“Out of a meaningless and pointless existence, we have made meaning and purpose; but since this creative act happens only when we relax after great strain, we feel it as 'pouring into us' from elsewhere.”

— Robert Anton Wilson

The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by Sigismundo Celine
Context: The creative faculty, the god-power, is not used here with anything less than literalness. When beauty was created by a godly mind, beauty existed, as surely as the paintings of Botticelli or the concerti of Vivaldi exist. When mercy was created, mercy existed. When guilt was created, guilt existed. Out of a meaningless and pointless existence, we have made meaning and purpose; but since this creative act happens only when we relax after great strain, we feel it as 'pouring into us' from elsewhere. Thus, we do not know our own godhood and we are perpetually swindled by those who assure us that it is indeed elsewhere, but they can give us access to it, for a reasonable fee. And when we as a species were ignorant enough to be duped in that way, the swindlers went one step further, invented original sin and other horrors of that sort, and made us even more 'dependent' upon them.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Out of a meaningless and pointless existence, we have made meaning and purpose; but since this creative act happens onl…" by Robert Anton Wilson?

Robert Anton Wilson110

American author and polymath 1932–2007

Charles E. Gannon (1960) American novelist

Source: Trial by Fire (2014), Chapter 17 (p. 256)

“Wealth is created when we use existing resources in new ways. Since such creativity is virtually limitless, wealth is too.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: In An Age of Aggression, (2003), p. 17

“Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act?”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 241
Context: Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God?

“Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Early Writings, translated and ed. by , p. 159. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm <br class="br">Context: Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital or when we directly possess, eat, drink, wear, inhabit it, etc., in short, when we use it. Although private property conceives all these immediate realizations of possession only as means of life; and the life they serve is the life of private property, labor, and capitalization. Therefore all the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by the simple estrangement of all these senses – the sense of having. So that it might give birth to its inner wealth, human nature had to be reduced to this absolute poverty.

“When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we escape our self-conscious selves.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 1.3
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)

“There is a simpler, finer way to organize human endeavor. I have declared this for many years and seen it to be true in many places. This simpler way is demonstrated to us in daily life, not the life we see on the news with its unending stories of human grief and horror, but what we feel when we experience a sense of life's deep harmony, beauty, and power, of how we feel when we see people helping each other, when we feel creative, when we know we're making a difference, when life feels purposeful.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time (2005)

“What is the purpose of our lives?
Life's purpose is to be happy.
We have no guarantee what will happen in the future, but we live in hope.
This is what keeps us trying and going.
If we can't enjoy the simple things in life;
We are missing the meaning of life.
Don't give up.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan