The meaning of life redux

I've been listening to The Meaning of Life from the Teaching Company (I have listened to and forgotten hours of academic material through them). Something Professor Garfield mentioned hit a cord with me. He said that Nietzsche's vision of meaning in life is turning one's life into art. In other words, letting aesthetics guide your motivations and you will find meaning.

This strikes a cord with me for the reason I mentioned yesterday: there is an irrational, incalculable, illogical, intangeable aspect to our perception and understanding. Our sixth sense is an ill-defined "art". What Nietzsche is telling us is that there is no rational explanation for meaning. It can not be sculpted with language or calculated with numbers. It is that whatever that we see when we are not trying to see.

How does this relate to medicine? Who gives a shit.

Apparently I do. What it means to medicine is that our goals may need some tweeking. Instead of the objective criteria of absence of disease, we may need to consider the irrational criteria of meaning. In other words, our patients are expressions of our art. Success is ill defined and irrational. It may not be represented by a lab test.