Ontological Conflicts Excerpt

This excerpt from the draft of Ontological Conflicts and the quotation from The Scarlet Letter give a good, overall view of what one aspect of increasing one’s degree of realself is like. Among other things, this excerpt shows that increasing one’s degree of realself encompasses the deepest sense of self; blends itself intricately with day-to-day life in countless ways; engenders the most intense emotions; and, for people who are in the beginning and early Transition, most of this is done unconsciously. But this excerpt also gives a glimpse of what being and life truly are for us humans. Dimmesdale had many of the qualities people need in order to increase their degrees of realself, such as strong desires for truth and for ontological authenticity and the strength to go after this truth and authenticity, regardless of the cost. He has these qualities because, ultimately, his first loyalty was to realself being and realself life.

If Dimmesdale had had a better understanding of the reasons why people increase their degrees of realself and of what they feel and think as they move forward along the ontological path to their realselves, his quest would have been much easier. But he didn’t understand what he was experiencing ontologically, most of the people around him understood even less what he was experiencing, and so he suffered. In this excerpt one also gets a sense of the conflicts that can develop between the increasing realself person and the socialself world and the socialself people in it. One would like to think that on hearing of the existence of the realself, of realself-to-realself relationships, and of realself life, everyone would immediately embrace them and strive for them, but this is not true. The ontological quest to our realselves will become much easier in the future than it was in the past, but increasing realself people will still have difficulties with those who do not want to become their realselves.

Chapter 2: Telling the Truth and Being True

“What a Relief It Is to Look into an Eye that Recognizes Me for What I Am!”

In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne gives an excellent description of the ontological state where it becomes more painful to be good, but ontologically false and alienated, than to be bad, but ontologically honest and authentic, when Dimmesdale confides to Hester:

One might think, or at least a socialself person might think, that Dimmesdale’s self-destructive and masochistic feelings were caused by his guilt over committing adultery with Hester. Dimmesdale did, after all, want everyone to know he was “the vilest of all sinners.” But ontologically he was much more than a self-loathing and guilt-ridden man: He was also a man who desperately wanted to bring his realself into the daily world, even if by doing so he was thought by almost everyone in that world to be a terrible person. Dimmesdale was definitely at the ontological state where a person knows it is better to be one’s realself than one’s socialself, regardless of what the cost might be. He was being his realself enough to know that the pain he suffered from not being fully his realself was greater than the pain he would feel from being thought a sinner by his community. He knew that by being true ontologically a person experiences ontological wholeness, realself being, and realself life, and this wholeness and authenticity more than makes up for what one loses. He also knew he would become more his realself by talking more from it, and inversely he knew that by not telling the truth and by not being his realself with others he would suffer ontologically.

Dimmesdale’s mistake in this ontological area was that he was confusing the sinful person he sensed deep within himself with the realself he also sensed there. He knew he had to bring what was deep within himself to the surface. But when he looked into himself, all he saw was his adulterer-self, which was on top of and covering his realself. He was not conscious of his realself, but he was conscious of his adulterer-self that he kept hidden from everyone, and he mistakenly thought that “what I am” was a vile sinner and that his adulterer-self was the self he had to bring to the surface and be. Dimmesdale was also a member of a socialself world, at least some of the time, and so a part of him also felt guilty about his sexual relationship with Hester. But as a force that was driving him to confess his sins to the world that guilt was far behind his desire to be his realself.

Dimmesdale knew that once one becomes aware of but does not become one’s realself, “it is all falsehood!—all emptiness!—all death!” Socialself people have little or no realself awareness, and so for them it is much better to be good, but alienated. But for increasing realself people this ontological alienation is ontological death. Dimmesdale was at a Transitional state where he could not stand being his socialself any more, nor could he stand not being his realself any more. Having someone who would have recognized him “for what I am” would have saved him because he would have had someone who would have recognized him as his realself, and this would have permitted him to be his realself.

Dimmesdale thought that by telling others of his relationship with Hester he would feel alive, and for a short time he would have. But as with all increasing realself people who attempt to reach their realselves and the realself world by means other than the incremental increasing of one’s degree of realself, he soon would have lost his initial flush of ontologically aliveness. The aliveness he initially would have felt after telling the truth about himself would have slowly drifted from him as he spent more time in the socialself world with socialself people. He wanted to be all and only his realself in the realself world; on first telling others of his relationship he would have been more truthful; and this greater truthfulness would have elevated him to a more authentic ontological state. But after a while he would again have found himself back where he had been before he disclosed his relationship, back in an ontological state where he had been seemingly in the center of the socialself world and surrounded on all sides by socialself people.

Using another example, an increasing realself woman may sense that the truth must be told, and because of this and because she does not have a deep understanding of realself ontology she tells others about her worst qualities. She thinks that by doing this she is telling, and fulfilling, the truth. But the driving force behind what she is doing, the emotion driving her, is her desire to be her realself in the realself world, and she is definitely not doing this. Men and women have to accept all of themselves and be all of themselves, but this doesn’t mean they have to make a point of telling everyone they meet about all of their worst qualities. This woman may feel that by telling others of her worst qualities she is being her innermost self with them, but her feeling this does not mean she is being her realself with them, which is something she can do only by actually being her realself with them.

Most people’s worst qualities aren’t unique to them and aren’t really that bad. If this man were to tell an ontologically insightful woman friend about his worst qualities, she might say after hearing of them, “Is that all?” He thinks some of his bad qualities are terrible, but to her they are almost nothing. He may say, “I’m actually shy,” which he thinks makes him weak and insecure. But if anything, this disclosure may actually make her like him more, since she knows he has shared his innermost feelings with her, and by his doing this he has made their relationship more realself to realself.

Socialself people often think it is wrong or a mistake to be completely honest with others, since being so almost always causes problems. According to decreasing realself people and socialself people, if all the people in a society were to tell each other exactly what they think of each other, everyone would soon be hating everyone else. And it is true that trying to be honest now often does not achieve its desired goal. But the problems that develop are caused by people trying to be honest as their socialselves with other socialselves in the socialself world and not by their being honest as their realselves with other realself people in the realself world. Once men and women all become their realselves and have the wisdom that comes with being one’s realself fully, all of this will change.

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (New York: Hart Publishing Co., Inc., 1976), 254-55.