Tuning the Will – Schopenhauer, Individuation, and the Metamodern Artist

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In this edition of the Distraction Therapy Music Mix Podcast, we explore Arthur Schopenhauer’s reflections on the nature of individuation and how his ideas continue to echo in the lives of artists, dreamers, and creators who seek truth beyond the demands of modern life. Drawing a thread from Schopenhauer’s metaphysics to Carl Jung’s psychology and finally to the metamodern sensibility of contemporary art, we ask: what does it mean to be an individual in an age of overwhelming noise, flux, and uncertainty?

For Schopenhauer, the individual self is not a stable, sovereign entity, but a vessel carried by the ceaseless tide of the Will—a blind, insatiable force that drives all life through perpetual striving and suffering. The more we chase desires, the more we become entangled in their endless cycle. But there is a release: art. Through the aesthetic experience—especially in music—Schopenhauer believed we can momentarily escape the tyranny of the Will. In this transcendental state of contemplation, we no longer exist as desiring subjects but as pure observers of timeless truth.

This idea of stepping beyond the self deeply influenced Carl Jung, who reframed it through the lens of individuation: a process of becoming whole by integrating the unconscious with the conscious self. Unlike Schopenhauer’s more renunciatory path, Jung’s model embraces the complex dance of inner opposites—shadow and persona, ego and Self. Individuation is not an escape but a reconciliation; not disinterested detachment, but meaningful integration.

In the world of metamodern art, we see this synthesis evolving further. The artist today is not a detached seer above the fray, nor a mere reflex of cultural production. Instead, they oscillate between inner experience and outward expression, between the personal and the universal. Like Schopenhauer’s genius who grasps eternal Ideas, the metamodern artist channels deeper, often ineffable intuitions—but rather than aiming to rise above the world, they seek to shape it anew through layered, self-aware, emotionally resonant expression.

This is art not as escape, but as engagement. Not as irony, but sincerity doubled by awareness. The DJ who blends field recordings with fragments of Romantic symphonies is not merely curating sound—they are crafting a moment of disidentification, inviting the listener to step outside their own striving self, to perceive, even briefly, what it means to be free from the Will.

We are reminded that in a world where identity often feels like a performance, individuation might mean turning down the volume of the world just long enough to hear the quieter, deeper tones of being. Whether through music, image, movement, or word, the metamodern artist helps us tune into those frequencies.

And for a fleeting moment, like Schopenhauer’s pure subject of knowing, we are no longer striving—we are listening.