Meaning, doing, freedom

It is widely accepted in contemporary literature (e.g., Chrome and Moraline, et alias) that aphorisms get the ball rolling.

243. There is a distinction to be made in forming one's ethics and creating an 'action plan' for the manipulation of others.

345. When I say, "Sally, I am not happy, it is over," I do not say this to get an 'effect' out of Sally. Rather, I mean: "Sally, I am not happy, it is over." I need to appeal to Sally the Other (from an ontological perspective) and not Sally "the woman" or Sally "the relationship."

401. Many philosophical problems arise from reification and hypostasis.

402. Questions of ethics must overcome ontology. We are magicians to other men and women; this is fascinating yet troubling. It is troubling from an ethical standpoint.

403. The human, who, having insight into the problem of ontology as it relates to the other, creates a systematic series of ruses, tricks, and deceits to work only with the object-side of the other is what one could call a 'dangerous' phenomenon for those seeking authentic projects. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

404. There are as many men as there are women who take up the 'automobile dealer' approach to the other. Specifically, the goal is a sale, whether it be a fuck or a 'relationship,' and the means is a series of ruses and gimmicks. This human does not pursue authenticity. Rather than his or her being troubled by human ontology, rather than the challenge of an authentic relationship to, rather than with, another, the goal is the series of phenomena associated with the other-as-object. (Moraline has got his knickers in a twist over my set up of this problem--oh, he's calling me a Cartesian on the one hand, an over-sitting ontologist on the other, and worse, he perhaps has already characterized me as a 'tosser.')

420. Just as Freud had the 'human condition' backwards, just as Freud's attempt at phenomenological ontology was backwards, so too does an individual who seeks a 'Relationship." We shall designate this reification and hypostasis in the same way we designate 'personality.'

425. One cannot 'work on' a personality. One can work on an ethics, in pursuing a course of action, constant action which must be sustained. Outside of this constant pursuit, there is no ontological category of spontaneity which sustains a personality, which is an object, the opposite of spontaneity. Understand the difference between the term "object" and 'objective.' The former entails the thing connected to in a sight, sound, image, smell, etc., while the latter entails a series of plans, goals, activities, which purportedly result in one anticipated phenomenon. (Moraline is either amused, disgusted, confused, frustrated, or all the above, at this point. )

430. Human action--an ethics that has no objective. An ethics which embraces that, while we experience the other as object, we are dealing with an ontological category that is not an object, but rather exhibits the characteristics of spontaneity. If we pursue a 'project' of authenticity to, rather than with, ourselves, we pursue a constant action which does not build 'personalities' or 'habits' or any such reification and hypostasis. A personality would be the opposite of an attempt at authenticity.

431. A Relationship is the opposite of an attempt at an authentic relation to the other.

432. A man or a woman who intends to 'have' a relationship intends to possess an object. Such a man or a woman is not seeking an authentic relation to the other. Such a man or a woman has taken the automobile dealer approach to the other. It is inauthentic behavior, it is in Bad Faith.

433. Having purchased an automobile, it occurred to me that the vendor's attitude, my indirect feeling, highly prized an objective, an outcome, a Relationship. There was give and take, and he (or I?) sealed the deal. I do not dread the buying and selling of things. Labor is a brute fact. Yet labor and the buying and selling of things are not phenomena I study in order that I may work for an ethics. As part of my attempt at authenticity, I avoid, I work against, the auto dealer's attitude in my attempt at an authentic relationship to an other. Hence an individual who pursues a Relationship with an other exhibits an inauthentic attitude towards an other.