Finding The Will by Losing One's Self

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In our philosophy of art class we have looked at many different classical views on art and beauty. Such ideals as Plato’s criticisms on art, Aristotle’s idea of exemplary beauty and Plotinus’ splendor were discussed in class, and now we look at different philosophers and their attempt to create a theory that holds true for all previous philosophies and more modern ideals; modern ideals such as taste, aesthetics, and imagination. The philosopher that I think did this very well incorporating not only classical philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato but also modern concepts such as imagination and aesthetics is Nietzsche.
Nietzsche’s philosophy on life and on art is deceptively simple. He believes that we are all part of a large will, but at birth we diverge slightly into our own individualistic will and follow our own paths in life. This is where we go wrong as Nietzsche would have us understand. He believes that life’s greatest tragedy is leaving The Will, and falling privy to our own desires and more importantly never getting exactly what we want all the time. For Nietzsche the best thing to happen in a person’s life would be to die, for then we leave our divergent tangents and fall back into The Will; the only thing better than death would be to have never been born and left The Will in the first place.
According to Nietzsche the things that are able to make us happy, or relieve our plight as human beings who are apart from The Will are those that bring transcendence and allow for us to fall back into the will, if only for a second. These activities or objects allow us to lose ourselves and again, transcend our individualistic desires and wills to fall back into The Will. Nietzsche would argue that the reason our happines...

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...s. Nietzsche had a simple philosophy based on wills or desires of not only people but of the universe really, and how it worked. He believed in a world where man’s greatest plight is being born and that the only way we could rectify this situation is by dying. With this somber ideal on the world he did believe in happiness and beauty. He believed that things that were wonderful were those that could make us lose ourselves and become part of The Will, and I would say I would have to agree with him. I personally am happiest when “becoming” another person through television or books and music and art. I also believe that many other people would agree with me. To expand on this though, the exercise in empathy we find ourselves happiest in also leads to a larger sense of peace, for it is not only when we lose ourselves that we are happiest, but also when we find others.

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