The Ontological War

In the past, almost all the people who started increasing their degrees of realself did not know that the realself, realself-to-realself relationships, and realself life exist. These people were drawn forward by their wakening realselves, but consciously they didn’t have any idea what was ahead of them ontologically.

Ann, in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, was in this ontological state in the days after she talked with Graham in the café. Before she met him she had told her therapist she wasn’t very happy about one of her husband’s college friends coming to visit. But later, after she has met Graham, she talks about him with her therapist:

Therapist: Did you confront John about the visitor?

Ann: The visitor?

Therapist: The friend of John’s that was staying at your house.

Ann: Graham.

Therapist: Graham.

Ann: Yeah. I mean … no. That actually turned out to be interesting. You know, I was expecting him to be just like John. You know, cos they went to school together and everything. You know, talking about getting drunk together and secret handshakes and … He turned out to be really this … character. He’s kind of arty. But OK.

Therapist: Is he still at your house?

Ann: No. No. No. He’s gone.

Even though consciously she didn’t understand what was taking place ontologically, in the café Ann got caught up in the pleasure of talking with someone with whom she could have more of a realself-to-realself relationship than she was having within anyone else, and that made her conversation with Graham exciting and enjoyable. He was being his realself somewhat with her, and by his doing that she was able to be more of her realself with him.

Ann is sensitive enough to her realself to think that her relationship with Graham is “interesting.” And after he finds a residence of his own, she has a chance to think about him, the type of man he is, and the kind of relationship she might have with him. One of the main reasons she thinks he is interesting is that on some level she is beginning to move from the spontaneous and unexamined realself-to-realself relationship she had with him in the café to a deeper, more considered, and more conscious realself-to-realself relationship with him.

At a future time Ann tells Graham, “You’ve had an effect on my life,” (which will be the subject of another post) and the effect he has on her is in his showing her that she has and can be a deeper self within her, and she can also have the deeper and more intimate relationships that come with that self.