Andrew

Journals
1489

I found this video to be quite spot on with the issue of shame. How in recent years, culminating recently with “cringing” at my own posts (and perhaps deliberately writing “cringe worthy “ post to start with).

Basically, shame is the gate keeper. One doesn’t get to even consider what I wrote in the previous posts (that ‘I’ was always being offered enjoyment and appreciation of being alive, via feeling good, great, and happy and harmless).

It was always shame.

Shame is so prevalent, that until recently I had absolutely no idea how to be nice to myself. I never harshly scolded myself, but I was always on “this side” of shame, I.e. the shamer, rather than the shamed. No, that is not correct, I was mostly, for vast stretches of time on the side of the shamer. I even now remember writing about this a while back. No, it wasn’t writing, it was a voice note that I made.

That in siding with the shamer, I somehow , in the twisted logic of a forming ‘self’, make myself acceptable to the shamer.

In the clip, it’s far more explicit being that it’s a movie about extreme physical brutality towards Matt, but that is the the other side of the coin. One side is the “siding with” the shamer, the other side is “fuck you” rebellion. (I wrote about sending myself broke a decade ago, how I just couldn’t stop)

One is set up internally to side with the shamer, but, importantly, there is rebellion. We are a survival and reproduction self after all, and losers don’t “get the girl”. So, rebellion is outworking of the self recreating itself, as the shamed self if locked in at whatever age the worst of it happened.

Thus a false self, aside to the ordinary self, is made. A rebellious self. One that can survive, appears strong (thus desirable), but is almost incapable of “being friends with oneself “.

I can’t even begin to count how many times in real life, and on this and other lists people would say “you are way too hard on yourself “ and I had not the slightest clue what that even meant! Edit; I just reread this and the more sincere report is, ‘I’ was somewhat pleased that someone had noticed what a good job I was doing at being hard on myself. A pride was definitely there.

By extension, I have to fake being nice to people. Like really fake it. At least, I can see now that it has always been a huge effort, as I am also terrified of everyone. Because the bulk of the shame I was trained in was verbal, spiritual and social, people are terrifying. This is probably way more common than I can verify, simply because of the nature of shame; no one will easily admit it out loud, especially at the level it counts that “it’s not my fault!” (As in the video, Robins character has to repeat it a few times, and even gets hit by Matt’s character before moving into the shame and beyond.)

1490

I remember not seeing my own father for many months, one time up to a year. My mother would tell us boys that dad would discipline us when he got home.

We were not given a choice as to what we were beaten with, it was usually a belt, but whatever was handy.

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My brother one down from me (I am the oldest of four, two are still alive) would get it a lot worse than me. I don’t know why. He was also sexually abused worse than me.

1492

One of the most shameful things for me was torturing my own brother. I guess monkey see, monkey do.

We were on the trampoline in summer, and were fighting, it was not a real fight, just wrestling. I had the garden hose, and started to spray him when I the upper hand. He crouched over of the trampoline, and was covering his face, and I sprayed in every gap to stop him breathing. I remember clearly wanting to stop him breathing, like he was cheating.

I also remember being held down by my own father and smothered.

(For context, my father had been raped by multiple men at 12, was in prison by 19…)

I was about to write that us boys had it better than him, but I see in this moment that I have no way of comparing “who has it better”, and that in itself is a subtle “put down”. As in I shouldn’t fuss, or be too empathetic towards myself, as clearly I had it “better “.

I really had no intention of going into this territory. I just came across that video, and saw the parallels with me doing better over the last year, and that I had been crying a lot of the last last few years about these issues. Of course, watching the video, I balled my eyes out. As you do!

That is, I have allowed myself to be on the “side” of the shamed, rather than the judgmental shamer.

That I, that is ‘I’, get to feel good, and more, and there is no “blame” , not even when one could blame me, rightly, is still to fully sink in.

Some have called me recalcitrant, and I laughed at that, as when my brother (the one I tortured) were working together on the tools as ceiling fixers, that was a word we had discovered and would joke about it. “This cornice is being recalcitrant!” We would yell! :joy:

1493

Sitting here, laughing at YouTube clips, then pausing to contemplate my daily walk…

Every single thought is formed around some role I am meant to play. All of this cathartic posting always is followed with this general theme; “all of this will be worth it and important for others once I am free” or something like this.

All sorts of variations on this being a chore that I must do, for the good of all.

But never, absolutely never ever, for me. I am of course, ‘me’.

It’s entirely possible that the overarching reason that people “bounce off” Actualism is very much in that video clip, when the character says “i know” , twice.

People just bounce! It’s not obvious that ‘I’ benefit the entire time. It’s ‘ me’ enjoying and appreciating. Not as a chore, but as an ongoing free experience!!

Edit; I am aware that this could be read as a criticism of actualism. It is absolutely not intended that way. In that there is no way that the AFT could predict how each individual would respond to what is written, and no amount of IT skill , or presentation, was likely to create a connection point for all those who “bounce”.

My point is just how effective shame is. It rules the world!!

Think of what we see going on in the world, a pedophile rapist is waging wars, and I am somehow nervous or shaky about posting? (All those thousands who “bounce” are not at fault either)

This is the actual point I was meaning to write. It’s inevitable that people will bounce, given just how effective shame is. Every little animosity that one feels towards oneself will be effective in keeping the whole human condition going. Shame is, but definition, animosity towards oneself.

It always stuck with me what Srinath said years and years ago “any rancour towards the ‘real’ will perpetuate it”

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Andrew: Minimising the malice and sorrow, while maximising the felicity and innocuous, IS minimising the entire ‘self’ automatically.
I just didn’t see this before!
There is no separate “minimisation” of ‘myself’ other than what is achieved via “enjoying and appreciating facilitated by feeling good, great, happy and harmless”.
That is the entire trick!

Hi Andrew,

Yes, well spotted – this is how it works, all the way. And the more you allow your hidden-away-since-puberty naiveté to come to the fore, the easier it becomes to solve this puzzle of how you ‘tick’ in order to facilitate “feeling good, great, happy and harmless”. Persistence and courage are the other ingredients to make it work.

And now that you see the overall picture how the actualism method works you can allow yourself to let those insights percolate and then actualise them bit by bit.

Andrew: Edit; there has always been a trick I played on myself so as to get “no where” with Actualism. It was in many moments, an “imperative command”.
Even all the way back to Yahoo, I said as much to Richard. I was looking for a “god man” to tell me what to do, but I had only got as far as to rebel against such god men. I was stuck in rebellion. That was a “free” as I could feel.
Following on from the realisation that ‘I’, the person I feel myself to be, the ‘Andrew’ who is the only one writing this, GETS TO ENJOY the whole ride!
What would “bounce” me, is that rebellion. Which, I see now, quite clearly was ‘me’ protecting ‘my’ existence the entire time.
What I was rebellious against was the very thing Actualism was NEVER saying! It never said that I needed to suffer. Or that more fully explained, that because ‘I’ am the reason the world is messed up, (rotten to the core) that in NO WAY was there any repercussions, or condemnation, or even embarrassment, and especially not “repentance” required.

A great summary of many smaller insights which eventually revealed more of your attitude and beliefs towards the world in general and actualism in particular. And especially because you can see there is no “repentance required” you can leave this attitude in the ‘been-there-done-that’ basket where it belongs.

Andrew: I literally have been offered to enjoy and appreciate my way to actual freedom, for something like 14 years. I never got that part. Suffering was never encouraged, or in any way prescribed.
As I am still working through this I will say more. (Rather than waiting for a thesis).
I was ALREADY suffering. I was already having a mainly unpleasant time. It is indeed highly motivating to seek an answer, an escape, a blissful release. What didn’t click, was that was never part of the solution. ‘I’ am the suffering. So, it was always about minimising that suffering, which was made up of malice and sorrow, and maximising feeling good.
I don’t in anyway blame my past self, and I am writing more, as if I left it as it was, it certainly looks like some blame is in there. As in, I was worthy of “wry amusement”, …
I can’t say that anything could have changed that, in hindsight. At this point, I am tempted to try and “solve the problem” as to why 14 years have passed. As if saving the next person is my responsibility. (I am yet to “save myself”).

When you look at the overall outcome – how you were feeling 14 years ago and the result of what you have comprehended now and are gradually putting into action now – those years have been successful in facilitating your insights and you are therefore feeling better today. You could say that it needed time for gestation and background rewiring of your previous attitude(s) … and, of course, a good dash of enough is enough.

Perhaps you are interested in reading about Peasant Mentality (link) (link) (link) to find out “as to why 14 years have passed” and how much of it you have already disentangled, apparent from your recent understanding.

Andrew: Anyway, that last paragraph is to fill out that there was never a “shorter path”, and I am not at the end, yet. It’s to acknowledge that indeed, once one is on the path to improving one’s lot, one will have the drama needed. Not because it is prescribed, but because, IT WAS ALWAYS ALREADY THERE. (link)

I am pleased to hear you say “there was never a ‘shorter path’”. So many people interested in actualism have initially tried the ‘shorter path’ by jumping straight to the end, which turned out to be a futile enterprise –

Dona: The only thing that he [Richard] and Vineeto had to say that could be seen as “wrong”, is that people are trying to “jump to the end” before making a commitment to feeling good this moment and every moment again. (Dona & Alan’s Report, 30 Sep 2017)

To reiterate, nothing is wrong, and I am pleased to read of your progress to feeling good.

Cheers Vineeto

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1495

That naïveté was buried long before puberty. Which has been the issue. I dare say, the issue for many. I have vivid memories of the sexual confusion that abuse creates even at 4 and 5 years old. Some of my earliest memories are twisted sexual dreams.

Let’s say naïveté was already on the ropes a long time before hormones got a hold of me.

What my walk really started to solidify is just how subtle shame is. I always had this deep guilt that my life wasn’t bad enough to feel bad about. Even after everything, burying my daughter, losing my first brother, my father, I was always in my own estimation pathetic and not worthy of anyone’s consideration. However, there was always that other side of human nature which would lash out for attention.

Back to the topic, shame is so very subtle. All the ways I consider people slipping into self condemnation, even at subtle levels. The whole “sorry for taking up space”.

1496

This consideration, the generalisation of shame in all people, is being helpful as it allows me to accept all people in this way.

This was another theme today, especially with how visible the anger is in politics these days. To be able to accept that people are angry. With the same type of friendly acceptance that I give myself.

I am not literally talking with anyone about anger online, but within myself, it’s all anger and all part of me.

(I am humanity, and humanity is me)

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1497

Waking up, in that in between state, I saw myself in the middle of the “second pillar” of shame; going over all my past actions and believing I got them all wrong. Everything from how I did my job, to when I sold a car, to whatever!

A constant revisionism. A swirling regret uprooting all past actions and leaving them strewn all around.

This pillar is the shamer in action. The ‘thinker’ with a trolls cloak, under every bridge, in every shadow. If there was two roads or three, I should have chosen the fourth! A “should have” virus, infecting every memory.

My walk this morning had a briskness, and in it I saw the next pillar. The “asserter”. This is the universal belligerence of the self to assert itself in some why in order to survive. To make up a new religion is the extreme example, but the more personal one is to start critiquing Actualism! I saw myself lecturing others, and teaching, and all sorts of “i finally have the answer “.

This is where I usually get stuck. It’s very much how I was raised (I was actively groomed as a leader in the church, and was a music director in my late teens, and also a prophet/teacher type of expectation was always around me.

That and spending decades listening to preachers and pastors lecture hundreds of us twice on Sunday, and I see that the third pillar of shame is to spread it!

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1498

Vineeto: … the more you allow your hidden-away-since-puberty naiveté to come to the fore …

Andrew: That naïveté was buried long before puberty. Which has been the issue. I dare say, the issue for many. I have vivid memories of the sexual confusion that abuse creates even at 4 and 5 years old. Some of my earliest memories are twisted sexual dreams.
Let’s say naïveté was already on the ropes a long time before hormones got a hold of me.

Hi Andrew,

Having read your various subsequent posts and reports I realise that your childhood naiveté was indeed very early crushed in a brutal manner long before puberty. It fully explains why you said in a previous post –

Andrew: I literally have been offered to enjoy and appreciate my way to actual freedom, for something like 14 years. I never got that part. (link)

… and appreciable success that you “got that part” now.

Andrew: What my walk really started to solidify is just how subtle shame is. I always had this deep guilt that my life wasn’t bad enough to feel bad about. Even after everything, burying my daughter, losing my first brother, my father, I was always in my own estimation pathetic and not worthy of anyone’s consideration. However, there was always that other side of human nature which would lash out for attention.
Back to the topic, shame is so very subtle. All the ways I consider people slipping into self-condemnation, even at subtle levels. The whole “sorry for taking up space”. (link)

In a way your detailed affective exploration into shame is a follow-up and (possibly) deepening of your earlier understanding of guilt, for instance when you said –

Andrew: It’s always been a huge source of guilt, that I would desire there to be something “wrong” with me. Whilst these entire time, there was indeed always something that was “off” but it was not directly those things at all. Thanks. (link)
Vineeto: Guilt is a terrible weapon of dominance, and Christianity is as responsible of wielding it as any other religion. What allowed ‘Vineeto’ to reduce and whittle down ‘her’ guilt of being alive – such as having to be useful to be allowed to take up space, apart from the guilt of being ‘bad’, sinful, disobedient, unenlightened and all the rest – was the factual understanding (confirmed by the PCE, but also via the sensible explanations from Richard who had first made sense of it) how the human condition operates. It also made it clear that ‘she’, like every other human being, is in this situation by no fault of her own. (Vineeto to Andrew, 21 Oct 2025)

Your deeper explorations into the various levels of shame may or may not be necessary or beneficent to grasp the fundamental fact that ‘you’ are not to blame, that it is not ‘your’ fault. Here is an example of what Richard says about shame and guilt –

Respondent: … I take it you are saying something similar about being ‘guilty at conception’. It is not my fault that I am born as a ‘being’. And it doesn’t help to wallow in feeling guilty, rather one should understand how to rectify one’s negligence and flawed nature. A question arises about this sort of guilt. Does it help to feel guilty?
Richard: No … which is the whole point of realising that it is not ‘my’ fault and that ‘I’ am not to blame: it makes no more sense to feel guilty about being born with the human condition in situ than it does to feel guilty about the colour of one’s skin, for example, or any other characteristic which is determined at conception.
The same would apply to feeling shame.
It is pertinent to point out at this stage that I am not advocating immorality but rather the elimination of the cause of that which requires morality to keep in check … then one is automatically amoral (neither moral nor immoral).
In a word: innocent.
Respondent: No one is to blame, so I’m assuming it doesn’t really help to ‘feel guilty’ – so you are not trying to put a ‘guilt trip’ on anyone, rather pointing out the insalubrity of being a ‘being’.
Richard: I am not only pointing out the insalubrity of being a ‘being’ but also the social reprehensibility of being insalubrious.
Respondent: I find that feeling guilt doesn’t help me at all to rectify anything, but seeing the silliness of something and aiming to be more sensible does indeed help. Maybe what is happening here is that you are using language like ‘reprehensible’ and ‘guilty’ and ‘blameworthy’ and ‘culpable’ where all these words normally imply a feeling of guilt – then you come back and say that no-one is to blame – which for me, is a bit confusing.
Richard: All I mean by the word guilty in the phrase ‘guilty at conception’ is not-innocent … and I only use the word because so many people over the years have told me that children are born innocent and that adults have lost their childhood innocence (the Tabula Rasa theory). I see that I first used the term ‘guilty at conception’ – and in that very context – in ‘Richard’s Journal’ many years ago:
• ‘None of the supposed ‘innocence of children’ comes anywhere near to the matchless purity of the innocence of the actual. Nor does the assumed ‘innocence’ in the status generously and wrongly attributed to those old men, women and children classified as ‘innocent victims of war’; for these ‘victims’ are all guilty of instinctive anger and vicious urges themselves. As much as one might be sensitively considerate about their suffering, they cannot be labelled as innocent whilst they remain being ‘human’. *They are not to blame: nobody is born innocent, all humans are already ‘guilty’ at conception*. Fear and aggression and nurture and desire are built into the ‘Human Condition’ … this is the ‘human nature’ that is said ‘cannot be changed’. These intrinsic urges and drives are known as the ‘instinct for survival’. [emphasis added]. (pages 127-7, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©1997, The Actual Freedom Trust).
Not only did I preface it with ‘they are not to blame’ but I see that I even put the word ‘guilty’ in scare quotes to indicate that I did not mean it in the normal sense (a practice which I seem to have later dropped).
(…)
Richard: What I have observed over many years is that a normal person has a propensity to blame – to find fault rather than to find causes – when it comes to dealing with the human condition … if for no other reason than that finding the cause means the end of ‘me’ (or the beginning of the end of ‘me’).
Whereas endlessly repeating mea culpa keeps ‘me’ in existence. (Richard, AF List, No. 27c, 9 Sep 2002).

In other words, once you had enough of affectively remembering why you feel/ felt ashamed and guilty (in a negative nostalgia if you will) then you can get “back to the topic”, which is feeling good and enjoying and appreciating being alive right here, right now, and in this manner doing something beneficial for yourself and others regarding the mess which is the human condition.

Cheers Vineeto

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1499

Thanks Vineeto,

Indeed, my focus is using all of this to get even more detailed kindness happening. And that is what I have been doing.

Seeing every subtle way that a shameful and shaming, or avoiding shame thought and internal dialogue happens.

I see it also in everyday exchanges, and also in the way English is even structured. There is an imperative built in, and it shortens our sentences down to a verb. You “should” do this, or why did you “do” that?

There is so much packed into each sentence, but mostly the verbs. A lot can be said for longer and more detail internal dialogue which is what I have been doing.

Letting thoughts extend to give time for the most inclusive and gentle observations and decision making.

For example, what I might normally say internally: “I should clean the car so I can sell it”

A kinder, longer, and gentle (also factual), “i have the option to clean the car and also look at how i am going approach the watermarks, I could sell it as-is, but this seems a better solution, if i can get some headway on it, that is a good outcome “.

Not exactly what i said, but the jist is: I almost never “have to” and “should” do anything. Most of the time there are options, and there is time to gently think through what is happening, what those options are, and most importantly feel as gentle towards myself and what is happening as possible at all times, because it’s much nicer to be around myself when that is the understanding of the goal.

Being simultaneously the world’s best boss and most valuable employee. Haha

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1500

Hi Andrew,

When you have thoroughly grasped “the fundamental fact that ‘you’ are not to blame, that it is not ‘your’ fault” then this shame/ guilt of being alive will be out of your system, and you don’t have to do linguistic gymnastics to carefully avoid shaming or blaming yourself. The change happens on a deep feeling level, verbalisations follow the feeling change.

Obviously this fact has not sunk in deeply enough to require those “gentle” verbal measures.

Andrew: Not exactly what I said, but the gist is: I almost never “have to” and “should” do anything. Most of the time there are options, and there is time to gently think through what is happening, what those options are, and most importantly feel as gentle towards myself and what is happening as possible at all times, because it’s much nicer to be around myself when that is the understanding of the goal.
Being simultaneously the world’s best boss and most valuable employee. Haha (link)

As for you “have to” or “should” be doing something, depends on the situation – when your bladder is full you have to empty it, and there is no emotional charge neither in thought nor in action. Rather than mentally re-structuring your language to be “kinder, longer, and gentle”, be attentive to your emotional/ psychic attitude to yourself (and in consequence to others), in order to identify and acknowledge the root cause. In other words, address the affective root – that you swallowed the belief that you are taking up space, hook, line and sinker, for instance – and when you, consciously and with aforethought, abandon this (harshly indoctrinated) belief, everything connected to it will fall into place.

Cheers Vineeto

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1501

I have yet to experience this, on any topic. For me, I take it on advice that this is possible, as it would be no use trying if it was not possible, but I will continue to do what occurs to me as useful.

Exactly how can a change happen “on a deep feeling level”?

It’s very much a starting where I am scenario. I respond to people who speak nicely. I enjoy them, so I am setting out to imitate this type of self talk.

My understanding is that habits are shaped through repetition, rather than any moment of instant change.

I am indeed aiming at change at a “deep feeling level” but I see no option than to continue to change habits and verbal self talk.

If there is an “instant “ way, then I am all “eyes”.

Cheers

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1502

Today was a good day, I was able to achieve some goal with work needed on my car and also had a very productive “think” session when walking. I was otherwise feeling fine, and started to think about being “special “ in the universe. As a ‘human self’ we want to be looked after in some way. We have whole belief systems built around the universe having a “special place” for humans.

I was considering the opposite. That the universe, while having life everywhere that it can, has No favourites. No favourite species, and no favourite individuals. Life happens, it has happened spectacularly on Earth, there is evidence is happened on Mars to some degree.

The cosmologist Fred Hoyle, wrote a book a long time ago called “Our place in the cosmos”. I found it in my twenties when I would spend most afternoons in the library after work, looking for answers. This was “early internet” libraries were still relevant!

Anyway, the book was about evidence for the hypothesis of “Panspermia “. That life is everywhere in the universe, being transmitted via comets and asteroids. Recently, discoveries in inert matter showing patterns of life like structures and interactions was another angle on the hypothesis that life doesn’t spontaneously “spawn” on a favourable world, but rather is ever present in a dormant form.

Relevance? Well, part of the hypothesis was that certain bacteria, and certain insects have dormant states which could in theory be preserved for millions of years before reanimating in favourable conditions. These types of creatures, bacteria, viruses, and some types of insects are all related to all sorts of bugs which make my life unpleasant at times. Mosquitoes, various virus, and parasites etc.

Linking that hypothesis of panspermia, and seeing that if true it was precisely these sometimes unpleasant to me, a human, creatures that enable there to be life at all in the universe, gave me something to really enjoy!

Looking around at the river, feeling my skin occasionally itch, seeing a mosquito or a fly. Considering the vast variety of life all around me, on me, and in me*, gave me something to both appreciate, and also dispel some of the “special” I feel I should be.

*side note; humans are a minority in their own bodies, based on cell count. There are more bacteria, parasites et all on and in the human body than there are human cells. The web tells me about 10-30% more.

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Hi Andrew,

Taking fully on board that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ you enables a decision that you no longer want to be the feeling of being ashamed for ‘taking up space’, for instance, because you sensibly and intelligently see that it is silly to do so. Fact is you are here and obviously take up space by being here, and hence it is silly (if not outright absurd) to apologize/feel ashamed for being here on this amazing planet.

You also understand that nobody forces you to be this feeling but yourself. So it is in your hands, and your hands alone, to be a felicitous and appreciative feeling instead of a shameful and sorrowful feeling.

What complicates or compounds this apologetic feeling of being here is that ‘I’, the alien identity, having usurped control over the flesh-and-blood body from birth onwards knows deep down that it is a contingent ‘being’, exerting dominance via the instinctual passions whilst wholly dependent on your compliance. The more you diminish this dominance via minimising the ‘good’ and bad feelings and maximise the felicitous and innocuous feelings, the more your native intelligence can operate – as you put it so well the other day –

Andrew: Minimising the malice and sorrow, while maximising the felicity and innocuous, IS minimising the entire ‘self’ automatically. (link)

Andrew: It’s very much a starting where I am scenario. I respond to people who speak nicely. I enjoy them, so I am setting out to imitate this type of self talk. My understanding is that habits are shaped through repetition, rather than any moment of instant change.
I am indeed aiming at change at a “deep feeling level” but I see no option than to continue to change habits and verbal self talk. If there is an “instant” way, then I am all “eyes”. (link)

Of course, it makes sense to be attentive to any left-over habitual behaviour and adjust it as soon as you become aware of it but the recognition that it is unnecessary and silly to continue being ashamed makes the adjustment a breeze.

Andrew: Looking around at the river, feeling my skin occasionally itch, seeing a mosquito or a fly. Considering the vast variety of life all around me, on me, and in me, gave me something to both appreciate, and also dispel some of the “special” I feel I should be. (link)

This is a potent discovery which you mentioned here en passant – as part of the whole emotional topic of feeling shame and blame there is hidden a ‘good’ feeling, which needs to be recognized and acknowledged in order to dismantle the whole pattern – in this case, feeling to be “special”. You cannot abandon the bad side of this particular feeling-complex without also abandoning the ‘good’ feeling which enables you to keep it in place.

Richard: By the time I had worked my way through this philosophical dilemma [of pacifism] I had to turn my sights upon the last thing that stood between me and an actual freedom. I would have to let go of the deeply ingrained concept of ‘The Good’. For this to happen I would have to eliminate ‘The Bad’ in me, or else I would be likely to go off the rails and run amok. **Little did I realise that it was ‘The Good’ that kept ‘The Bad’ in place. I was soon to find this out. **
(…)
One has to be scrupulously honest with oneself to go all the way and no longer be a someone, a somebody of importance. One faces extinction; ‘I’ will cease to be, there will be no ‘being’ whatsoever, no ‘presence’ at all. It is impossible to imagine, not only the complete and utter cessation of ‘me’ in ‘my’ entirety, but the end of any ‘Ultimate Being’ or ‘Absolute Presence’ in any way, shape or form. It means that no one or no thing is in charge of the universe … that there is no ‘Ultimate Authority’. It means that all values are but human values, with no absolute values at all to fall back upon. It is impossible for ‘me’ to conceive that without a wayward ‘me’ there is no need for any values whatsoever … or an ‘Ultimate Authority’. [Emphases added]. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 Mar 2000)

Cheers Vineeto

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Chrono's Journal
1504

Thanks Vineeto,

I had an insight into this, while sitting at a birthday lunch yesterday looking out over the ocean. The context is relevant, as it was a “fancy” restaurant, and is quite busy. An attractive woman looked over from outside at me and I felt the very familiar narcissism rise. A false image of myself.

I was thinking about this whole ‘good’ and ‘bad’ , along with the “being of the feeling, rather than having it” so it was a mystery what the “good” feeling I generate was. It is a false self image, as in an image of how I look and the feelings around that.

I’ve never really seen the narcissistic aspect of myself so clearly. I know from reading about it, but not so clearly in life.

The feeling was of a bashful type, a modesty, but a vicarious one as well, as the more attractive a person is (the one looking at me) the more this feeling and false self arises.

Looking back historically , I see this very same internal behaviour. The “good” feeling isn’t really that “good” to be frank.

I started to minimise the entire dichotomy later, once I had seen more. It made me feel much better, as not only is it a lifelong habit, but it’s exhausting. I avoid people.

Which I have seen up close in someone who was definitely NPD. (Narcissistic personality disorder). Literally hiding in the dark!

What I particularly like about this whole situation of seeing the other side of shame, is that I can now see what “swings” me back to this side; a false self image!

Maybe there are better terms for all of this, but I like how it’s clear that being “unadorned” is preferable.

At one point

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1505

Hi Andrew,

I had spelt it out in the part you snipped from the above quote of mine –

Vineeto: This is a potent discovery which you mentioned here en passant – as part of the whole emotional topic of feeling shame and blame there is hidden a ‘good’ feeling, which needs to be recognized and acknowledged in order to dismantle the whole pattern – in this case, feeling to be “special”. You cannot abandon the bad side …

You had mentioned being special before – “the “special” I feel I should be”. (link) Is that what you mean by “false self-image”?

Andrew: I’ve never really seen the narcissistic aspect of myself so clearly. I know from reading about it, but not so clearly in life.

Well, being endowed with the instinctual passions everyone is by nature self-centric. Narcissism is one step further, it means “excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance”. (Oxford Languages).

The feeling was of a bashful type, a modesty, but a vicarious one as well, as the more attractive a person is (the one looking at me) the more this feeling and false self arises.
Looking back historically, I see this very same internal behaviour. The “good” feeling isn’t really that “good” to be frank.

The way you describe it, it sounds more like being self-conscious. Whereas “the “special” I feel I should be” – both in the expectation of yourself and the outcome should you succeed to fulfil the expectation is something more likely connected to evincing shame.

Andrew: I started to minimise the entire dichotomy later, once I had seen more. It made me feel much better, as not only is it a lifelong habit, but it’s exhausting. I avoid people.
Which I have seen up close in someone who was definitely NPD. (Narcissistic personality disorder). Literally hiding in the dark!
What I particularly like about this whole situation of seeing the other side of shame, is that I can now see what “swings” me back to this side; a false self image!

You seem to begin to get the knack of it – isn’t it fun to discover how ‘I’ tick, and then using it to feel good?

Andrew: Maybe there are better terms for all of this, but I like how it’s clear that being “unadorned” is preferable.
At one point … (link)

The more you are affectively attentive the more you discover the “swings” to one side or the other, and the more detailed your observations will become. You can already see that “being ‘unadorned’”, i.e. being naïve is the easiest and most enjoyable way to be as a feeling being.

Cheers Vineeto

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Ah, thanks Vineeto!

Yes, “the special I should be” and the feeling of creating a false self image when others look at me.

Self-conscious, definitely, but the nature of it is a false image of how I look.

This is all rather “modern psychology “, but it does link back to what I am doing.

“Swinging” back and forth is a great metaphor! Yes, I have seen this before in a different context (being heart broken), and I was very conscious of trying to be in the middle, not on one of the other end of it.

Today, getting a new filling at the dentist, I was aware of a different way I was behaving. Just being there. Relating and otherwise enjoying the experience. I don’t know the dentist, same clinic but first time this dentist had worked on my teeth. She seemed somewhat similar to me emotionally. There was something in how almost apologetic she was, and later when I could feel what a skilled job she had done, I recognised something.

That something is being unable to just “be” with skills and “be” with what is happening. There is again a “swing” to being apologetic, or (in my case) being boastful. While the skill, it speaks for itself.

As I am not working, and at the moment letting myself have something of a “week off”, I started to let the day “live me” in the small way that I can muster. This was in contrast to a way of being that I can’t actually muster up anymore. The “push myself “ way of being.

I am enjoying the fact that my circumstances are now secure. Not that I want to presume upon my mother, but my situation is factually secure.

My aim is to continue to use this rare opportunity of factual security to continue to “feel into” whatever is in the way (and obviously has been in the way) of genuinely enjoying life, for its own sake.

In other news, the insights into life and its place in the cosmos have been proving very enjoyable. Some of my natural inquisitive nature is coming out, and after enjoying a great conversation with a friend who point out that humans are naturally separating themselves, and everything else, into seperate “things”, I started to get a glimpse of the type of wonder Richard was insisting I generate in our afternoon talking about science.

The universe is indeed far more wonderful that I can imagine or conceive! That is starting to sink in, and with the time I have at them moment, there is more of that interest and enthusiasm coming through.

Cheers
Andrew

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Deleted post.

Edit; I am starting to accept that my heart will keep beating, perhaps for a decades. Also, that living for the sake of others, is better than dying for them.
That “living” is the enjoyment of being alive.

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Andrew: “Swinging” back and forth is a great metaphor! Yes, I have seen this before in a different context (being heart broken), and I was very conscious of trying to be in the middle, not on one of the other end of it.

Hi Andrew,

Let me just correct a possible misunderstanding of this metaphor of mine – when I said “the more you are affectively attentive the more you discover the “swings” to one side or the other” I meant being aware of your feelings swinging from ‘good’ feelings to bad feelings and anything in-between. The aim is not to “be in the middle” like some buddhistic-inspired equanimity but to recognize that both ‘good’ and bad feelings equally prevent you from feeling good. The aim is to recognize them both as silly and unnecessary, often being part of the same concept, belief, habitual pattern, and upon such recognition allow the whole concept, belief, habitual system/ topic to dissolve. Then you are free to enjoy and appreciate being here and being alive right now.

Andrew: … I started to get a glimpse of the type of wonder Richard was insisting I generate in our afternoon talking about science.
The universe is indeed far more wonderful that I can imagine or conceive! That is starting to sink in, and with the time I have at the moment, there is more of that interest and enthusiasm coming through. (link)

There is indeed no end to the wonder and amazement when observing and appreciatively contemplating any aspect of the universe. Just now I was sitting outside watching the sky with picturesque feathery cloud patterns, with a half-moon smack in the middle of it. while two couples of ducks were waddling along the green of the riverbank, a shoal of tiny fish wiggling on the surface, swallows hunting for mosquitoes and the glittering late afternoon sun colouring everything in a warm glow.

Such rich appreciation doesn’t need to end when you get home because there are so many objects of human ingenuity, with labour-saving and comfort-providing details, to wonder and be amazed at. And while you are busy with enjoying and appreciating all this, a hushed stillness can come about, and …

Richard: Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is … and one is the experiencing of what is happening.
But refrain from possessing it and making it your own … or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard’s Journal, page 287).

Cheers Vineeto

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