How much should we let our mind be the thing that lives our life? Maybe not so much as we normally do…
onto- (prefix): being
ontology: the philosophical study of being — presumably logical; what useful distinction does ontology make between being and nonbeing? — and what sort of being needs to make it?
self-ontology: the philosophical study of one’s own being, traditionally done without consulting the person being studied; it’s been sixty years and countless revisions and my self-ontology dissertation still hasn’t been accepted!
ontoillogical: pertaining to spurious philosophical reasoning; the ontoillogical premise “reality sucks” is understandably common among the malcontent.
wannabeing: aspiring to actual existence (or achieving the mental impression thereof) by a thing conceived as existing; it’s sad but strangely hopeful to realize that the human mind, consumed with wannabeing, misses so much of the real thing.
ontological aggrandizement: the mind promoting itself to the highest status of being; being scientifically minded doesn’t necessarily make one less prone to ontological aggrandizement.
ontological abdication: renunciation of one’s prerogative to understand reality in favor of one’s mind’s ambivalence about doing so; “escape from the cult of ontological abdication” was the only advice I really needed from my guru.
the ontological singularity: the mind’s impression that it’s at the center of the universe; it’s easy to miss, from the ontological singularity, that one’s local existence is entirely dependent upon, interdeterminate with, and governed by the existence of everything that isn’t at said location.
ontological overreach: unquestioning acceptance of one’s mind’s ambitions for omniscience and immortality; ah, the irony that just now, but for my ontological overreach, death wouldn’t be so scary.
ontological suicide: assenting to one’s mind’s ambitions to exist so that it can decide what does or doesn’t exist to the point where it denies the existence of the person on whose actual existence it depends for its mental existence; even with the best intentions, the pursuit of metaphysical being risks achieving nothing more than ontological suicide — and the surviving person unequipped to arrange the funeral.
the ontoaspiration paradox: How could a thing that doesn’t exist have ambitions to do so? And what use would such ambitions be for a thing that actually exists? And which thing, person or mind, is more desperate to solve the issue?; and anyway should the mind, having instigated the ontoaspiration paradox in the first place, be allowed to resolve it on its own behalf?
ontononsense: the idea that non-being could be a form of being, that non-existence could exist, that unreality is a thing, etc.; imagine what serenity we’d feel without such anxiety-inducing ontononsense.
ontocentric: cognitively favoring actuality over one’s mind’s version of it; it’s no small advantage of the ontocentric view that the real becomes so much more self-evident.
ontological endosymbiosis: the state whereby a person’s mind is functioning to the mutual benefit of both; d’oh — turns out that ontological endosymbiosis is what reality had in mind for us all along.
ontophilia: the love of being; wouldn’t ontophilia be the natural state upon finding that one exists? — and why would one allow one’s mind to ruin such a beautiful temperament?