From Limits to Possibilities: A Study of Existential Transformation Through the Expression of the Ideal-in-the-real

This thesis uses Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to address the question of what makes an expression transformative. There is a dissonance in one's existence when an experience and its expression become inharmonious, and it is by re-aligning the two that one can renegotiate the limits and possibilities of one's world to accomplish a movement of transcendence. Through an exploration of various forms of artistic, linguistic, and existential expression, including those that are misguided or perverted, this thesis hopes to show how silence, creativity, and style are essential elements of any transformative expression. These elements help facilitate the subject's encounter of the ideal through their lived engagement in the sensible world. Expressing the phenomenological encounter of the ideal-in-the-real actualizes the deeper truth of the experience and transforms the world according to the new level of meaning.