I am Not-Being Aristotle

In footnote 2, page 71, Chapter 3 SOT:

Had Straka lived to review my final revisions of this translation, he likely would have quarreled with my choice to use oblivion here. His original phrasing translates directly as not-being, which I find nonsensical. How can one fail to be? If one is, one is. (Of course, the philosopher—and curiously popular Straka candidate—Guthrie MacInnes could no doubt fill up several volumes addressing such matters. I have concluded, though, that it is far better simply to be than to obsess over what, who, or even whether one is.)

"Not-being" must come from Aristotle's Theory of Act and Potency.  For Aristotle, "being" is the actualization of potential.  A monkey can be described as having fur and a tail, other creatures can have fur and tails. These characteristics have the potential for the monkey, but only once the characteristics are united to form the monkey does the monkey become actualized.

For Aristotle, potentiality is the possibilities that any given thing can be said to have, but he acknowledges that these possibilities are not all equal; some possibilities are more likely to lead to actualization. Potentiality may have a strong tendency to occur on its own or could be the result of chance. As described by Sachs: 

The man with sight, but with his eyes closed, differs from the blind man, although neither is seeing. The first man has the capacity to see, which the second man lacks. There are then potentialities as well as actualities in the world. But when the first man opens his eyes, has he lost the capacity to see? Obviously not; while he is seeing, his capacity to see is no longer merely a potentiality, but is a potentiality which has been put to work. The potentiality to see exists sometimes as active or at-work, and sometimes as inactive or latent.

I find it interesting that the Greek work for possibility is the root word for a number of other tantalizaing words.  It makes me wonder if the munitions explosion was the dynamite or impetus for an actualization of some sort.  I also wonder if Hobbes' and Locke's use of the word "power" is related in some way too in reference to "The Power 15" ad in the pages of the McKay's review.

Dunamis is the ancient Greek word for possibility or capability. Depending on context, it could be translated "potency", "potential", "capacity", "ability", "power", "capability", "strength", "possibility", "force" and is the root of modern English words "dynamic", "dynamite", and "dynamo".  In early modern philosophy, English authors like Hobbes and Locke used the English word "power" as their translation of Latin potentia.

Actualization is the process of becoming; it is the fulfillment of possibility; and within it exists a paradox. 

In a sense, a thing that exists potentially does not exist, but the potential does exist.

Actualization or a unity of possibilities is the expression of being for Aristotle.  Also interesting is Aristotle's idea of not-being.

If, then, some things are always combined and cannot be separated, and others are always separated and cannot be combined, while others are capable either of combination or of separation, 'being' is being combined and one, and 'not being' is being not combined but more than one. Regarding contingent facts, then, the same opinion or the same statement comes to be false and true, and it is possible for it to be at one time correct and at another erroneous; but regarding things that cannot be otherwise opinions are not at one time true and at another false, but the same opinions are always true or always false.

For Aristotle "'not being' is "being" not combined but more than one."  More than one? Could it be that we have just gotten a hint from Straka or Caldeira that there is no single person who writes under the identity of Straka?  A collective of possibilities that could also be a collective of writers?  Because what are writers?  In reality, aren't they truly the scribes of all possibilities, realities and worlds by actualizing potentiality when putting paper to ink?

(8/17/14 grammar edits and tags added)