Chrono's Journal

[Vineeto]

@cross.chrono

Back to writing! I noticed that there’s a certain layer of identity that seems to be gone that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe it’s due to this background of “ultimately nothing is going wrong”. But perhaps it is also mainly because I now include myself more in considerations along with others. A decision to shed the “put others before oneself”.
I was reminded of this bit:

@hunterad

It’s interesting that being your own best friend sort of has two meanings:

1. don’t be hard on yourself for your mistakes
2. actually want what’s best for yourself, meaning you won’t let yourself ruin your own day

If I were a friend to myself then I wouldn’t ruin my own day (which means I also won’t let others ruin my mood either). I realized that only by this way of consideration and operating am I also liking myself. And I say that because I have lived most of my life with a feeling of “not being good enough” (to live up to the ideals of society and relationships). So perhaps for me it also has an added layer of an attempt to make myself ‘good enough’. All I get by ‘putting the other before myself’ is a sense of superiority and pride. It is also a sophistication. A cunning way of making myself believe that there is no self-centricity involved. This sophistication I realize is a vain attempt to be that which ‘I’ can never be. This normal way of being gives the feeling that to simply enjoy and appreciate cannot be all that one has to do. And I find that complication pretty amusing.
Deep down I feel I do know what has to happen, but I am cunningly trying to preserve me. Trying to formulate a plan on how it will come about and secretly hoping ‘I’ survive. Is this what makes ‘me’ rotten to the core? There’s a very deep fear in it. Last night I had a dream that I attempted to self-immolate and the fear was so visceral and so immediate like it was going to happen right now that I thought I would physically die and it was like my whole body “woke up” in that moment but I backed off and sighed a breath of relief. When it happens it will happen right now and I know it. Maybe I am trying to bypass that core fear. Always delaying.
Relatedly, anytime I experience any feeling as “neutral” or “lack of feeling”, I know I am being cunning. Feelings are always happening. Even when I am feeling “neutral” or static. And I only feel dynamic when I come back to and experience ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Interestingly, it allows me to name the feeling way more easily. Another clue is if I am not able to name the feeling easily then there is some sort of dissociation or suppression going on.
Aside from that I have been also wondering on other aspects of me. I notice that there’s actually some hangups around sexuality. Maybe it is because there’s some belief underneath about sexual desire being “bad”. Any attention to it seems to dampen the experience. Maybe it’s just a matter of neither expressing or suppressing it when it occurs. I do note how it is not a harmless passion. But that does not attenuate its occurrence or replace it with a naive intimacy. There’s also no sidestepping it as it is very ‘me’. There’s also a fear that nothing will “work” if it is gone (and I read that that’s not the case). This may be because I have not been able to experience an actual intimacy during sex. I am now thinking that I am afraid to be completely intimate. Like I am saving myself for a special moment. And I don’t even know when that special moment would be.

Hi Chrono,

These are very poignant and perspicacious observations and useful/ applicable for any one, apart from you, who at some time or another feel that the actualism method doesn’t work for them. You listed some of the common obstacles one encounters in the course of becoming more and more naïve and curious and fascinated with what enjoyment and appreciation entails. It is the same process which leads to finding and shedding the obstacles to be more intimate (nothing to hide).

Vineeto: This last paragraph really puts it well. Rather than suppressing the feeling of empathy for the plight of the other/ for humanity you start becoming aware where your feelings and consequent actions are “for ‘me’ only”. You will notice that when you are feeling good/ feeling excellent, your caring consideration will be less ‘self’-centric and can segue into a near-actual-caring, which is still an affective caring as long as you are a feeling being. Again, Richard’s correspondence with Srinath contains a lot of information about the differences.

Chrono: Hi Vineeto,
I have been reading this correspondence and more things stick out than before. Also in regards to the plight of Humanity, I had closed myself off to some degree before as there was no solution other than compassion but I also become overwhelmed (which makes me understand the empathy burnout that may happen in the helping professions). Also I was wondering if you could expand on this part as I don’t entirely understand it:

• [Vineeto]: “(…). Further it was obvious for me that it would be Richard who would facilitate and trigger my transition into an actual freedom because he was the most obvious person with whom a near-actual intimacy would change into an actual intimacy – simply because Richard had been my guide and mentor for the last 13 years and particularly so for the period since I stepped out-from-control.
As I have written to James recently –
‘The final clue was again about caring, a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster. Only when I cared enough to give all of ‘me’ to another person, to give them what they want most, was I then ready to give it to the one I cared for most, the one I was closest to, and then I was able to leave all remnant concerns and inhibitions of my identity behind.
And that’s what happened”. (Direct Route, James, 17 January 2010).

How did you know that that is what they want most? And is the person that you cared for most someone other than the one that you wanted to give all of ‘me’ to? I do see Richard’s comment under it but am not fully clear.

I knew because Richard told me that what he wanted most was for a female to become actually free, not only to prove that he was not an exception, a freak of nature, but that an actual freedom is equally possible for men and women. It was and is important that an actual freedom be equitable because “it is vital for peace on earth that man and woman live together in peace and harmony”. In the above paragraphs I am referring to Richard as “give them what they want most”.

What is it about Richard’s follow-up comment which is not clear to you?

Richard: Incidentally, her words “to give them what they want most” refers to my oft-expressed emphasis on the necessity of a female replicating my condition – for those oh-so-vital ‘core of civilisation itself’ reason spelled-out elsewhere on my portion of the web site … (Richard, List D, Srinath2, near-actual-caring, see original for explanatory tool-tips)

Chrono: Some things also hit me recently. One of ‘my’ objections was something like ‘how could there be suffering if this universe is perfect?’. But there are other beliefs behind this notion. First was the belief that there is an ‘Intelligence’ behind this physical universe. But this physical universe is only intelligent as a flesh and blood human body. It is ‘me’ causing the suffering. ‘Me’ is blind nature in action and not the physical universe. Then the objection changed to “‘me’ is required for this physical body to survive”. Then I had a subsequent realization that blind nature (‘me’) only cares about perpetuating ‘me’ (as any species) and not this physical body.
There’s more to write but I will have to come back to it. (link)

I like your contemplations/ curiosity/ dismantling process of these objections. This is how intelligence (not divine or supreme “Intelligence”) works, sorting out facts from handed-down beliefs. It appears one of the most convincing justifications that ‘I’, the identity, based on the survival instincts, have to make sure that you, the flesh-and-blood body, survives. Once you dare to question this often highly emotionally-charged belief, it starts falling to pieces. You start to notice and observe that without ‘my’ emotional-instinctual interference, this conscious and intelligent body can very well take care of itself and do a much, much better job than ‘I’ ever can.

Good hey.

Cheers Vineeto