(Continuing from Kuba’s journal here)
Well there is more to it
I was thrilled to see that I was on the right track – which is indeed indicative of having a good grasp of what I’m doing. But what was injured was my… intellectual pride!! 
In other words my intellectual pride was injured, that it took me so long to see something that was so plainly written and so simple. Of course, thinking about it sensibly, it is understandable. The human condition is very weird and tricky and cunning indeed.
But the reaction was valuable to really get this bugger by the throat! I noticed soon after this pride was wounded that I started picturing other topics, projects I wanted to pursue, that I saw the purpose of it would be to redeem this pride, to assert it.
I didn’t really wanna go down that path so I stayed with it. I eventually came to see that intellectual pride/hubris does not actually serve any benefit! All it results in is me avoiding admitting I am wrong when I am wrong, me dismissing people without really listening to them, and lots of little (or big) brushing-up against people in conversations. And it being harder to change my mind about things when faced with new facts. etc. Just lots of downsides. I’m actually having trouble thinking why I was holding on to this pride now
I eventually just saw that it was just a choice of if I want to continue being that way or not! And I decided that no, I don’t want to be. And that appears to have been the end of it haha. It really felt a lot more dramatic at the time but writing it now it sounds so simple.
Now shortly after this I ended up spinning in circles again. I was noticing that I wasn’t enjoying myself so much, and was thinking about the insight about sensuousness and trying to apply it and… I got annoyed! I got annoyed and frustrated that I ‘have’ to do all this.
I asked myself if I wanted to enjoy and delight in being alive and the answer was no (!). But what I did want, without any hesitation, was for me to no longer be malicious, no longer be sorrowful, no longer be hurtful and hurting. This I could clearly see. And I also unequivocally wanted the safety and security of the actual world… and for it to be permanent! I wanted the guarantee and I saw the guarantee can only be gotten by self-immolating.
But I was continuing to get frustrated and spinning out, and suddenly I realize that… I was resenting being alive! I dug into it more and I labeled what I was experiencing as that “basic resentment” that Richard talked about identifying way early on on his path. I was able to compare that feeling of resentment with the superlatively mirificent recent PCE, and … was able to basically just totally reject and get rid of that resentment!
I just re-read what Richard wrote in the process of finding a quote and was amazed as I experienced it basically that same way:
I didn’t remember the detail of this quote when it happened for me, it is like I was figuring out on my own (although of course I had read this quote, many times!)
Soon after this I wondered about the implications of this. Had I really just never gotten rid of that basic resentment? How can I have been so foolish? It’s like written in plain english and has been talked about so much recently. I contemplated a lot about resentment, it’s not like I ignored the topic. But I really get the sense that I only got rid of this basic resentment now.
Is it even possible? Could I have been out-from-control while still having this basic resentment? At this point the words came that I “don’t care about being foolish anymore”. In other words, I was willing to entertain this as possible instead of trying to defend a perceived ‘badge’ or ‘success’ of me being ‘out from control’ and contort what happened to fit some ‘narrative’.
And suddenly it clicked, I would not admitted that so readily and smoothly if that intellectual pride was still in place! I would be trying to defend my pride instead. So perhaps this explains why I was never really able to get rid of that basic resentment before – because I’d have to admit I didn’t, and I would feel foolish (lol).
Incidentally I see now that this basic resentment is what the vipassana meditation relies on, nourishes, feeds and grows, into an ‘absolutely any phenomenological experience sucks actually’. It’s very possible that as I came to actualism from that background and must have read the bits about resentment during that period and thought myself above it or whatever, and that’s why it’s been difficult to dislodge. But it’s just a thought.
Things do feel different now, though. There is a simplicity and peace that is the default now. In the past I always felt like I had to ‘work’ to some degree to stave off spiraling towards feeling bad. But that seems to have ended now. It’s really a lot simpler!
I don’t know about how this combines with being out-from-control. I certainly have not been feeling a low-grade resentment the entire time, far from it. It’s been a wild, fun, wondrous, and scintillating time. Perhaps the way I’d put it is that still there was this habitual tendency to spiral inward, which would overwhelm me at times, but it would not drive me under for a while as it would when not out-from-control, and when out-from-control there was still this baseline of backdrop of purity and that there isn’t really a problem, just another objection to work through. But those objections were rooted in this resentment, perhaps.
I don’t really know, as I said I fear not to look foolish anymore, so I thought I’d just write it out so that people following along can get as much info from it as they can, and do with it what they will. I am sure in hindsight it will be clearest.
There was another big insight yesterday which was relating to silly and sensible. I saw that I could actually do anything I wanted. I could do silly things like lash out, be violent, be upset, spiral around, etc., if I wanted to. However, it is sensible to constrain this total range of possible actions and feeling and ways-of-being, into just that subset which is the sensible one.
It struck me in a really pretty way that essentially this voluntary choosing to limit what I do to just what is sensible, is not in any way putting binds on me or chaining me up or forcing myself to behave in just a limited way (which is the morals approach). Rather it’s just sensible to do it, it makes sense. I could act outside of this range but the consequences and results wouldn’t be good, for me or anyone. So actually it doesn’t make sense.
This helped me to see that becoming free, I would not lose anything of value. Because I would indeed lose the ability to do silly things like feel upset and sorrowful and angry – however, these fall within the already-existing ‘constraint’ (so to speak) of sensibility. So it wouldn’t make sense to be able to do those things anyway.
Putting it together with today it is that being free would be a guarantee that I will only do what is sensible – which is wonderful.
Ok that is all for now!