By Jay Topp
Hey friend,
If you have ever been so lucky (or desperate) to dive deep enough into the great books of the western intellectual tradition you will know that there is a great dialectic that exists between essentialists and expressionism.
One side you have Plato who stood on the grounds of everything in life having a true essence. The innate, essential self or nature to be discovered.
On the other side you have the more Nietzsche ideal of becoming. Where there is no essential self, but the self is forged through expression. The instruction to become what you are. The radical individual act of self creation, and shaping one's own style in the world. That you would be your own masterpiece.
I have danced on both sides of the line. Many of the “spiritual” communities I’ve been a part of have shown me great things on the Platonic side.
But I’ve also felt the force of my own self created existence. Where my own nature has emerged from my own creations, not digging for a predetermined definition of myself.
But like all great ideas… the sauce is generally in the synthesis of each side of the dichotomy.
Spinoza does so beautifully. He says, substance doesn't have expressions; substance is its self-expression in infinite modes.
Essence and expression are one movement.
Hegel does something structurally similar: essence must appear — an essence that never expressed itself would be nothing.
Spirit only knows what it is by externalizing itself in history, art, institutions, then recognizing itself there.
And finally Montaigne who may have put it better than anyone here: "I have no more made my book than my book has made me." The essays do not record a pre-existing Montaigne — the essaying produces him.
And this is what I love about Art. Whether that art is writing a book, a song, building a business, designing your own home.
The process is an expression of yourself, but it is creating, forging & defining the self at the same time.
One's essence and expression are united in one movement. In the act of creation.
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This is a big part of why we write books.
Of why we build businesses.
Because the work we are doing, generally does just as much work on us.