On Living as an Art Form

(Submitted by the author)

When I turn to my inner world and ask myself, “What is the meaning of life?”, it's the word 'synthesis' which most often comes to my mind. As long as it isn’t forced, synthesis takes place, along with a balance of some description. A beautiful life is the synthesis of all of life’s major experiences. We are beings who ‘know’, who ‘believe’; we are imbued with moral values and an appreciation of beauty. In other words, it is, to a large extent, the cognitive, religious-inner-spiritual, moral and aesthetic experiences which bestow meaning on our lives.

What makes living an art form is when these experiences reach that state - or level of being - where there is unity in diversity, where they support and nourish each other without losing their
own partial autonomy.

I know this is not easy. In my opinion, what matters here is to be en route towards the destination, and, therefore, to experience getting closer. And rather than an ‘event’, this experience is a ‘happening’, a process. History teaches us that it is possible to transmit a large part of our human experience to other people. The existence of mutual influences, overlapping, similarities, and even differences between cultures and civilizations testifies to this fact. Whatever the objections which some thinkers may come up with, in the final analysis, there is only one humanity occupying this
earth.

And humanity today faces a serious threat. This is revealed in the way that, on the one hand, cognitive experiences have been subjugated, to a great extent, to the rule of sheer force; moral experiences have been relativized to the point of weakening this unity; aesthetic experience devoid of any sensitivity has become a matter of money, and spirituality has been demoted, to a
large extent, to the level of mere esotericism.

Meanwhile, a 'culturalism', and even a 'civilizationism’ have emerged, which feed separation, division and fragmentation. And this has led to the attitude of, “I am equipped with civilized values, therefore the ‘other’ must follow my path.” Today, it is this very same attitude which is the foremost enemy of living in harmony, or of unity in diversity.

There is a way out of this dilemma. There are many values which humanity possesses which can be described as being universal and in today’s world, human rights cannot be overridden by the beliefs of any one given culture. There may be different cultural interpretations and even applications of these rights and values, provided that they do not jeopardize these values’ quintessential elements, and their universal recognizability.

My belief is that if we are able to gather round these values and cherish those of our differences which do not clash with them, we will have taken a very important step to regarding human life as an art form.

Image credit: The Garden of Allah, by Maxfield Parrish, 1918