I thought today, that i would try to tell the world about the current movement that is going on in our world today. That movement is called Existentialism. I for warn you. this can get pretty deep.
The 20th century has witnessed vast adcances in scientific knowledge, the development of nuclear energy, the expansion of electronic communications, the convenience of jet transportation, the computerization of knowledge, the exploitation of the wealth of nations, the exploration of the moon and planets, and significant breakthroughs in the ways people perceive their world through art, music, poetry, and literature. At the same time the century has seen butchery on the unparalleled scale of two world wars plust the Korean and Indochina conflicts, attempted genocide of massive proportions, and an ever-windening gulf between the benefits of wealth for some and the deprivations of poverty for others. There is also the confrontation with the possibility of the imminent end of the human race.
The bomb, in fact, has confronted everyone with a doomsday frame of mind, and it haunts present-day life and art like a specter at the feast. The potential ruin of the planet has torn apart the sense of vital continuity and futurity, whether this may be sought in the biosphere by living on through one's children, or in the theology by belief in life after death, or through nature, which will go on into eons of geological time, or in creativity by which one's work can influence unborn generations to come.
The possibility of a sudden end to the human species hsa led to a psychological dislocation that makes the past seem obsolete if not abhorrent since it appears to have produced this state of affairs. The present then might seem futile and meaningless, and any future, ridiculous and fanciful. Certainly such an attitude is reflected in the arts, where the critical measurement of contemporary works by past standards of classical craftmanship and excellence has broken down, and where traditional forms have fragmented and disintegrated.
Artists may now feel that they are creating only for the moment rather than for the future, and a neodadaist sense of absurdity and futility pervades many of their works. Ultimately, if nothing is going to last, why bother to write it down, paint it, or compose it? Why not just consider art as a strategy of the imagination as the inspiration or fantasy of a pipe dream. What else is a happening except something that is experienced, then ceases to exist?
Of all recent philosophies, existentialism perhaps comes closest to comprehending the overall current artistic stuation. therational minds of Aristotle and Descartes declared: "I think, therefore i am." a more emotinal and romantic counterpart might say : "i feel, therefore i am." all that the existentialist can do is utter : "i exist, therefore i am." getting down to the bare essentials, deeds, actions and attitudes are the affirmation of being.
Existentialism is essentially the ultimate humanism. For one must constantly ask: "what does it mean to exist? what is human existence like? how does it feel to be human? in this world of infinite possibilities, any choice or action is of necessity not derved from, directed toward, or done for the sake of anything else. Everything can be, but nothing has to be, or must be. With existentialism all art might be said to approach the condition of still-life painting - everything is, nothing is becoming, nor does it have any need to become.
As Macbeth says when tragedy closes in on him,
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
creeps in this petty pace frm day to day,
To the last syllable fo recorded time;
and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death. Out, out , brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
and then is heard no more: it is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
All life, human or otherwise, has a death sentence hanging over it. There can be no sunshine without shadow, no light without darkness. In life there is always the imminent presence of death, in victory the specter of defeat, and every joy is haunted by sadness.
If any message comes through the mists and mazes of history, it is that we should never underestimate the power and creative capacity of the human mind. As long asthe challenge is there, it is the eternal quest of the artist, scientist, or philosopher to envision the invisible, comprehend the incomprehensible, understand the unintelligible.
I have more info. if you want. this is only a small part of it.
G'night! | 
