Discovering Self-Expression

The kind of self-expression emphasized by Prometheanism does not just follow the most general, inclusive, obvious and bland definition: 'expression of whatever self you are', which clearly has little inspirational use as a goal or guide, in that it says nothing important. Some people, it should be noted, live their lives by nothing more than it, however, and may even enshrine it (as in the uncommunicative maxims: 'be you' or 'be yourself'). No, Promethean self-expression means something more specific, but also something more changeable in time, adaptable in context, and something appropriate for each person. It also means something identifiable only by a given person. We cannot tell you what it means for you. A person might help another find out, but anyone who claims to know the essence of life for another lies, or fools themselves.

Self-expression does not merely refer to speech or other communication as in the most common use of the phrase. It means allowing the significance in one's character and in what one does to show itself however it must according to individuality, and not merely removing obstacles in the way, but striving for it. For some, that expression is often well-described as creativity. The expression might involve the self-improvement of education. For some, it does have a lot to do with language, for us as writers and philosophers, for example. However self-expression need not be verbal or communicative at all, having as many vibrant forms as the full diversity of people, and as many shades as their moments and moods. It might sometimes be invisible to other people, occurring internally. For one whose very identity and greatest purpose involves parenting, self-expression might be witnessed in comforting an infant; that might represent connecting with oneself, for a mother. For a businessman it might involve doing business profitably, for a scholar it might involve acquiring learning and understanding, for a craftsman it might involve working with his hands effectively and getting the job done well. It does have to do with success as a process, but clearly success is different for different people at different times.

Self-expression does not equate with the purpose of a life, much less "the meaning of life." Prometheanism does not claim to offer "the meaning of life" or that there is such a thing to be known. It simply advocates life and being on the side of the cause of life. If somehow we are satisfied with meaning we find following that cause, so much the better.

Part of self-expression might involve asserting a purpose (for oneself) but we understand self-expression better if we understand it akin to a process, an expenditure, which if it were a word would be a verb, and which might point to a noun we would call a purpose. We can call that purpose by a more conveniently descriptive name, our self-interest, which is to say the individualistic direction of one's self-expression envisioned as a journey with both charting and traveling [1] — a journey of life-advancing, seeking our own advantage. Of such a journey we may feel sure that however lost we might become along the way, we travel a journey like no other adventure, expedition, trip, circuit, voyage, odyssey, wandering, pilgrimage, crusade, march, promenade, hike, quest, jaunt, venture … or whatever kind of journey it might be like. We all must follow our own way, and we both know and do not know where we want to go and how to travel there — and our 'destination' of our self-interest only beckons as a goal; we never arrive.

And yet we can find riches on this journey of self-expression. (It seems like a treasure hunt at times even when, curiously, we might not look for any reward.) Of all the rewards, the potentially beneficial "side-effects" of life-advancing, most rewards we will notice result from capability — the power to achieve a thing through self-expression, increased by the accumulation of capability from the cooperative accomplishment of many people over time. Like a stellar body shrugging off bright light and other energies, self-expression warms us and illuminates us with its accomplishments (and sometimes, its somewhat untamable energy can present dangers, like any terrific power). But self-expression is the star in this metaphor. We should not confuse the emanations with the source. Nonetheless, the power of capability may help lead us to our self-interest better (or more accurately to feel self-expression more profoundly, and satisfy it more deeply), much like a blind man can find a fire by its warmth even if he cannot see it.

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e can follow whatever we find wonderful. This means not only the gifts of capability from ourselves and others, but happiness and satisfaction, and feeling alive. Joseph Campbell called this "following your bliss" with good reason. Using other words, Nietzsche talked of the most spiritual will-to-power (see below), and of "sublimating" in the sense of making sublime or profound. Refining or distilling make apt metaphors as well. Whatever the words, expressing oneself as one must/should — sublimating self-expression — means taking the basis of any life in the widest possible sense, the self-expression of anyone, and making it something precious and all-too-rare. That defines the Promethean understanding of self-expression.




Naming "Self-Expression"



There is no really self-evident word for the Promethean concept of self-expression, though we consider "self-expression" the most fitting name in modern English. There have been other ways of saying it.

In the whole history of humanity maybe a thousand traditions have names for it; maybe ten thousand people have glimpsed enough of it (and its importance) to give it names — mostly fleeting names that only captured something of a guess, or something that only made sense to them, or something they couldn't understand themselves. To other people, these names and the traditions built upon them became as unrecognizable as the tongues of Babel. For most who have envisioned it have missed something important, and so it needs a new, more deliberate name. Mostly it has not been named — by the very many who never know it well, because they rarely experience it well.

One of the few really deliberate attempts to name our self-expression might illustrate the problem of naming, and provide a parallel understanding for perspective. Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of "Wille zur Macht" translates directly to "will to power", causing no end of confusion to this day. Contrary to the appropriations of later National Socialists and the manipulations of their antecedents since Nietzsche's sister, the phrase has no necessary meaning of a desire to dominate socially, but instead refers to a drive to expend energy, a drive of something to expend itself, or the impulse of something to be expressed over other possible expressions. The concept implies movement, a flowing-forth (or even an "overflowing," as he put it), more than a stable "power relationship." Importantly, 'power' should be understood here with a definition reminiscent of physics, power as energy expension; Nietzsche was emphasizing expending in his phraseology. [2] Sometimes a more useful translation than "will-to-power" (we prefer hyphenation to imply a continual flow) might be "drive-to-express" as long as "drive" is not understood according to the Freudian psychological definition. As Nietzsche applied the idea to people in general, will-to-power seems roughly equivalent to self-expression in the all-inclusive sense; all things people do might be called "self-expression" literally, and especially all those things demonstrating characteristics of personality. Nietzsche even cast all life in terms of will-to-power:

"Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results." [Beyond Good and Evil, section 13, Walter Kaufmann translation]

But in the best Promethean sense of self-expression, which Nietzsche called "spiritual" will-to-power in some contexts, the phrase refers particularly to expression which strengthens and is profound. Like Nietzsche, depending on context Promethean writings use the phrase 'self-expression' to mean both any exercise and discharge of what one is and does (realizing that not every example of this is in fact life-advancing), and the more specific sense of the really desirable, highest expression of the self as that expression advances life.

(Also see Nietzsche's Antipolitique for more on will-to-power.)

So, now we can make up a short list of alternate names for self-expression in English based on Wille zur Macht:

will-to-power
drive-to-express
drive-to-expend
strength-discharge

Notice, though, that something gets lost with a step away from a preferable name, just as something gets lost in naming an unnamable thing at all. [3]

To these revisions we could add a parallel which relates to the general meaning of self-expression, borrowing a phrase from Rudolph Steiner [4]:

thought-into-motion

And finally, a similar name which combines Nietzsche and Steiner, and brings us to our next point of discussion:

will-to-action

And its sometimes-useful, sometimes-troublesome distorted variant, obtained from the distinction of parts in the holistic principle of self-expression:

will and action




Will and Action



For reasons of utility, The Promethean Manifesto separates self-expression into will and action: "For a human being, self-expression incorporates both intentions toward expression, and that expression itself — that is, both will and action."

We separate will and action because it is easier in some contexts to visualize them separately, as we find it useful (and usual) to separate body and mind even though they cannot truly separate. Prometheanism contradicts the mind/body dualism endemic to all too much of 'Western philosophy' (and in fact a worldwide runaway infection of delusive language), in which worlds of the mind, the rational, the theoretical, the ideal, or the soul compete with worlds of the body, the impulsive, the flesh, the passions, or the instincts — including the limited reactions against the traditional 'mind' favoritism of this false dualism, reactions which simply favor 'body' vice versa, but do not transcend the dualism. Self-expression belongs to a human organism, the body-mind or mind-body and in fact all of its connections to its environment, with all the complexity that entails. Semantically, despite its preferable accuracy 'self-expression' will not do by itself; for example 'freedom of self-expression' can communicate much less than 'freedom of action' and 'freedom of will' can. Yet, we should not forget that the 'mental' and 'physical' aspects of self-expression remain one and the same system of the individual, and not get lost in the words. We should speak of will as it helps us to visualize, access, experience, further and refine self-expression. We should speak of action as it helps us to visualize, access, experience, further and refine self-expression. Will and action serve us as tools, otherwise they only distract from the important goal. In that respect, these two concepts mirror any other concept, including the idea "self-expression."

Both freedom of will and freedom of action involve both 'natural' (potential) limits on self-expression which make self-expression one thing rather than another thing for a particular human being (in effect, defining a person's basic characteristics), and relatively artificial limitations which interfere with the fulfillment of such potential. For example, political force as threat or violent compulsion prevents people from acting on their desires, even when they are capable of doing so — a limitation on action. In parallel, fear of confronting political force encourages people to alter their desires to those which are less troublesome, probably unconsciously — a limitation on will.

Both kinds of freedom, a free mind and a free body, liberate expression of the self.

The Promethean Manifesto discusses both freedom of will and freedom of action, but stresses freedom of action; "the body" must have freedom to enable greater freedom of "the mind" and too many have been forgetting this (despite some of these successfully finding a means for progress in mental health and adeptness using a wide variety of techniques such as fields of psychology, or semantics), except for those subscribing to some 'libertarian' and 'anarchist' political traditions. Room to act serves as a prerequisite for full breadth of mental exercise, with the exception of the rare occasions for few people when external control over their actions inspires augmented mental independence as a reaction. Recall above the movement and cohesion important in naming self-expression; we might prefer 'will-to-action' instead of 'will and action', but here we might also point out the additional significance of action-to-will. The flow of self-expression runs both ways, as we will discuss more later. Thus political force (as just the preponderant example of a limitation on action, but not an exclusive one) should be removed as a necessary step, before we can expect to maximize freedom of will too, and with both, maximize self-expression.

For the most part also, the practitioners of traditions which stress some conception of (physical) political freedom do not address freedom of will even if they conceive of it [5], as though this remains of little relative import, or comprises a totally different issue, or remains a private matter. Surely only the last reason resonates, but it is time to look further into this personal, if not private matter.




Freedom of Will



"People, as individuals, have a fundamental potential
to determine and direct their own actions."