The Existential-Axiological Divide in Creative Work and the Meaning Crisis of Content
In the modern economy of expression, almost everyone is a creator. Whether through words, images, videos, or ideas, the individual becomes both producer and product. Yet beneath the apparent empowerment of this creative era lies a deep tension between two forms of value: the axiological, which concerns what is considered valuable or good, and the existential, which concerns what gives life meaning. This tension defines the creative crisis of the present age.
The Axiological Economy of Creation
Axiology is the study of value. In the context of creative work, it manifests as the question: What is this worth? The answer tends to take shape in measurable terms—views, likes, sales, growth, engagement, and brand recognition. This is the logic of the digital marketplace, where meaning is quantified through data and where creative acts are rewarded by visibility.
Within this framework, the motivation to create becomes transactional. One creates to maintain relevance, to grow an audience, or to sustain a livelihood. The work’s value is often derived from its perceived utility or market resonance rather than from the creator’s intrinsic necessity to express it. Over time, this externalization of value shifts the creative center of gravity outward, away from inner purpose and toward outer validation.
For many, this shift can become corrosive. The act of creation, once rooted in curiosity or revelation, begins to feel like labor—a form of content production rather than genuine communication. When creative output becomes obligatory, even successful work can feel hollow.
The Existential Need to Create
Existential meaning arises from the lived experience of being. It asks not what is this worth, but why am I doing this at all. To create from existential necessity is to participate in the ongoing act of self-discovery. It is to reveal oneself through expression, to make sense of existence by shaping it into form.
When a person writes, paints, composes, or speaks from this place, the act itself becomes meaningful regardless of recognition. The work is an answer to an inner call. It reaffirms the creator’s being by aligning expression with authenticity. The problem is that the axiological economy seldom rewards this kind of creation quickly or predictably.
This tension gives rise to what might be called the existential-axiological divide: the space between what gives work existential meaning and what gives it axiological value. Bridging this divide is one of the defining challenges for artists, entrepreneurs, and thinkers in the modern digital landscape.
When the Market Measures Meaning
In earlier eras, artistic or philosophical creation was often supported by patronage, religious institutions, or small circles of intellectual exchange. Today, digital platforms have replaced those structures with algorithms and metrics. The artist is free to publish anything, but that freedom comes with a new dependency: the approval of an invisible audience and the logic of machine-curated visibility.
The modern creator thus lives in a paradox. One must produce consistently to remain discoverable, yet the pace of production often diminishes depth. One must speak to the audience, yet risk losing one’s voice in trying to please it. This constant oscillation between inner truth and outer performance can erode creative motivation, turning expression into repetition.
In entrepreneurship, the same tension applies. A venture begins with vision, with a sense of purpose that transcends profit. Over time, as growth becomes the metric of survival, the existential fire that gave birth to the idea can be extinguished by the very success it achieved. The founder becomes an operator, and the enterprise becomes an instrument of its own inertia.
The Saturation of the Meaning Market
The sense of saturation that many creators describe—the feeling that everything valuable has already been said or made—is less about quantity and more about dilution. When meaning becomes a commodity, it loses its distinctiveness. Each piece of content competes not by depth, but by visibility.
This environment breeds fatigue. To create feels like shouting into a crowd. Even high-quality work struggles to stand out amid the algorithmic noise. The result is an existential burnout disguised as creative stagnation. People lose not their talent, but their reason to use it.
Reclaiming Meaning in the Age of Metrics
To overcome this divide, creators and entrepreneurs must rediscover intrinsic motivation. This involves re-centering creation on necessity rather than performance. A few guiding principles can help realign the existential with the axiological:
- Create for revelation, not recognition. Ask what truth the work reveals rather than how it will be received.
- Measure by integrity, not engagement. Evaluate whether a piece reflects your understanding or compromises it.
- Build systems that support depth. Use tools and schedules that protect contemplative time rather than maximize output.
- Redefine success as contribution. The question is not how many people noticed, but whether the work added something true to the world.
- Allow slowness. Depth requires unhurried attention. In a world of velocity, stillness itself becomes a creative act.
The Return of Necessity
When creation is grounded in necessity, even small works can carry profound weight. A short poem written in sincerity may outlast a thousand optimized posts. A small business built around genuine service may outlive the loudest trend. The key is alignment between the inner world and the outer expression—between being and value.
This alignment cannot be forced by productivity systems or marketing frameworks. It arises through reflection, honesty, and restraint. Sometimes the most valuable act is to stop producing long enough to remember why one began.
The Future of Creative Work
As artificial intelligence and automation continue to expand the flood of generated content, the existential-axiological divide will widen further. Algorithms will replicate axiological efficiency with ease, but they cannot reproduce existential authenticity. The human element that remains valuable will be the why, not the what.
In this sense, the future of creation may belong to those who resist the pressure to compete with machines on output, and instead offer something machines cannot imitate: sincerity, awareness, and presence. In a saturated marketplace, meaning itself becomes the scarce resource.
Closing Reflection
The crisis of motivation that many creators face is not a personal failing but a structural symptom of the age. We are surrounded by systems that reward the measurable while neglecting the meaningful. The task, then, is to bridge the existential-axiological divide—not by rejecting value, but by redefining it.
When a creator finds a way to make work that is both true and valuable, both authentic and sustainable, the divide narrows. The act of creation becomes once again a living affirmation rather than a transaction. The measure of success shifts from attention to alignment.
The solution is not to abandon the world of value but to restore being to it. Creation regains its purpose when it serves not only the market but the soul that moves behind it.
