Editing Meaning of life (section)

====Existentialism====
{{Main|Meaning (existential)}}
[[File:Edvard Munch Friedrich Nietzsche Thielska 292.tif|thumb|upright|[[Edvard Munch]], ''[[Friedrich Nietzsche]]'', 1906]]
According to existentialism, each person creates the essence (meaning) of their life; life is not determined by a supernatural god or an earthly authority, one is free. As such, one's ethical prime directives are ''action'', ''freedom'', and ''decision'', thus, existentialism opposes [[rationalism]] and [[positivism (philosophy)|positivism]]. In seeking meaning to life, the existentialist looks to where people find meaning in life, in course of which using only reason as a source of meaning is insufficient; this gives rise to the emotions of [[anxiety (mood)|anxiety]] and [[angst|dread]], felt in considering one's [[free will]], and the concomitant awareness of death. According to [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[existence precedes essence]]; the ([[essence]]) of one's life arises ''only'' after one comes to [[existence]].

[[Søren Kierkegaard]] spoke about a "[[q:Søren Kierkegaard#Misattributed|leap]]", arguing that [[absurdism|life is full of absurdity]], and one must make his and her own values in an indifferent world. One can live meaningfully (free of despair and anxiety) in an unconditional commitment to something finite and devotes that meaningful life to the commitment, despite the vulnerability inherent to doing so.<ref name="Hall">{{Cite book |author=Amy Laura Hall |title=Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-521-89311-4}}</ref>

[[Arthur Schopenhauer]] answered: "What is the meaning of life?" by stating that one's life reflects one's will, and that the will (life) is an aimless, irrational, and painful drive. Salvation, deliverance, and escape from suffering are in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and [[asceticism]].<ref name="Jacquette">{{Cite book |author=Dale Jacquette |title=Schopenhauer, Philosophy, and the Arts |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-521-47388-0}}</ref><ref name="Murray">{{Cite book |author=Durno Murray |title=Nietzsche's Affirmative Morality |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |date=1999 |isbn=978-3-11-016601-9}}</ref>

For [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], life is worth living only if there are goals inspiring one to live. Accordingly, he saw nihilism ("all that happens is meaningless") as without goals. He stated that asceticism denies one's living in the world; stated that values are not objective facts, that are rationally necessary, universally binding commitments: our evaluations are interpretations, and not reflections of the world, as it is, in itself, and, therefore, [[perspectivism|all ideations take place from a particular perspective]].<ref name="Reginster"/>