I began as a liberal existentialist. The first "philosophical" book I ever read was "The Stranger" by Camus and that sent me on a hunt for more information about existentialism. Soon coming dangerously close to nihilism, I realized that meaning and value do not have their origins anywhere external to human beings-- that it is all invention, artifice... Only later, and with the help of Nietzsche, did I come to understand it as "art"... as a life-expression... and learn to wholly affirm it.