“Nietzsche considers the only true antidote to this existential dreariness:
‘No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!’” [1]
Not surprisingly, he walked the hills of surrounding Eze Village in Southern France, on a regular basis while writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
He was a firm believer that walking was good for the brain.
There is a bridge that we must cross as artists; one that no one can else cross for us.
It is our creation.
Like dying and being reborn we battle the existential anxiety as ideas are born and if we are strong enough to endure the process they materialize in what will one day become our œuvre.
Transgression becomes our motto.
We take on the ghosts of our lives and with any luck achieve that mindlessness, that state of being where our prefrontal cortex is in mute mode and our self-criticism and self-editing are silenced.
Only then can this rebirth take place, with the materialization of a work of art. That becomes, in itself, the story of our lives, our path; a map that shows where we have been while on this planet. [2]
There are no maps to much of our path, those exist only in our memory, still as Magdalena Abakanowicz said:
“Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.” [3]
In Nietzsche’s words:
“You are treading your path to greatness. No one shall steal after you here…”
Walking that path is a gift from the gods.
It is often a painful path.
One where the focal point is blurred between rebirths, as an excess of ideas and questions battle it out in the angst of the moment between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality.
Culminating in this, our lives, our œuvre, for which we are eternally grateful.
By Boky & Blake
1.https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/30/nietzsche-find-yourself-schopenhauer-as-educator/
2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iHwPfirtUg&index=7&list=PLVqHfkys5pHQraGjrulbIl0FlZkVhoMpZ