Claudiu's Journal

Smashed avo for the win!lll :tada:

That’s great stuff. Love avo.

Haha that is awesome @claudiu sort of reminds me of the super sexy M&S food adverts that we have in the UK :joy: Adventures In Imagination: M&S Food - TV Ad 2014 - YouTube

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I had a very visceral experience of what it means that “you can’t argue with the wisdom of the real world”.

I was interacting with someone and I could see how their thoughts and even feelings and emotions were happening as a result of this immense and massive, apparently (solid and totally unmovable) black psychic backbone. From this psychic backbone issued forth all the ways one should think and feel and behave and act and talk. This backbone is the framework upon which an identity is built… we are all just constructed out of this backbone, that exists only in the psyche.

There is no way an individual person could come up with this backbone. And you can’t explain an individual person’s behavior without such a backbone. This is why people get so defensive and upset when core beliefs are questioned … the apparently solid and apparently unmovable backbone actually isn’t solid or unmovable … it doesn’t exist at all. Because of this, it requires constant defending and upholding. When it is questioned, it’s an attack on the very foundation of existence - it is apparent insanity to question or try to change or move any piece of it. It’s the very foundation of society … it dictates how ‘reasonable people’ should behave. To question it is to question what it is to be reasonable per se.

Yet of course it can and does move … different societies and cultures have different backbones and it can shift over time. But i suppose that for everyone this psychic backbone the same , as in being apparently solid and unmovable.

Be that as it may it’s clearly impossible to try to argue with it or change it. There is no fruit to be had there.

Seeing this I was wondering how I could possible operate safely in the world if it were to disappear for me. And what I saw is that there is no reason or need to instantly discard the knowledge it contains , per se! That is, if the underlying psychic energy supporting it were to disappear… … I would still be able to use the “shape” of it and imitate what I normally would do if it were still present. Meaning that as a worst case I can do the same thing I would otherwise … and then I could gradually replace it with sensibility, as things come up. So nothing will be lost if it disappears for me.

It also makes sense now how the Social identity isn’t instinctual and how a guardian can persist after basic actual freedom - the guardian is the shape of it, now no longer being fueled instinctually.

It also means that the backbone is not primary, although it appears to be — the raw instinctual passions , of aggression and fear and desire for example, all can easily override it if they are powerful enough. In a war zone or a revolution it all collapses as if it never was (and indeed it never was)… until it forms and settles into a new shape.

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After reading Kub933's Journal - #93 by Kub933 's post I was twigged to write this:

I was with a family friend and a few other people and the friend was considering buying a property here. They were asking me and my partner for advice as we have been living here. A particularly big potential wrinkle - a deal-breaker really - came up, and I pointed it out, that if that were the case it would really lower the value of the property and it wouldn’t be the good deal they think it is.

I could tell they were disappointed, but this time it was different. In the past I would naturally empathise with them, and feel that same disappointment… and then I would want to make them feel better. As clearly they wanted the deal to work, I would tell them it’s ok, it’s probably a good deal anyway, don’t give up, so that they would feel better. But I realised this would be doing them quite a disservice! Because if it isn’t a good deal, they shouldn’t do it… and it would actually be rather … maybe not “uncaring” per se, but it wouldn’t be good for them, to paste over the facts of it. Empathising and assuaging isn’t actual caring, not at all.

I also witnessed everyone else around the table doing just that – trying to assuage them – and it was just even clearer that it isn’t the most caring I could be!

And therefore I didn’t feel bad about disappointing them at all! I didn’t do anything ‘wrong’. I didn’t feel ‘good’ about it in terms of being gleeful at their bad feeling… but I couldn’t do anything else. It wasn’t the ‘right’ thing to do, but it was the sensible thing to do.

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In a war zone or a revolution it all collapses as if it never was (and indeed it never was)

That makes so much sense,

That is profound … I will try and remember that

I find myself in the process of buying a house and it’s a nonstop riding of a stress/excitement/anxiety wave. Not sure how to “get out of it” :smile:. It has fun aspects but mostly feels bad. I understand that everything will be ok regardless, and can even experience some of this pure safety from time to time, but I still worry.

I am at a point where it seems tricky to talk about actualism without seeming pretentious.

The main thing is that I am seeing actualism is actually “below” or “closer” or “beneath”, as opposed to “above” like I instinctively thought.

The ‘layer’ which I’m talking about things being below or above, is the social identity , or the moral layer.

Basically just due to habit and what I am famíliar with, it’s natural to take on actualism as a set of things I should or shouldn’t do. I should feel good … I shouldn’t feel angry … etc. i already thought I knew that actualism wasn’t this … no “shoulds” in it. But I feel like I have now observed it at a deeper level that I have been taking it as a set of shoulds.

So it’s a lot simpler and more basic than I thought. If I feel bad… it’s not that there’s a moral or set of rules question of that I shouldn’t feel bad and I should feel good. If I am thinking or feeling that way , I’m already “above” and it’s too late. Instead I have to get back “below”… to the part before moral or social reasoning. There there isn’t any should. I can feel bad if I want. It feels like there is no reason not to feel bad. I think before I would avoid this because it meant I’m a bad actualist. Of course there is a reason not to feel bad … … isn’t there?

But now I see that there’s in fact no “should” type of reason. Once that is gone though … … well it’s up to me. And feeling bad isn’t as enjoyable as feeling good. So that’s the “reason”. But there’s no imperative to it. I can feel bad if I want. Any feeling that I should or shouldn’t feel bad … … now feels like completely the wrong approach. No one can force me not to feel bad :smile:

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you’re telling me :crazy_face: I think it has more to do with society not appreciating someone applying their own intelligence unless they earned the title of authority. what say you? do you think you personally sound pretentious when thinking/writing about actualism?

Is there a paradox here of some sort? I’m not an expert in logic or the such. But technically, if things are going well then you should feel good. It’s just that you shouldn’t carry the attitude that you shouldn’t feel bad. Something like that… Maybe this is what the spiritualists mean by transcending.

Put another way, in basketball you should score baskets. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do so and attempting to avoid missing. That’s the point. It’s when things cross over into moralistic territory and perhaps this is what you mean when you’re saying moralistic thinking is a layer above the actual?

I suspect this is a trap people fall into over and over. I have taken to reminding myself that I should be a feeling being first so I don’t fall into the trap of being too dissociated from feelings to fully recognize them.

I tend to think morals are perfectly fine if they’re fully appreciated for what they are: a set of quick and dirty rules for understanding life. Kind of like a tutorial for life that can provide shortcuts but is no substitute for thinking for oneself.

omg @claudiu, think faster and be pretentious with me

:sweat_smile:

I think it’s more like, I’m talking about something I haven’t fully actualized myself, so who am I to be writing about it? And it feels like anything I say, it will come off as if I’m certain, even if I’m writing that I’m not certain (it’s a common ploy for people to be like I dont really know, but… and then write as if they know). So instead of all that… it seems better to just contemplate it more!

It’s using ‘should’ in a different way. Here you’re using it as “it naturally follows” or “it makes sense to” or “it’s sensible” etc. But I was using it in the sense of “ought to” or “be obliged to” or “have an obligation or responsibility to”.

There’s no obligations in actualism. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but when I wrote this post here it just seemed to sink in in a newly deeper way than before. At least it is spirals, not circles :smiley: .

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Things seem simple. My experience of pure intent is that it’s always constantly there in great abundance, underlying everything. I experience it much more closely than before. Before it was like a sort of far-way yellowish tinge that maybe I could peek at. Now it’s like an abundant field of cool colorless blue and breath of fresh air that is always evident.

But even so it’s not always active! I stress about the house buying and work. But I don’t feel bad about being stressed. I don’t feel good about it either - it’s just what I am experiencing. I’m allowing myself to feel things more fully than ever before. And I feel a lot of things! But it’s not a regression. I always was this way it’s just before I would kick myself for feeling things. Now I don’t so I’m free to feel them. And feel them I do! And overwhelming they can be haha. But this lets me see myself in action more clearly.

It’s clear that waiting for the purity to do anything won’t work. I have to activate it. But I see it doesn’t make sense to force it. I can’t pretend like I want it in order to get closer to it. That would just be fooling myself. So I don’t pretend anymore.

Instead it’s about sincerely wanting it. And contemplation does wonders in that regard. Everything really seems so simple once you have a bedrock of benevolence and benignity “supporting” you, and you remove morality from the equation. The simplicity is immensely pleasurable and very drawing. I don’t have to worry! How amazing is that?

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This is really doing it for me. Not only the ‘done’ part but then especially the felt part. Give up all I’ve ever felt, really ??? That struck home in a way that made me recognize just how much all I essentially am is feeling. I am the act of feeling, nothing more or less than that… I am nothing else (not the body, not thinking, not sensations, not the figuring-out of things, not physical matter like the birds & the trees). That’s all I am! It’s not even that I am “feelings”… rather I am the act of feeling. A feeling is itself the motion of the feeling. No such thing as a static ‘emotion’. So I can never be still because I am this motion of feeling :open_mouth:

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Latest is experientially asking “How immaculate can a mind be?” The answer so far is “amazingly so” with no end in sight yet ! !

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It’s strange but I want to say that the experience of experiencing perfection and purity , is a fact. It doesn’t make sense for me to think of an experience as being a fact, but that’s the word I wanna use. It’s a fact, it stands on its own - that’s the way things are.

And it’s also just obvious it’s not worth it to be missing out on that fact !

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How often do you have PCEs now?