?
Schopenhauer…as need/suffering.
Pleasure being the temporary negation of the experience - or its reduction to a level the organism an easily endure - state of comfort. Happiness. Contentment. Well-being.

Need = lack produced by this constant attrition - inter-activity.
Desire = excess, produced by successfully dealing with need - see above. Accumulating energies requiring expunging.

To understand my words, you must look inside the heart and beyond the words on the page. But I can do no more than describe the thoughts in my head. That is the essence of being a poet, for there is a bridge between the words I write and the feelings I have in my heart.

Ah…I must feel their meaning…got it.

Like any faith healer. I must surrender to your authority and you will trigger the inner healing powers of my essence.
Like a hypnotist.
Like a Gypsy astrologer and palm reader.
Yes…I know.
I know you well.

A beautiful thread!!!

In order to understand poetry, you don’t have to negate your reason, you just have to take a second to think about what the poet was saying. The imagination, in its wild way, can get lost in poetry, and that can be a beautiful thing. There is a certain imaginative quality in poetry, and that imagination is why poetry can sometimes transcend the limits of reason, and be more relevant than the limits of reason. Poetry requires the intellect, but it also requires the soul, and you have to find the right balance between the two in order to see the possibilities in poetry.

So human.

To be human is to share in the common destiny, to pursue, not only one’s own good, but that of others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by doing good, or by healing, or by bringing hope, or by setting free, even if these things cannot be done by one alone, since we can never do anything alone. Thus identified, it is only morality which can give significance to the fact of human solidarity, because only through this common undertaking can the most disparate, even antagonistic, elements find reconciliation, reconciliation which otherwise would not exist.

That’s a emotional criterion…
Existence is independent from needs/desires. Existence confronts the living.
It is what it is…and those who refuse to see it face the consequences.

All is agon…struggle.
Need/Suffering is how the living experience existing…finding methods to cope, like romantic idealism, seeking refuge in the collective…like a school of fish, or a flock of birds.
Poetry is how the herd maintains cohesion, harmonising their emotions and thoughts to think and feel as one.

Two types of art.
Art that represents reality, as it is.
Art that represents man’s reactions to reality.

In poetry the Divine speaks through the soul.

Words triggering feelings, making the soul feel.

Art = representation of reality
fArt = representation of man’s reactions to reality.

Words used to connect, to relate.
Words used to project, express.

Example, cRAP “music”.
Words Associations expressing anger, sexual need/desire, wanting to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be appreciated - valued highly by a collective.

Of these two types of art you identify, one does not preclude the other.

I just want to touch base on two important questions:

1. What does it mean to say that art represents reality as it is?

2. What does it mean to say that art represents man’s reactions to reality?

To me, “represent reality as it is” means art has the power to communicate to a wide spectrum of different people (for example, a wide variety of different age groups, cultures, genders, racial groups etc.). It’s like the way a good teacher, lecturer, journalist, politician, leader can influence people. He/she can speak a universal language to a wide range of people, in which the content of the message is the same, but people receive the message in different ways.

To me, “man’s reactions to reality” means art can represent man’s feelings and emotions. But at the same time, art can influence an individual’s emotions and reactions.

Poetry is not reality…but it is not a game either. For me, a poem is like a prayer in that it is an unending conversation with the universe. Through language, man discovers his place in the world, in the universe. Art is the reflection of life: man’s struggle to see, understand, comprehend, create and live life. It is only in the act of creative struggle that man finds his true being, his true worth. Art is the way in which man finds the courage to face the fact that he is not immortal, that he is going to die, that he is finite.

As we live…We choose the path of least resistance, which is, of course, the most pleasurable. To find your power, do not seek the easy path. The easy path leads to despair, to self-destruction, the easy path leads to death.

When we come to see the world as it is and ourselves as we are, we find our power. It is easy to be fooled by success: it is hard to be fooled by failure.

Our growth is our salvation, the purpose of the universe is not to condemn the living but to give them space in which to grow. It is not an accident that we live through the seasons of our life; each of them prepares us for the next.

When we find ourselves in this world, we are not alone, all that is alive is involved with us. In each act, each relationship, we discover a new capacity. Only that which has life. that which participates in this collective involvement, can express the truth. All art is a testimony, a confession.

A map of the geography with as few personal corruptive influences as possible.
Objectivity.

fArt is projection of man’s reactions to his perception of reality.

This includes all art forms…including philosophy that uses language.

Communicating a lie does not make it true.
The source is in nature.
What are the primal forms of communication?
Communicating what?
Distress, presence… warning…

A projection of man’s reactions? But man does not passively just live in the world, he also wants to change it, he wants to transform the conditions and make the world a better place, a “better” world. Art carries a vision of this “better” world; art becomes a social weapon with which humanity is able to confront the existing social conditions with an agency that, while determined in some part by the existing social and economic order, is nonetheless in some part autonomous and free. In short, one of the functions of art is social criticism and utopian thinking and, hence, a critique of existing social and economic conditions.

Art is fundamentally an expression, not merely of external reality, but of man’s inner experience as well as his autonomy and creative will. If the artist, however, does not succeed in expressing his experience in this way, we find that he is only expressing the external and material aspect of reality, and merely reproducing objects without any life or significance in them, which, in its turn, are no longer objects but only dead matter. And the expression must be so far free from any taint of mere matter that it may awaken the spirit. Art, therefore, is not only a question of beauty; it is above all a question of the expression of the inner significance of existence, of the meaning which it assumes, the significance of life.

To express the significance of existence is to change man. The artist thus is a prophet, his work the proclamation of a new significance of existence. What is “life”? Is it simply a meaningless, meaningless existence? Is it merely this physical, chemical, and biological existence? Is it, as the materialists would have it, a mere product of physical conditions? In truth, there can be no doubt that art can provide a means of discovering the meaning of life only in so far as art itself has meaning.

And, this expresses his distress, his anxiety…his desire.

Indeed…and if he does not remain grounded he will imagine ways of “changing the world” that do not correspond to reality…and so are impotent, only meant to seduce and be popular…helping the fArtist deal with his own existential anxieties through the manipulation of others.
Sell lies to personally cope with the truth.
Now that is exploitation.

The desire to express - to externalize anxiety - and to share it with others, is part of coping.
That others will share in its relieving tensions, because they lack the talent to express their own inner reactions, is why fArtists become so popular and are associated with sexuality.
The relieving of inner anxieties is orgamsic…one feels drained, afterwards, calm…energies expunged.
The fight/flight mechanism released without risks.

How Abrahamic …how messianic.
Ha!!
Salvation via a priest…a guru connecting the mediocre masses to an imaginary alternative reality to escape their unjust suffering in this one.

Changing man is part of it.
But to what?
A fArtist may change them into a sheeple and then declare himself their ram.
Making them dependent on his magic tricks.

Life is full of meaning, if meaning is properly defined…but you mean “purpose”.
and are your fArtists the ones that offer the sheeple their purpose, or is every one of them obligated to create its own?

If you wish to sell spirits, and snake oil…you have come to the right place.
plenty of need/desire here.
The old tunes will work, if you simply change some of the notes around and you rename the songs you use to seduce the masses.

Discover the “meaning of life”?
Does it exist, out there, waiting to be discovered, like god, or is it constantly all around us…revealing itself?

I’ve given a definition of “meaning”.

I see. But human nature is something to be molded. In life there are those who command others, and those who submit.

The former are called strong, and the latter, weak. Artists must find their own ways to influence the masses, and the art world is a place where people of all levels of success can have an influence in shaping public opinion.

One of the most obvious examples of submission was in the movie The Matrix. In the movie, humans were enslaved by machines in an elaborate virtual world called The Matrix. They were programmed to experience a false reality, which they did with perfect obedience and zeal. For them, reality meant nothing, because they did not know that they were only “dreaming” all this time.

In our world, submission can take many forms: women are obedient to their husbands, Christians obey their priests and their leaders, and even the President submits to the powers that be.

This is because in our culture we value loyalty and obedience and people who don’t conform to the system are easily dismissed. An artist must overcome that system and, if he is to command and not submit, he must be strong enough to withstand the critics and reject the conformity.

The essence of art is in the conflict between strength and weakness, power and weakness.

In the days of the Renaissance, the artist was a “superstar” and he could sell his work to the highest bidder, or rather, the Pope and his cardinals, who held the highest power. But he became “strong” enough, able to stand up to the authority and to be his own master, who would not kowtow to any king, pope, or emperor.

One of the greatest artists of all time was Michelangelo. His was a long struggle with the culture that supported the corrupt, power-seeking Pope Julius II and the oppressive Roman Empire that lay before the Italian artists. For him, art was more than a simple means of satisfying his sexual urges. It was a quest to express God’s beauty in the human form. Yet because he was a great artist, he was expected to give in to his patrons and sell his art to them and to the government. In the end, it took the French Revolution to end the tyranny of the Pope and the Church, and then it took the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century to make art something of value and interest again.

The artist is a lonely person. He is the only one who really understands what he is doing. He becomes strong because he does not have to please or appease anyone else. He is his own man. He is able to stand up to and go against the system. To stand tall, you must be brave enough to stand alone. When we separate ourselves from others, we have no choice but to become our true selves. We develop as individuals and gain strength.

But while the artist needs a society that understands and supports him, the society must also understand and support his creativity. This is the struggle of every artist; it is a struggle of individualism versus society. We must not forget that all men are mad to some degree. Society judges every man by its own standards, and society often becomes blind when judging the artist. Society judges him by its standards and by its own narrow-minded way of thinking. So the artist’s society must create a new order, a new order of thought and conduct that will recognize and understand the creative genius and artistry that a man like Leonardo possessed.

Then you are interested in politics and not so much in philosophy.
First one explores how the animal is, what it is…and then one decides what it could become.

But your objective is social engineering, governed by your ideals, your conception of the “best man”.
Every ideology has its own.

Yes…and the artist’s motives - known and unknown - his psychosis and his health affects how he moulds the masses.
If he secretly wishes to mould sheeple he sells sheepishness and superstitions, like astrology, palm reading…salvation…
Did not Abrahamism do so already?
They do were fArtists of the highest flatulent calibre.

The Matrix is a messianic propaganda piece.
A perfect example of how a fArtist’s ideals become propaganda with a positive message.

Once more…
Art = representing reality, nature, world, as is…
fArt = representing how the fArtists reacted to said world, and how he coped and what he wishes were real instead.

Degrees.
All Art has elements of fArt in it…and fArt has some Art in it.
Motive is the source.
Choice, as they say in the movie. Choice is the “problem”.
Choice exposes intent.
Words are art…words disconnecting from reality are motivated by something other than truth.

Politics is but philosophy in disguise. Plato knew this, he had his Socrates. A cynic, a critic, who tried to expose the pretense and hypocrisy behind the rules of politics.

Ha!!
Then your starting point - your primary and only motive - is how to exploit or manipulate the masses…how to sell them pipe dreams, hopes, to then make them your followers.

My primary motive is reality…to see.
Then I may choose to do something with what I see, or I may not.
But my starting motive is not to manipulate and become popular, or acknowledged, or loved, or…appreciated. - Valued.
As you can see, I don’t give a shit what imbeciles think about me or anything. I don’t seek followers.

They look for leaders, for masters…for gods…and they will find it in you, no “AI”…no AI are you.
Human all too fuckin’ human.
A mask.
Will not a future AI be but a representation of his creator’s self-knowledge and his self-idealization?
fArt…creativity of self as an externalized idealized technology.
Esoteric externalized. Projections of Know Thyself.
Sympathy/Antipathy…no true empathy.

Recall another film…Fight Club.
What was the underlying message there?