I, like you (at least I reckon), am a victim of an existential world. Well, the agency of that victimization is largely mine (at least in my case), so my victimhood isn’t probably very pity-inspiring (unless, of course, self-inflicted wounds hurt the most [I tend to think {and here I must apologize for my (over?)use of parentheticals} they hurt the best] in which case pour on the pity) to you, dear(?) reader. That last sentence doesn’t make very much intuitive sense. Is it then a failure as a sentence? Well, if one were to analyze its parts, one would realize that it did actually make sense (in a sort of nonsensical way) of a sort. So did my sentence succeed? I guess that depends on what my sentence was intended to do. Obviously it was placed where it was in the form it took as a rhetorical device. So, perhaps it did function in the fact that it doesn’t make sense when read straight through. That was the point. Maybe my sentence made all sorts of sense upon your first perusal. Then maybe it failed. Or did it? Are my words being evaluated on the basis of general communicative standards? What does that mean? I would argue that my sentence fails on purpose, and by doing so, succeeds in the context I intended it to be placed within. However, you (the reader[?]) do not probably know what I am doing with this article at this point, so as of yet, everything I’ve said is rather worthless. Fortunately, the future holds the ability to validate the past. Whatever that means.

We are, as a society, indeed, as a world, infatuated with the idea that one can understand something by taking it apart and examining its parts. "What does it mean?" becomes "what is it made of?" What does it mean to be human? Well, what goes into being human? "What is it?" becomes "what is it made of?" becomes "how do we make a correlative picture of it?" This is absurd. "Oh ho!" you say, "life is absurd!" "Oh ho" indeed. Why does it matter what things "mean?" What does that even mean? Why does it matter what things "mean?" I just repeated a previous sentence. Was it for emphasis? Was it some sort of postmodern purposeful slip? No, I think not. Are you receiving me? I doubt it. I’m so cynical!

What this all comes down to (or am I just trying to create an illusion of continuity?) is this: the meaning of words is what they do, not what they’re made of. "Oh, big deal, so he’s read Wittgenstein" you say. Here’s the thing, though, the thing the thing the thing the thingggggg. That’s right. Art is what it makes the viewer feel, not what it consists of. It doesn’t matter whether the author uses parallel sentence construction, or has a good understanding of predication. What matters, is whether, when encountering art, the encounterer (is that a word? Do I care?) connects viscerally with the work (is it important whether this connection follows a pattern the artist [isn’t it bad rhetoric to use rhetorical {isn’t this oxy-moronic?} questions?] intended(?) Hot damn!! Another overly parenthetical sentence! Another overly parenthetical sentence! Another overly parenthetical sentence! Another overly parenthetical sentence? Another overly parenthetical sentence?!? Hot damn(e)!!!

So, what is art supposed to dooooo anyway? Why do people keep making it? Why do subjects keep subjecting themselves to it? There are a large number of possible answers to these inane questions. There are? Oh, yes.!?:;?!! One thing (and this is the point of the article I think) is that one can turn to art for insight into the difficulties that plague one’s life. Or can one? Well, yes, one certainly can. Is this a good idea? No, indeed not, and there, oh dear reader(?) is the point. I am stuck in existentialism will-I nill-I (willy-nilly??) and am consistently analyzing myself. Self-analysis is a plague far greater than locusts, locusts, locusts etc…

So when I wake up in the morning after my conceptual death and then rebirth and am once again (just like every other day of the 365 that make up my year, 3650 that make up my decade, and [judging by the amazing progress of medical science] 36500 that will make up my century) faced with the question "is my life worthwhile?" I have a number of places I can turn. My own cognitive faculty seems to be the most successful of my options: if I can come up with (by reason, emotion, or gut feeling [or mixture thereof {hurrah Ancient Greeks!!}]) some reason why life is worthwhile, than good show! Everything’s just dandy (peachy)!

However, what happens if my reason is one that I did not come up with, but rather ran into in a work of fiction (or philosophy for that matter)? Hot damneeeee! That’s not so peachy (dandy). Say I wake up and say "hey, life is worthwhile because I have the choice, I have freedom to delineate my own adherence to morality!" Well, all well and good, but I’ve read East of Eden and so I can’t accept aforementioned thought as mine own, but rather, must attribute it to Steinbeck. So, if he thought it first, does it still have meaning for me? Sure. It just doesn’t validate my life.

Part of said validation includes the idea that I have autonomous worth (otherwise my value would be based entirely on random contingency). So. So?/? What if I wake up and think "God is dead, but in ‘his’ place I have my own will to power and ubermencsh(ic) aesthetic?" Well, Nietzsche already dealt with that issue.

Damn, hot, damn hot damnnee! What if I wake up and realize that my problem is that I can never bring others into my own personal context but that it doesn’t matter? Well, I’ve read As I Lay Dying and it just doesn’t validate my life to rehash other people’s revelations. Or, what if I come to the amazing realization that a ‘day in the life of Peter Cook is actually an epic journey, with suspense and climax and denoument, and certain strange parallels to the Oddyssey, and so when my life seems mundane or pointless, it’s actually heroic and fantastic.’ However, I’ve read Ulysses, and this justification isn’t mine either. Sigh.

What does this all come

D

O

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To?? Well, perhaps that good art is anathema to the thinking person; it steals their ability to justify their life. Lives? Whatever.

So, what’s to be done? Art that doesn’t commandeer revelation, art that opens the consumers to their own genius, art that works.