The Ontological War

The ontological world each of us lives in is determined by our degree of realself: those of us who are being mostly if not almost entirely our socialselves live in the socialself world, and those of us who are sensitive to our realselves live in ontological worlds that are made up of more of the realself world.

A few things can be said about socialself people:

• They are not aware of their realselves, and so they never spend any time thinking about realself emotions and ideas
• It never occurs to them to increase their degrees of realself
• The socialself world and socialself life both seems real and complete to them
• They are satisfied with their socialself-to-socialself relationships, even with their spouses
• By not being aware of their realselves they are free to devote all of their lives to becoming more successful in the socialself world
• They want to develop deeper “roots” into the socialself world
• They believe the more they are living in the socialself world, the more they are living in reality—in the “real world”—and the more well-adjusted they are. (Incidentally, it’s ontological ideas like this last one that are responsible for my calling the presently unknown but vast area of human existence “ontological” and not psychological. In most cases today, psychology is socialself psychology.)

Socialself people like to think they have life and themselves all figured out, and so they don’t need to spend any time thinking about them. They also like to think that the people who do spend time thinking about ontological questions have “not found themselves,” “need to grow up,” and “need to stop fighting the world.”

In fact, of course, it’s socialself people’s profound alienation that makes them think this, and it is the socialself world’s profound ontological alienation that makes it possible for these socialself people, and for decreasing realself people, to believe this.

A few things can also be said about increasing realself people:

• They have a sense on some level of their own realself, of the realselves in others, and of the realself world and the life in it
• They are aware that the socialself world is not their ontological world or “true home”
• They are not interested in becoming socialself world successes, mainly because they want to spend as little time in that world as possible: they sense that to live in the socialself world is to become one’s socialself
• They are interested in becoming more their realselves, in developing realself-to-realself relationships, and in making “the world” and “life” more the realself world and realself life
• They do not want to “develop roots” into the socialself world
• They sense that to become “well-adjusted” in the socialself world actually means to repress one’s realself and to become more if not all one’s socialself

Graham in Sex, Lies, and Videotape was an increasing realself person, and the life he lives confirms it:

• He liked having only one key

Right now I have one key, you know, everything I own is in the car. I like that. If I get an apartment, that’s two keys. If I get a job, you know, I might have to open or close. That’s more keys. I buy some stuff, I’m afraid it’s gonna get ripped off, and I get more keys. I just like having the one key. It’s clean.

• He chose to be a renter rather than a home owner
• Having a car was important to him—“The car’s important. You gotta be mobile”: he could leave where he was or go to where he wanted to be whenever he wanted
• He says he was “cultivating this minimalist vibe.”
• His life was focused on ontological emotions and ideas, and he had no interest in becoming a socialself world success.

Some of Graham’s behavior seems odd, if not even amusing, but one has to keep in mind that he and people like him are actively, but also in many ways blindly, struggling forward to understand difficult questions that most adults have already failed to understand, and then redefined their failures into some type of “success.”

Taking all of this into consideration, what’s needed now is for everyone to become more conscious of ontological worlds—what they are, why they are developed, and why they have the beliefs they do—so that the different ways people live their lives can be seen for what are actually motivating them.

The people who are living happily in the socialself world don’t know it, but the age of alienated ontological worlds, their beliefs, and their self is reaching its end.