I was thinking this too (!) reading through the 50 latest post here - something has definately changed within you Andrew.
I enjoyed reading your entries.
I was thinking this too (!) reading through the 50 latest post here - something has definately changed within you Andrew.
I enjoyed reading your entries.
I watched Robin Williams in “Bicentennial Man” a few weeks back. The robots name was Andrew. He would always say something like “I am glad to be of service”.
It really is us feeling beings that do the “work”.
Whatever we can do to assist each other, is all part of the gift we want to give the world.
I’ve been asking what is in the way of ‘self’ immolation, which I see as the same thing as asking what is causing anything but feeling good to be my experience.
Very effective. Much more clarity. Having total oblivion of myself, as a self, as the goal, changes the answers. Thought out answers just don’t cut it. It’s always a feeling that will answer. Or better said, if it’s not a clear feeling answer, then Im not interested.
The last week, the feeling has been so indistinct. It’s not the normal enui, or flatness, because there is momentum*. Almost like something one would read about as a “quantum flux”, lots of little feelings which are there, but then not there. Last night I determined that upping the base line expectations are in order. More joy is required. Not quite sure how, but the quantity and clarity of the objections seen to “oblivion” is producing it’s own “discovery enjoyment”. There needs to be better background “contrast” for me to observe myself better.
Oh, and I installed a mental “oblivion basket” for old patterns which want to come back around. Basically the same as putting it on a “it doesn’t ultimately matter basis” but with the momentum of basically saying “yep, that’s why oblivion is the goal”. I am learning that I don’t really ever get rid of something in myself. The potential for a “flare up” of anything is possible. Hence, a handy "oblivion basket " to otherwise dump it in.
*Writing it out for others to potentially read, I see that there is excitement in it. Also an unfamiliar fear. My lifelong habit in the face of any fear is to automatically become very calm. It’s a very effective suppression though. It’s going to take some patience and persistence to tease it out. Hence seeing last night as I considered all of this while falling asleep, “more joy required!”
From my notes, when the feeling was I don’t want to benefit some people:
"Wanting to prove myself to women, I want to be around generally to rub their faces in it
However, I know they won’t care. So its detracting from motivation.
I have zero motivation to do it for their benefit.
For the kids suffering from defects, from starvation, from abuse, yes, I can do it for them.
However, I don’t want the snarky bitches, power tripping men, etc to benefit. Hmmmmmmmmmm
There is malice there. Ok, into the oblivion bin. That malice can die with me.
Ending humanity doesn’t play favourites.
Besides, if I had lived their life, I would be them.
My life is a gift. A destinal being. Ending humanity ends the bitches and bastards,
Besides, that body and the other are infected with a disease. A disease I have too. ‘they’ don’t deserve my gift, but those bodies do. Those bodies are innocent, so to say. ‘we’ are the problem.
Staying in the ‘real’ makes me as pathetic as ‘they’ are. We are the same stuff.
Why me? Why not. I could have been them. A few tweaks of my upbringing and Bam! A prick.
Each moment, event, person, relationship, job, every flutter of a butterfly wing, has inexorably lead me here, now and will continue to. My destiny is what I was born to do."
How much do people here want these posts? I generally feel somewhat uncomfortable. However, I have never failed to benefit from writing and reading about where I am up to.
Devotion.
I saw a few days back that another facet of my lack of success in actualism was that I venerate what is being described. Whether it’s a PCE or EE or anything at all, not only am I a “rule seeking” religious believer, but a worshipful and devoted one.
I’m not theorising here. In my early twenties I was the music/ worship director of the church I grew up in. I know worship. I know how to lead hundreds of people in highly emotional, devoted worship. I’ve played in front of thousands a few times. When I was a Buddhist, I was a Buddhist. I bowed to the triple diamond. I attended the local temple. When I meditated during those years, I did it by first devoting myself to the triple diamond.
Richard and Vineeto picked up on this. It’s primarily what led Richard to “pretend” tell me off. His words were something like “You are sitting there ‘Yes and Amen’ to what Vineeto is saying, but not feeling good!”
In a way, I am writing all of this for someone who probably isn’t reading it. A version of humanity that doesn’t know Actualism is even a thing at all.
Interesting! Would you say this is essentially putting the experience on some pedestal that is forever ‘over there’? With the result being that you prevent the experience from happening.
Exactly. Worship is a pedestal.
And so by worshiping one keeps the object “over there”.
One of the feelings that has been progressively examined of the last few months, which I wrote about, is terror.
“the fear of the lord* is the beginning of wisdom” is one of the beliefs drummed into my young skull.
I am otherwise countering it with the success that I have had with the premise feelings don’t have actual depth. They seem “deep” , mysterious, nauseating, and unassailable, but they are a paper tiger.
*Edit, had to correct the autocorrect, it has put “fear of the load” and not “lord”. That’s another entire thing.
The memories I dusted off recently were of experiences that I suspect were the entry points to PCE s. It was an automatic fear that shut them down completely.
So much so, that the attempts to recreate them were unsuccessful, except for maybe 2 identical experiences.
What I am finding is that I have discounted my everyday experience in the deal.
I was wondering the other day about do I think the actual world exists. It seemed ridiculous to me. I have zero doubt about it, at least it seems so.
So, I am mostly sticking to the edge of that feeling. I shouldn’t say it’s completely unfamiliar, I should say it’s almost completely unexplored.
What does it mean to have no doubt about the actual, but not directly experience it?
Note to self; Feeling answers only
Hyperbole is another religious trait of mine.
Big dramatic statements.
A lot of this is increasing my conditional happiness.
This year has been very challenging. final breakup in March, repressive job around that time, broken collar bone in May, covid in June, no possibility of going to the gym until a 6 weeks ago, then I promptly turned a common cold into an epic battle for a month.
Thank fuck it’s spring and I can go to the beach soon!
I was going to go back to salsa dancing, until I realised that I couldn’t lift my arm high enough for the “spinning the girl” bit.
Could this ‘fear is the way to the lord’
and ‘fear shutting down entry to PCEs’
be related?
Yes, very much so. At least, that is what has been coming up when I try to get to that place.
It’s also the normal fear of losing myself, I suppose.
Which is why contemplating oblivion / death, the fact I am already relying on an actual heart beat is so clarifying.
The question might be - what happens when you contemplate the fact that we’re actually here, alive, without bringing fear/God into it?
Yes, that’s essentially what I am doing, and what I found was that fear. So, instead of the historical despondency kicking in, there is a lateral thinking. Going at it from different angles.
For context, over the last decade I have spent thousands of hours going for walks, and in different situations, trying to have PCEs. However, my dedication and patience to examine what is in the way has been lacking.
Scratching the surface and calling it an investigation at best.
I am experimenting with my “oblivion bin” for just this reason. Somewhere Richard talks about “putting your normal self to one side”.
Essentially this, but with the momentum of recognising that “what is in it for me” as a feeling being is oblivion.
Essentially taking it repeatedly off it’s pedestal and “binning” it, is the same as minimising “good and bad” feelings, whilst ramping up the enjoyment and feeling good.
The feeling good is still somewhat muted, with details coming out stubbornly.
But, details are coming out. Hence the excitement, and I suppose some thrill of putting myself mentally in the space of someone who could, given the opportunity, ‘self’ immolate.
I have my own actually free person with me 24/7.
He does have a hard time getting a word in edgeways though.
RESPONDENT: (For the ‘I’ everything stops, but for the native intelligence, doesn’t everything come together in a manner of speaking?).
RICHARD: In a manner of speaking …yes (except that it has been together all along but could hardly get a word in edgeways, so to speak, and in those moments has no hindrance)
Serendipity describes the last couple of days.
Chatting with Rick, he spotted that despite me asserting I was removing obstacles, as in mentally not making any excuses about not having PCEs mainly, I was still putting an obstacle in my way; an external reason to “do this”.
Miguel’s post regarding wanting to end others suffering, but not one’s own, was a bullet to the head.
Despite having a blast last night reading and writing about cause and effect (it was the time aspect that really grabbed me), today I was really flat. Like I dropped back to a previous version of myself. The whole rebellion against anything sensible was there, but I started to let it sink in what Miguel was saying. Ending my suffering first.
I determined by the end of the day that at least some of it is seeing myself through others eyes. My whole life situation. My lack of prosperity, and my lack of drive to change that being dominant features. I don’t care about myself to the “standard” I imagine I should.
So, I reset the bar a whole lot lower.
Survive.
I am surviving physically fine. And this is enough for the purpose of actualism. It actually relieved some of the despondency.
It seems to be all the same thing however. Not putting the ending of my own suffering first, it the same same as not financially prospering.
It helped shake loose some more details of other actions I could take.
Well, one action specifically. I had the chat history of my recent ex on my phone, obviously. What I had let myself “get away with” was clicking on it to see when she had last been on the app.
Soft stalking, I suppose. I knew it was silly, but just like all the years of letting myself get away with rumination and fantasy, I had to be honest. As long as the chat was there, I would keep checking. The fantasy being she was visiting the chat. So I deleted it. I felt a twinge of pain, and saw that, Yep! that was a factor in the overall feeling. She isn’t blocked, or anything like that. I just admitted that it wasn’t helping with “flare ups” having it available.
I suppose it’s as silly as being on a diet, yet keeping a pile of chocolates on the table.
So it’s perfect that I am surviving fine. Food, shelter, clothes (had a good time shopping last weekend, which is a first for me- I usually hate clothes shopping).
Now, to pay some bills. Tomorrow, obviously. I don’t want to be too keen. Ease myself into this being sensible stuff.
In my experience this tends to happen a hundred times and eventually I look back to see that this whole chunk of ‘me’ is now missing. I think in general there could be more light shed on just in what way these habitual patterns disappear over time.
All these affective structures can be so persistent, I guess it is helpful to bear in mind that you have been supporting them - or more specifically ‘being them’ for so many years. You will habitually drift back ‘there’ each time. But every time attentiveness is applied and every time I get back to feeling good something does happen.
But there is so many ways that the dissolution of these dramas can happen, sometimes its a one-and-done sorta thing, sometimes I attack it from multiple angles for months and it goes, sometimes to my surprise it comes back from the dead as I realise there are some unexplored aspects which have resurfaced, sometimes it does its big last blow-out before I am ready to leave this part of me behind, sometimes it shifts into something different just so that some drama can continue etc
This whole process can be quite intense emotionally I find because there are so many shifting things, constantly shifting. And of course ‘I’ will do my best to resist any sort of change away from ‘normal’ so this can bring up all sorts of weird emotional reactions.
Cheers Kuba.
Hmm, I was wondering more about it, and the aspect of what I was feeling and the action I took where the same drama.
As you say, this is something I have been for a very long time. My entire MO since even before puberty. I must be something to others, especially women, or I am nothing at all.
Having been married at 21, first daughter at 23 (died) first son at 24 ( now 22) there was never that period of “finding my feet”, having a value that was something I invented. My value was always what I could do for women and children.
I mean “invented” in maybe having my own vision. Actual value is intrinsic. Humans are amazing creatures which don’t need validation to be so.
Which is nice to write out on the screen. Survival, or better put, living a simple life with all the necessities, and a few luxuries, is more than enough for me to succeed.
Funnily, I just watched the Kenobi series on Disney, with him as a hermit. It’s nothing like that! Neither is it building a “persona” or becoming Diogenes, embittered and in opposition to a more prosperous life.
It’s that I need to want to end suffering in me, rather than do it out of some obligation.
it’s a new turn of perspective, there are lots of different thoughts and paths that are occurring to me.
•there is more of the Christian conditioning coming out.
•more of the “finding the One” feeling there.
•a whole issue about not really “feeling caring” at all. This one is a Christian thing too.
Anyway, cheers for the response.
I spent half the day at my mom’s house. It was very pleasant, which isn’t normally the case. Ended up fixing some plumbing for her after we went to the hardware store together.
I found it really easy to chat with her. Listening to her stories. Telling her about were I am at with actualism.
I felt a genuine experiential confirmation that something has changed in me. Something which normally reacts around her wasn’t there at all.
I was pleasantly surprised at my demeanor. The genuineness of doing some work for her was a pleasure. Although there was some using the Lord’s name in vain, and blood was spilt. (Who designs pliers with cutting edges on the handle side?!!! Jeez!!!).