The Ontological War

In realself ontology terms, the Transition is the ontological path or road from one’s socialself to one’s realself.

Most of the time when increasing realself ideas are explained here they will be described as if people who are increasing their degrees of realself take an ontological step forward, then another, and another until they finally reach their realselves and the realself world.

But this isn’t how people actually increase their degrees of realself.

Instead, people step forward three, four, or more ontological steps, reach an elevated degree of realself that becomes too painful in some way, and then step back a step or two. By stepping back, these people return to a lower ontological state that is familiar and comfortable. Then, once they have rested and gotten used to and understand better the elevated degree of realself ahead of them, they again go forward several or more steps.

And when people again increase their degrees of realself after having rested at a lower ontological state, the previous “elevated degree of realself” that before was too painful for them now becomes just another step on their way to their realselves, and they go several or more steps beyond it before they again reach an elevated degree of realself that is, temporarily, “too much” for them.

Increasing realself people do this ebbing and flowing throughout their ontological journey, but their doing this doesn’t mean they are erratic, unstable, or inconsistent. This ontological ebbing and flowing is a normal part of our becoming who in the past we always thought was wrong but now realize is the best we will ever be; it takes time for us to adjust to this new understanding of who we really are; and we need to recognize these changes for what they are.

Elevated degrees of realself can become too painful for many reasons. To give just a few examples, on reaching an elevated degree of realself increasing realself people may feel:

• too “lost,” which is caused by their not understanding the elevated degree of realself well enough yet ontologically
• too neurotic, anxious, or depressed, all of which are caused by their becoming more what the alienated world around them, the socialself world, says is wrong but they believe is right
• too exposed ontologically, which is caused by their being more their realselves than they’ve ever been it before
• or too different, which can be caused by their not getting along with family and friends as well as they did before when they were being more their socialselves

What’s important about all of this is for people who are increasing their degrees of realself to understand what’s going on, so that when they step back to lower degrees of realself they realize that all they are doing is resting and adjusting to their recently acquired greater understanding of themselves and of life: their stepping back is not a true reversal in either their ontological direction or commitment.

Ann in Sex, Lies, and Videotape ebbed and flowed in her feelings about herself and in her feelings about Graham. More on her ontological ebbing and flowing will be in future posts.