Autonomy means you don’t need to set boundaries. They are obvious.

If you have to set your boundaries, that means you’re not autonomous.

An a-ha, or eureka moment brings clarity in retrospection. That’s the moment when something all of a sudden becomes strikingly self-evident.

The statement on autonomy I came up with is all about deep meaning of words. As I am a logical thinker I like to take the statement a step further …

and refute it! Only to finally invent a new word: autology.

Not that I can really invented that word as it already exists. I am merely adding a meaning to it in correlation with the meaning of autonomy in contemporary English.

In many words that we borrow from Greek, we find a combination of either “root+logy” or “root+nomy”. There are many examples: we have ecology and economy, agrology and agronomy, biology and bionomy, geology and geonomy, theology and theonomy, astrology and astronomy etc.

With some roots only the ending -nomy prevailed, with some only -logy. Everybody knows about biology, but hardly anyone heard about bionomy, per example.

Nomos is a Greek word that has to do with law and governance. Logos, on the other hand, has to do with reason, logic and natural order. Compare ecology and economy and you’ll get the picture. Oikos means “home” (in the broadest sense also the world) – so ecology is about understanding the natural order of home, and economy is about setting the artificial laws of governing home.

In the same way autonomous means “having it’s own laws”. Autonomous country sets its own “rules of the game”. Autonomous individual can decide on his own about his course of actions.

So, logically, autologous should mean “being what it inherently is.” Autologous community is naturally distinguishable from other communities and strong in its own identity as it is. Autologous individuals are easily recognizable by their mere presence; we instinctively or intuitively respect their space.

Unfortunately, words autology and autologous are used in two separate (and quite specialized) fields. Autology is used in linguistics for words that describe themselves, such as pentasyllabic … and autologous is used in medicine when transplanted tissue is coming from the recipient himself.

I am not binding myself with what is. Why not open new possibilities? Starting with my newest a-ha which is: my initial a-ha is flawed!

Autonomy (by mere definition of the word!) means you are setting artificial boundaries, generally through rules are laws. To be autonomous among other autonomous entities you have to set such boundaries even when natural boundaries are obvious.

When you don’t need to set boundaries, when they are strikingly obvious – you can say that you are autologous.

To do that you need to first recognize existing natural boundaries.

Then you need to allow your own boundaries to interact with natural boundaries and shape them. This interaction will keep them firm but flexible, like a muscular membrane such as diaphragm. Autologous being or colony responds to changes in the environment and moves in harmony with them. This makes it inherently non-violent – even if its nature is killing.

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Embracing autology means dropping autonomy. They exclude each other.

That’s what I think now, maybe another a-ha will change this. Maybe that’s what autology is really all about.

My intention was not to get too philosophical, I actually just wanted to share my a-ha. And look, now where it brought me!

A new concept is born, autology! Celebrate!