The Ontological War

Most people don’t have any idea what a realself ontology emotion or idea is. Because of this, I’m going to explain these emotions and ideas when I see them expressed in movies.

In The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dr. Miles J. Bennell says “I never knew fear until I kissed Becky.” This fear is a classic ontological emotion, and it comes from the fear of being one’s realself with another person and from being one’s realself in the day-to-day world.

Men and women have this ontological fear because they think their realself is wrong and vulnerable and because we all know that we are not suppose to be our realselves in the day-to-day world now, which is a socialself world.

Miles was sensitive enough ontologically to have realself emotions, and he loved Becky from his realself. But if he had loved her from his socialself and wanted nothing more than a socialself-to-socialself relationship with her, he wouldn’t have had any fear about kissing her because he wouldn’t have been committing anything ontologically.

Incidentally, this ontological emotion in Miles is another reason to think that this movie is actually about ontological emotions and ideas and not about communism. I’m going to read the novel this movie is based on, to see if the ontological insight in this movie was added by the novel’s author or by the movie’s screenwriter.

And finally, sex is a realself event, which means that men and women become more their realselves when they have sex, even though they are probably not be conscious of the fact that they are. This added to Miles’ fear of kissing Becky, but this is a subject for future posts.