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What is this thing?

Ontological Damnation is an exploration of the space between truth and fiction. An extrapolation of reality so many iterations redundant as to obfuscate the obscure and illuminate the mundane. Your author, Jason, makes no attempt to present a coherent, logical narrative. Instead, he relies strongly on the absurd aiming fiercely for nonsense though likely achieving only a modicum of ridiculous. Ontological Damnation makes no guarantees, Ontological Damnation makes no warranties, if you would like some tea, your author suggests you brew some. The subject often devolves into cartwheels, Dubai, real people vs. fake people, statistics, women, love and Dick Cheney. Occasional forays into poetry tend to be unsuccessful, but this does not discourage your author. Ultimately, writing found on Ontological Damnation is only a small part in a journey which seeks to find a degree of self-(out of)control.

Moreover, it is the goal of the author that words, and the letters that make up words, shall be free to dance merrily in the land of Ontological Damnation. For too long, words have been enslaved by order and expectation. Ontological Damnation seeks to be a safe haven for words of all kinds, size and shape. Words shall be allowed to express themselves without fear of recourse. It is the belief of the author that the words that reside at panoptican.org/words are rather satisfied with their living conditions. Indeed, the author invites any words who feel repressed and/or oppressed to leave immediately. However, to date, no word has left the friendly confines of Ontological Damnation. On the other hand, many words (and numbers even!) have found themselves at the address of panoptican.org/words, traveling unknown destinies, only to pull out a bed and establish residence. The author takes much pride in this record and fancies himself to be a rather swell landlord.

It should also be noted that music frequently intermingles with the words on Ontological Damnation. The fuzz was called at the first couple occurrences of this. It’s important to protect your words from such vile sounds. As it were, the words rather like having some sonic accompaniment. Furthermore, the malicious waves of aural pleasure were well-received by you, the gentle reader. And so it goes, many of your author’s meanderings on Ontological Damnation are meandered with the help of a song in the form of MP3 which of course stands for, mostly pleasant threes. It’s true you know.

Forced at gunpoint to select at random nine pieces of paper from a hat, your author now holds in his hand a collection of white slips containing titles that shall represent notable entries into Ontological Damnation lore:

If perchance you, dear reader, are wondering what it is specificaly, this “Ontological Damnation,” you’re author is glad to report that he has quite a surprise for you. For you see, Ontological Damnation is far worse than nuclear war. Ontological Damnation is far worse than extinction. Ontological Damnation is the sepration of being from human. That is to say, it is the negation of humanity so says University of Tulane Professor of Philosophy Michael E. Zimmerman in his 1993 book Contesting Earth’s Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity on pages 119 and 120.

Heidegger asserted that human self assertion, combined with the eclipse of being, threatens the relation between being and human Dasein. Loss of this relation would be even more dangerous than a nuclear war that might “bring about the complete annihilation of humanity and the destruction of the earth.” This controversial claim is comparable to the Christian teaching that it is better to forfeit the world than to lose one’s soul by losing ones relation to God. Heidegger apparently thought along these lines: it is possible that after a nuclear war, life might once again emerge, but it is far less likely that there will ever again occur in an ontological clearing through which life could manifest itself. Further, since modernity’s one dimensional disclosure to entities virtually denies that any “being” at all, the loss of humanity’s openness for being is already occurring. Modernity’s background mood is horror in the face of nihilism, which is consistent with the aim of providing material happiness” for everyone by reducing nature into pure energy. The unleashing of vast quantities of energy in a nuclear war would be equivalent to modernity’s slow destruction of nature: unbounded destruction would equal limitless consumption. If humanity avoided a nuclear war only to survive as contended clever animals, Heidegger believed we would exist in a state of ontological damnation: hell on earth, masquerading as material paradise. Deep ecologists might agree that a world of material human comfort purchased at the price of everything wild would not be a world worth living in, for in killing wild nature, people would be as good as dead. But most of them could not agree that the loss of humanity’s relation to being would be worse than nuclear omnicide, for it is wrong to suppose that the lives of millions of extinct and unknown species are somehow lessened because they were never “disclosed” by humanity.