A Transcendental Existentialist’s Postmodern Meditation on the Word

1. The essence of art is not in its external forms, but in its spiritual content.

–Constantin Stanislavsky

1.1 The difference between humans and art is that for art, essence precedes existence.

2. Let form follow content, just as we “suit the action to the word.” Say what you must. then present it appropriately.

2.1 GWEN: Truly I wish the gods had made thee poetical.
      TZARA: I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest in word in deed? Is it a true                      thing?                                                                     –Travesties, Tom Stoppard

3. Whatsoever Universal Truth might be, wheresoever it might dwell, what’s true for me can only be heard in echoes.

3.1 You cannot understand me through the book. You can only understand yourself.

3.2 You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fiber your blood.                               –Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

4. Mind Makes Meaning

5. I reject the doctrine of Alienation. It is a lie told to keep us apart (a part).

5.1 I turn from the lure of, the invitation to be, the Stranger.

5.2 Let the Interweaving Knot tie us together, for though we are different we are one.

5.2.1 I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

–Albert Camus

6. There is no writing. Only revision. I stand on the foundation of millennia of thought: true originality is an illusion.

6.1 I am so rife with allusion, I am practically T.S. Eliot.

7. This disillusion need not be disheartening. Together we are engaged in the process of refining our forms and ideas. The Narrative allows us to speak to those long gone.

8. Paradox: each of us is new, original, and individual. We have something worth saying.

8.1 TZARA: All poetry is a reshuffling of a pack of picture cards, and all poets are                        cheats. I offer you a Shakespeare sonnet, but it is no longer his. It comes                      from the wellspring where my atoms are uniquely organized, and my                          signature is written in the hand of chance.     

–Travesties, Tom Stoppard

9. To Thine Own Self Be True: on Existential Authenticity – it is the prerogative of deeply reflective persons to sometimes change their minds.

10: Break rules when justified: civilly disobey those little-minded hobgoblins.

11. #YOLO, so keep your eyes open. Call it like you see it. Leave this place better than you found it.

11.1 Be excellent to each other. And party on, dude.

–Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure