Ontological Losses and Gains Excerpt

This excerpt is from the draft of the first four pages of Ontological Losses and Gains, and it concisely explains why people who are becoming more their realself temporarily lose their identity and sense of self. This passage not only shows why people lose their sense of identity on becoming aware ontologically of other beliefs and values, but also why people lose their sense of (social)self on seeing the true natures of the socialself and the realself.

In a surprising number of places in the Transition, men and women realize after going in what they come to realize is the wrong direction that the direction they need to go is the direction they originally thought was wrong. Men and women find and become their realselves by, among other things, losing their identity and sense of self, which is the last way most people think is how a person becomes who he or she truly is. The cause of this ontological misunderstanding is that these men and women are not yet at the degrees of realself where they will realize that the identity that is being lost is only their socialself identity and the self that is being lost is only their socialself. And once they realize this, they see that instead of losing their socialself identity and self they have actually been abandoning them.

Chapter 1: Losing One’s Self and Losing One’s Being

Losing One’s (Social)Self

As with many ontological emotions one experiences in the Transition, the feeling that one is losing one’s self is made up not of a single, isolated emotion but of several to many different emotions, all of which together are interpreted as the loss of one’s self.

Socialself people who are living happily and contentedly in the socialself world think they have a self, and when they look into themselves they see it: their socialself. Because they are being a socialself, they fit in well into their socialself world, and they have no conflicts, at least no ontological conflicts, with it or with any of the socialself people in it. The emotional and ontological depth and breadth of socialself being and the socialself world are human-sized to them. They have, basically, one set of values. They think they know what they like and what they don’t like. They think they know what is right and what is wrong. And since they have strong ego boundaries and a strong sense of (social)self, they think they know who they are and who they aren’t and where they stop and where others and the rest of the world begin. They live completely within the boundary of the socialself world and that world continuously reinforces these beliefs and feelings they have about themselves and their world.

But if socialself people start increasing their degrees of realself, all of this changes. The realself is not the same as the socialself, only better; it is in many respects an entirely different self, and because of this an increase in degree of realself is also a change of self. People who are increasing their degrees of realself are, literally, changing the self they are being. In the beginning Transition these changes are subtle and small, but they are there nevertheless, and since they are ontological changes they affect almost everything people think and feel about themselves, about others, and about the ontological world in which they find themselves.

As explained in Being and Life, a person who is at the very beginning of the Transition—an insightful woman, for instance—starts moving forward toward her realself without any conscious effort by her. Because of this, she ceases being all her socialself and stops living entirely within the socialself world, with only socialself emotions and having only socialself world beliefs and values. Her increases in degrees of realself are making her aware of other values and ways of being in the only way a person truly becomes aware of them, and that is ontologically.

Now when she looks into herself she sees not only her socialself world emotions and ideas, but also, and on an equal standing, all the new emotions, ideas, and ways of being she has become aware of as she has increased her degree of realself. Because of her ontological change, she no longer sees only the single set of seemingly nonconflicting socialself world values she saw when she was being only her socialself. She sees many other values now, some of which conflict with her previously held socialself world values and some of which, even though they conflict with each other, seem to her at different times to be equally valid. When she was being all her socialself only socialself world values and socialself being seemed important, true, and real to him, but now other values and ways of being sometimes seem just as important, true, and real.

Inevitably, this deeper ontological awareness of other values and ways of being makes her ambivalent and unsure of herself. On reaching this Transitional state, she no longer knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like, what is right and good and what is wrong and bad, and who she is and who she isn’t. Values and qualities she used to dislike she now realizes aren’t as bad as she used to believe, and other values and qualities she used to like she now thinks aren’t as good as she used to think they were, if they aren’t even bad. She can’t look into herself any longer and say, instantly and confidently, “I am this and this and this, and I am not that or that or that.” Now she sees a little of this, some of that, and potentials for still other qualities, and in this flooding in of new values, emotions, and ways of being her identity and self become lost. She is becoming lost in the world of values, and she is becoming confused and anxious in the day-to-day world.

When she looks into herself, she sees a hodgepodge of conflicting emotions and ideas, and the conflicted selves of these emotions and ideas. When she was being only her socialself she saw only with socialself eyes, and she was blind ontologically to everything but socialself being. But as she became aware of her realself, her socialself blinders fell from his eyes, and she began looking into herself from an increased degree of realself and with a deeper understanding of being. As her degree of realself increased, her understanding of what being is developed and expanded beyond alienated and contracted socialself being to realself being, and this greater understanding made her aware that her socialself was not her being. The mere awareness of her realself by her began draining the selfhood and reality out of her socialself, and this resulted in her socialself becoming less than human-sized to her. She was still aware of her socialself; she just no longer thought of it or experienced it as her true self or being.

Another consequence of her ceasing to be only her socialself is that she loses the part of her sense of self that came from being an integral member of a socialself world. If a person is being almost all her socialself and adapts almost completely to the socialself world, that world reinforces her socialself by giving her a sense of self. If her interactions with everyone in the socialself world appear to be spontaneous and real, these interactions permit her to believe that she has a self, since it is generally accepted that a person has to have a self to be able to carry out these interactions naturally. The sad lesson to be learned from all of this is that if people are willing to contract their self down to an alienated socialself; if they are willing to accept socialself being as both right and real; and if they are willing to limit themselves—intellectually, emotionally, and ontologically—to staying completely within the boundaries of socialself being and the socialself world, they will feel that they have a self. At the same time, the socialself world they will be living in will be all too happy to reinforce these feeling and belief in them.