Heads up - I think you used ‘harmless’ when you meant harmful. “I first sought to stop any of my harmless [edit-harmful] actions or verbal expressions of harm towards other people.”
Richard: … the word ‘harmless’ means ‘lacking intent to injure, devoid of hurtful qualities, marked by freedom from strife or disorder, innocuous free from guilt; innocent, blameless, faultless, irreproachable, lily-white; safe, non-dangerous, gentle, mild, peaceful, peaceable’
Yes - exactly. “Harmless” is defined by the qualities Richard listed. What is the difference between feeling and being? I don’t understand why “feeling harmless” would not include the above qualities but “being harmless” would.
I’m trying to understand how the two are being distinguished. Could you describe the qualities of being harmless vs feeling harmless, and point out where feeling harmless falls short? The following quote seems to clarify things more for me:
I’m trying to understand the distinction between the two: being harmless vs feeling harmless. It seems what’s being pointed out is that being/becoming harmless is a more encompassing affair than feeling harmless. That one doesn’t just consider how one feels, but also considers how those feelings effect their thoughts, actions, and other people. (And takes it beyond consideration into an actualization).
Is that it? That feeling harmless only takes into consideration how one feels?
The bar isn’t set by me - the PCE makes it clear what it means to be actually harmless.
But I can become virtually harmless - as in free of malice. And thusfar in my experience, I’ve only had success in becoming virtually harmless bit-by-bit and have found no success in giant leaps. The only things that have appeared to be giant leaps were mere realizations that were exciting to me. Any meaningful change has had to be actualized bit-by-bit. I have not succeeded with giant leaps to skip-ahead and I personally wouldn’t recommend counting on them.
Becoming more a bit more harmless is only ever a small step away from where I’m at any given moment and much more realistic than a giant leap to become a lot more harmless.
I think part of my confusion in this matter stemmed from me considering “feeling” and “being” in a different context - such as how they are used here:
RICHARD: (…) it is also to no avail to vociferously state, for example, that [quote] ‘‘I’ have NEVER been king of the show’ [endquote] because it is ‘me’, at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself), who fundamentally determines behaviour/ appearance by ‘my’ very presence (‘my’ affective vibes/ psychic currents are ‘me’).
Put succinctly: there is more to identity than just the ego-self … much, much more.
RESPONDENT: Okay … then I want to find out what it is that’s more to it.
RICHARD: As simply as possible: it is who you feel yourself to be at the very core of your being (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’).
Well don’t forget also feeling happy; which in conjunction means to be as free from malice and sorrow as humanely possible while remaining a ‘self.’ The innocuity and felicity that ensues is a different quality than my reactive feelings that depend on conditions.
But I think my issue is I’m failing to grasp the difference between merely feeling happy and harmless and being happy and harmless. Is merely feeling happy and harmless not enough because it’s a temporary affair, just aimed at feeling that way momentarily but not a fundamental change? Where as becoming happy and harmless is something more involved, changing one’s very being?