Hmm, so far “trying to wonder” leads me to trying to understand the universe. No surprises there.
It’s feeling myself out to find that intimate aspect of myself, changing myself, understanding myself, that can be achieved.
Only an infinite lifetime could understand an infinite universe. I don’t have one of those. Perhaps one of those immortal jellyfish have sorted it out. I don’t speak jellyfish though. 
Yes exactly !!! What happened for me then is I held that genuine curiosity and confusion and apparently impossibility in mind , at the same time noticing that nevertheless things are happening … so it’s a contradiction … but how can it be, there can be no contradiction in the way things are, so if it’s a fact it’s all the same moment then where is the problem, what’s the false axiom?
Though it wasn’t all thought out like that hehe. But that’s what I was wondering.
Right! I am currently looking for things with my understanding, which I know is more about uncovering the kid that would find it a wonder to contemplate.
I went for a long walk, despite it being a unwise idea with a sore throat and cough; the weather is cold and windy.
I was thinking through the idea of “intimate part of myself” , contemplating all the games I was handed, and how I hide behind this body. How it became a serious business, with winners and losers. *That intimate part had a simple goal of having fun. Quickly though, the games available became serious and promises of future fun where smoke and mirrors. Additionally, that playful part is expected to appear on cue and perform like a “dancing monkey” whilst in the next moment a somber strong serious protector is expected to materialise on cue.
After a while, that intimate part of me didn’t come out to play anymore.*
So it seemed to me that the answer so far is playfulness.
I was at the top of a hill and could see rain coming in while I was still a mile from home. So I played a game. Me, one part of the universe that wants to get home without being rained on, the rain clouds coming in to rain on everything regardless. The start time for the race was “Now” and the finish time “Now”.
I smiled and kept walking. I can see that the game doesn’t have a loser, as rained on or not is was fun. I also saw that it’s the thrill that makes this game of uncovering that “intimate part of myself” intrinsic to the very experience I am looking for. The means and end are the same.
As Richard said somewhere; Actualism is all about having fun!
I “won” for the record. The clouds didn’t seem to notice this though. 
*Edited to include more details on the finding where that intimate part is hiding.
It becomes serious because of ‘me’ too. All the pain I put myself through, all the pain that is verified by humanity. None of it matters, or even really exists
Richard; (my emphasis)
“. It is alarming to feel this immaculateness – it is frightening in its immediate intimacy – which is why one backs off, initially denying its very existence. What happens though, if one takes the risk to actually be here now – instead of standing back and feeling it out in order to make up one’s mind – is that one discovers that oneself is also pristine. There is no differentiation between that something which is precious and me. I am that stillness experiencing itself … I am pristine, through and through”
Elsewhere, also Richard (my emphasis);
It would appear that your (affective) memory of the ASC is blocking access to (cognitive) memory of a PCE … experience with other people over the years has shown that ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – has, more often than not, both a vested interest in remembering an ASC and in being amnestic about a PCE."
This struck a chord with me.
I remember now at least 3 occasions when there was an experience which I immediately pulled back from.
No where near enough time in the experience to say it was PCE, but it matches these quotes.
I always remember and recount the ASC stuff. These 3 experiences however have been forgotten for some time now.
It made me think, what experiences have had “alarming or frightening” entry points?
In other news, the reminder of “neither express or repress” from reading @John describing his approach, and remembering Richards story came in extremely handy today.
I received a text from my recent ex which sparked an immediate “emotional damage” response. Pain in the body. Having the memory of John’s description and the possibility that Richard entered a PCE from this action, I did the same; let the feeling grow without repression or expression.
There was, apart from the pain, the immediacy of my surroundings becoming more present. Exactly the flavour of those 3 experiences I backed away from years ago.
Good progress.
We were speaking about this at one of the video calls and I am pretty sure I had this very thing going on for me! I think it could have been one of the reasons why it took me so long to have a PCE after starting to apply the method (I think it took about 1 year)
So the PCE which I always referenced to before I had any as an actualist was the one I had at about 18. Nowadays I know that it was undeniably a PCE, I am completely certain. However that PCE also devolved into an ASC where I was flooded with love and compassion.
So this led to a few problems when I came to try to apply the method years later.
Firstly I would question wether it was a PCE or not because the overwhelming part of ‘my’ memory of the experience was the affective part, the part where I was flooded with love and compassion.
Secondly for the first year or so of applying the method, whenever I got close to the actual world I would immediately start veering off into experiencing Love and Compassion (and the underlying current of sorrow) and so this would end up preventing the PCE.
The way I was experiencing it is that I had ‘associated’ the actual world with Love and Compassion, somehow somewhere in my head the purity and perfection got muddled up with Love and Compassion, it was pretty weird looking back now!
But anyways, the thing happened over and over, often leaving me frustrated but eventually it disappeared and then I finally had my first PCE ‘as an actualist’. Then finally I could distinguish between the PCE and ASC with confidence. From then on I knew what I was looking for so I never veered back towards Love and Compassion.
Last night was another fantastic walk. It seems I have settled into a groove where it’s easy within myself to both feel and contemplate it and reasonably quickly resolve things.
After the “emotional damage” moment yesterday, and the success at not suppressing or trying to escape, there was an aftermath of reprocessing things I had thought were resolved.
I began to contemplate being “right” or “wrong”.
It became “clear as day” that they depend on how I feel. One minute I am right, the next wrong!!
About a mile later, I was in tears about the whole situation, actualism, relationships etc.
It was a new kind of tears though. An honest, discovering experience. It’s like a sadness with relief mixed in as I just released a whole heap of emotional confusion all at once.
All sadness isn’t the same. This lacked any “poor” me, but had a depth of conviction that it was safe to admit that I just didn’t know, but wanted to.
It’s funny that all week I have been fighting some cold, waking up coughing, sore throat, and it hasn’t made a difference at all to progress.
Today, another whole issue just revealed itself almost without any trying at all.
I saw that the objection I had the the term "blind nature " was so so silly.
I was walking across a large verge full of weeds , and it just hit me; it’s alive, growing where ever it can blindly. Why wouldn’t I also have a whole set of “blind nature” instinctual passions? As in really blindly growing like these weeds? Actually blind, without anything even remotely conscious.
It has changed something in me. I can’t wait to get out on my walk and look at all the blind nature growing everywhere!!! And more importantly see it in me.
Throat is sore, cough won’t go away, but I honestly feel good.
Man Alive. What does it mean to be at heart “blind nature”?
Sweet Lawn Cheeses.
It means everything I ever was is this blind thing at my core.
It makes so much sense.
There is some sort of survival reaction going on. A cloudiness about last night.
A defence mechanism.
I remember now that part of the tears was realising I was terrified of the very thing we all talk about; the actual world.
I remember now that I was like " dragons be here". That some sort of god awaited me there, or the actual “here” I should do say.
I remember Richard saying to me when we were both on the floor, hands touching as we held a hinge in place, Vineeto at her desk;
“There is only one person in this room trying to survive”.
I am a blind weed trying to survive in the cracks of a concrete pavement.
In a way, I am fortunate to know death so well, to be in that “crack in the pavement”.
Unable to win the game, the only resort the ‘real’ has to play is the “you are a loser” card.
Yes. And thank fuck for that.
I will gladly lose a game I was fated to lose, so I win a game I am destined to win.
It puts and end to any search for an ultimate “why?” Vineeto tried to tell me this. She gave up though. There was no way I could let it go.
It is becoming even more amazing those two can be bothered at all with meetings with automaton denizens of reality.
Do I wonder why this weed grew over here, and not over there? Who cares!
I have never once cared why weeds grow anywhere except for before rent inspections.
I never understood how anyone could not what to know why. I guess it was always obviously a mute point to others blessed with a practical outlook.
Is there anything to be gained by knowing definitively why this weed grew in that place?
The sore throat and immune response in my body seem to be emphasing the point.
I think often in these cases Richard does provide a reason why (a factual one) however people are often discontented at this because they want an answer that offers an ultimate purpose/design for the why.
So for example :
Questioner - Why is there suffering and conflict in the world?
Richard - Because of the instinctual passions
Questioner - OK… but why?
Richard - Because it is blind nature’s rather clumsy package for ensuring survival and proliferation of species and there is no other way into this world than via sex, this means we are all born with these passions already encoded.
Questioner - OK… but why?
What the questioner is really asking is what overarching purpose/design has been assigned to all this by some ultimate being that is behind creation. Why did he decide for the universe to be this way as opposed to another way?
Of course these questions simply cannot be answered because they pre-suppose something that does not exist. Richard cannot answer them as they are nonsensical. He can only provide the factual answer to the question being asked.
The only “why” I am concerned about is “why me?”
I accidentally kill a snail after it has rained. I weirdly say “sorry” and then feel like a Hindu who just killed his grandfather. It feels stupid.
Some weird reversal of intelligence happens when it’s controlled by blind nature. I suddenly can feel some guilt over a dead snail but no remorse over repeatedly hurting people’s feelings.
I see why as one gets older, it’s not unusual for narcissist tendencies to take over.
The “but why?” becomes a crescendo of desperation.
The grass gets mowed. The tree dies of borer worms.
I sit and mope because I got left behind. Even though I myself left her and others behind.
It’s quite unnerving. The default is “but why me?” never “why do I treat others so disposably”
It’s not freeing yet. There is this strong sickness going on in my immune system, which seems to highlight the blindness.
That was the last part of the walk last night, seeing that trying to convince others is a complete waste of time when there is no spark of interest.
Tonight I can see more clearly another action of blind nature in myself. All of my progress lately is being filled under “Things which will impress Her”
As if I can run home to my mother with my homework showing a big A+ in the corner.
Blind nature doesn’t care at all. I have been relying on a system which has not even the slightest glimmer of intelligence. I am that system.
Hasn’t sunk in yet. I wish I could shake this cold and go for a walk, but the glands are up and it feels like perhaps something more than a cold.
Damn.
I think that this is a weird statement.
It’s precisely because I recognise the vacuity of others feelings, that there is increasingly no guilt about it. I am that very same vacuity. I recognise that at a moment’s notice they do, or would do the same to me.
So there is only manipulating left.
I was actually well aware of this during the last relationship. She wanted the drama. Repeated breakups on my part were all perfectly ok because it meant when I would come back she won. The drama is documented a few hundred posts back. All the justification I would go through.
Prostituting what little integrity I had just to be in a relationship.
It’s as if the final impetus for me is losing. The whole affective faculty is sent buzzing for some way to win. The old “only in a crisis will people consider changing”.
If blind nature wasn’t clumsy, we would be screwed. It’s the dissatisfied feeling, the feeling of failure which provides the kick.
I probably should be doing this in my off-line journal. ,
I lived n believed this for a large part of my life - Kill some organism n next birth you take birth as that organism…heck I thought once what if I kill multiple organisms all my life…will my next births queue up one by one (as those organisms) in the order I killed them ?
So I’m all good as long as I am only killing human beings and sparing the snails!
My friend who is the social butterfly I hang around with is from Mumbai. He has a few times told me that’s Hinduism isn’t a religion it’s a way of life!
His whole thing is don’t harm people.
I was really looking forward to tonight, I ended up going for a walk anyway, but I am going to have to chalk it up to a “no ball”.
It just shits me that I haven’t found a partner interested in even being a good person, let alone interested in actualism. It shits me as much that she is probably with her new romantic interest tonight and I both hope and somehow know it will fail.
It’s like a curse being informed enough to know what is happening around me, not informed enough yet as to what is going on inside me.
My walk ended with realising I just get far too hard on myself with this issue.
Assuming the cold isn’t a fatal new contagion and I die in my sleep, tomorrow will be another chance.
Fingers crossed I have some dream where I have the opportunity to become free in my sleep and this whole shit show can end.
This is really the crux of it. Why want her back when a) I already know just how incredibly self centred she is and b) she has zero interest in changing that.
Apart from the aspects of love Peter talks about, possession, jealousy, control, I saw tonight more of the “mommy’s boy” tonight.
My mother was an incredibly hardworking woman who sacrificed herself continuously for her children. She wasn’t “selfish” in the normal way we might say it, but just as ‘selfish’ as all ‘selfs’ are.
That’s where the walk got to anyway. My expectations are being coloured, and overt “traditional selfishness” sets me off big time, while ‘self’ process we talk about is actually undone with a large doses of “selfishness”.
I did start pondering that there is a whole heap of morality buzzing around.
Gonna walk down that dirt road 'til someone will let me ride
Gonna walk down that dirt road 'til someone will let me ride
If I can’t find my baby I’m gonna run away and hide
Well, I been pacing round the room, hoping maybe she come back
Pacing round the room, hoping maybe she come back
Well, I been praying for salvation
Laying round in a one-room country shack
Gonna walk down that dirt road, until my eyes begin to bleed
Gonna walk down that dirt road, until my eyes begin to bleed
'Til there’s nothing left to see
'Til the chains have been shattered and I been freed
But I been looking at my shadow, I been watching the clouds up above
looking at my shadow, watching the clouds up above
Rolling through the rain and hail
Looking for the sunny side of love
Gonna walk down that dirt road 'til everything becomes the same
Gonna walk down that dirt road 'til everything becomes the same
I keep on walking 'til I hear her holler out my name
The kicker is, the sunny side of love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
We’re ‘set up’ to feel love, lust. You just have to look at someone attractive to you to see this in action… and it has a whole set of attendant ‘next steps.’
An excellent question