Addendum to bring it back in context of the initial quote – part of the above obviously is that I wanted to succeed, I wanted the project to succeed. That was the whole point of doing it - to get it done for the chance of material wealth. If i didn’t want to do it in the first place, none of the rest were to apply.
So I wouldn’t say it’s that we want what we fear (e.g. we feel we fear failure so we really want to fail) – rather it is that we fear getting what we want (e.g. we want success but we fear getting that success). It doesn’t go both ways, it’s not an equivalency.
And from what I recall of what Richard said about intimacy, the parallel with intimacy is pretty good. We want intimacy but we instinctively feel that that will mean ‘change’ or ‘loss of self’, hence we fear it as well…
That’s great @claudiu I can see myself doing this a ton! The other thing that comes to mind for me is that fear is there in order to stop me from getting that which I want - for the reasons you outlined. It is interesting putting this in the context of applying the method and of self immolating, I think this information is actually a break through for me.
Because if I succeed in applying the method and I am feeling happy and harmless each moment again - that is a whole lot of change (again as you outlined above). Secondly if I was to succeed in self immolating then that is change on a level that’s really next level lol. Yet I really do want those things, so the fear steps in to prevent me from getting what I want - what I fear the most is what I want the most, it is just that it entails change which fear is there to prevent.
It is interesting putting this in the context of actualism again because I think we’re all pretty familiar with the millions of ‘reasons’ for why ‘I’ can not apply the method, for why it’s difficult, why it is dangerous blah blah… Because if it’s simplicity is allowed to work - ‘I’ along with ‘my’ world will never be the same.
This is actually so fun to look at! Right now I’m feeling good but if I am to propose to myself feeling like this each moment again for the rest of my life there is a fear - what will my life look like? What will I do? How will I act. All of a sudden this prospect of feeling good each moment again has some sort of a weight to it, like I don’t want it, I want to be in this back and forth kinda place where I know what to expect.
In a sense I want the feeling bad, the drama, the schemes - I am not sure what I would do with myself without those haha.
Oh and also this goes next level when I contemplate if I was to allow self immolation to happen right now, no more drama at all?! Not even a little bit! Come on I can see that I actually don’t want it, I can sincerely say that right now I do not want my life to be free from the drama - I do not want to be free. Well at least it’s good to see that now
Hehe yea, ultimately the only actual reason I can see that I avoid doing the method is that it would actually work… so it seems more a matter of wanting to actually do it rather than anything else. Which entails figuring out the obstacles - why do I not want it to work, in this specific situation/circumstance/with regard to this specific feeling? - and choosing to be willing to accept the change that would come with letting it work in that circumstance.
Amazing, I was contemplating this very topic today. Of not wanting to succeed. However, there is something else that counters it being something I want to fix.
It was that what I want more is to succeed with actualism.
Not that it’s one or the other, but that any feeling bad about not succeeding in normal ways, is not going to magically go away if I were to counter it by succeeding normal ways.
I’ve had a very interesting day, really coming back to the fact that I do know what peak experiences are, and that it’s this factual knowledge which in conjunction with actually free people reporting that there is a permanent peak experience available which makes the difference.
It’s the fact of those two things happening. Me already knowing that far better has happened, which makes the report of actual freedom capable of being acted on.
This discussion brings to mind fables, stories and aphorisms embedded in cultures across the world. Wilde’s “in this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy!” Aphorisms like: “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!” echo similar sentiment. The story of the Monkey’s Paw where the wishes are granted to the possessor of the magic charm, but at tragically steep and unforeseen costs. Stephen King’s Pet Semetary seemed to take that short story and push it through to its gory conclusion. Yes, wanting your dead child to come back to life is very understandable, but sometimes dead is better!
So, yes, in a certain (narrow) sense I can grasp the notion of a “fallout” of unintended consequences as a result of successfully achieving a desired objective. That said, I always considered Richard’s choice for happiness to be very clever and bullet proof. That is, if any trickster genie, who liked to grant wishes and then heap loads of unforeseen and undesirable consequences upon the wisher, were to enter into contract with its master, then the simple and straightforward wish for perpetual happiness cannot be “messed up” (so to speak), so long as happiness was genuinely granted. Happiness but kids are killed? Doesn’t matter, I’m happy. Happiness but stricken with illness or permanently disabled? Doesn’t matter, I’m happy. I can’t see how anything can go wrong if you wish for and are granted happiness.
But to want or wish for anything besides happiness, well, you may indeed get what you ask for. The problem of course is that there’s no guarantee that you will be happy with the result! Better to just cut to chase and wish for happiness.
There is another angle @claudiu about procrastination at that last 10%, or even starting; intelligence knows that this project isn’t what you really want.
I saw a video the other day about “gifted children” actually being “special needs children”.
I have been interacting with actualists for over a decade now, and would describe the majority as very intelligent. Far beyond average IQs.
My point is, it takes a certain lack of intelligence to believe that achievement of normal aspirations will result in the thing we really want.
So called “gifted children” see this straight away. Like a game of chess, they are already 3 moves ahead. Indeed, it’s been noted for thousands of years that intelligent individuals are often the saddest. They often don’t reach their “potential”. Exactly because they see the result of this highly esteemed potential being not significantly different from not doing anything at all; there is a problem that isn’t being solved.
It’s just another trick. That there is something wrong with us because we have not achieved that last 10%, despite working 40-50 hours, and having a side hustle, and being an upstanding citizen and partner etc…
So while it sounds plausible that we don’t achieve because we are afraid of success and losing an identity, it’s also plausible that we are tired of pushing into the futility of yet another promised “potential” we know is pissing into the wind.
However, both perspectives are useful. One could, like me, get stuck in the “eternal rebel” identity and not achieve the ultimate anyway.
However, back to my alternative explanation;
My oldest son often shakes his head that I am not currently achieving much as far as “normal” aspirations go.
I pointed out to him that I have already achieved them all. Built a house with my own hands? Check. 3 healthy, succeeding children? Check. Relationships? Sex? Check. Art/Music? Check. Sustainable career? Check. Good health? Check. Holidays, travel, toys? Check.
If one were to listen to the mandates of the 'normal ', then the meaning of life is to keep grinding out more of the same. Build another house. Have more children. Make more art, music, have more travel. Until one snuffs out.
In a twist of irony; both these perspectives actually answer something Richard advised I look into a decade ago; feelings of rebellion.
I should add that as the 8th thing that has occurred this month; being able to channel that rebellion back into the desire for actual freedom.
It works also with resentment of ‘others’; I can end them - at least as far as it’s up to me to end ‘humanity’. I don’t have to rebel or resent, because I actually have the information on the ultimate "get out of jail free card ". Ultimately, in ending ‘myself’ I get to end ‘them’. That is a really freeing way of channeling these feelings back into desiring perfection like nothing else.
Although there are many such fables stories and aphorisms , I’m talking about simple lived human experiences not stories. On a basic instinctual human level we just have a massive aversion to change (as a generalization). This aversion is even towards change that is obviously for the good — for example having more money. It’s not a sensible aversion - change for the better is indeed just better , or at least can’t be worse - but there it is nonetheless.
It’s not a thought-out “well I have to consider all the consequences and there may be some bad ones (such as a trickster genie might come up with)” , it’s just a stress or anxiety or fearfulness that comes up when the possibility of change comes up, or when change itself does happen. For example I read that a big change in financial situation is a very common cause of stress worry and anxiety — both change for the worse but for the better as well! And when I got a large bonus at work I experienced this for myself.
Of course it worked out alright but in the transistory period of changing from someone without the bonus to someone with the bonus, I was very anxious and fearful of what the future might bring — even though on a factual level I was simply better off.
As to trickster genie … if I wished for happiness and had all my limbs chopped off I might feel like I had been tricked Also the notion of being happy even though all my friends and family were murdered and a pustulence spread upon my body … sounds more like a Buddhist thing than an Actualist thing! lol
Yes, you may be aware that you’d been tricked. But it wouldn’t matter because you’d be happy.
Interesting - being happy (and harmless) despite your friends and family being murdered and your body pustulating everywhere (as an example) is what I’ve always thought actualism was about. In other words: the happiness in actualism I always understood it to be unconditional. An unwavering felicity regardless of circumstance or situation.
And yes, some changes, depending on what they are, may well make one feel anxious.
Speaking of which, that unconditional happiness of actualism would be real handy right now. Wouldn’t mind making a deal with a genie right about now, trickster or otherwise. Broken furnace has me up in the wee hours on this frosty morning attempting repairs.
Tell you what. I swear on all that’s good, I’d welcome a change from broken furnace to working furnace. No fears here about successfully fixing this thing.
That’s interesting I also experience both sides. What I found with actualism is that it is the only goal which I ever found where it is 100% worth going for.
I’ve always been the one to get involved in something, become obsessed, become pretty successful in that endeavour and then realise that it is not going to provide that which I desire deep down - freedom. So then every time some sort of depression/lack of meaning would eventually develop where I see that more success at this thing ultimately changes nothing, I would reach the end of the road with this thing and then somewhat be reluctant to even try to further it in any kind of way.
With actualism the PCE reminds me every time that it is the ultimate endeavour and the ultimate reward.
I read this and something very weird happened just now! Like a bolt of lightning in my brain and then all of a sudden experiencing a stillness that is virtually palpable, it’s still here right now. It really is like that, with the end of ‘me’, ‘others’ disappear also - that’s the end of the human condition, it never would have existed in the first place.
This is just another one of them thought experiments which from the point of view of the feeling being seems to demonstrate some sort of zombie like quality. A happy and harmless zombie, looking around with a smile as their family are being chopped up, because they are happy and harmless after all lol.
But it is very easy to see from the experience of the PCE that it is nothing like this, because the felicity and innocuity is sourced in the perfection and benevolence of the universe that I find myself in. Therefore it comes with an in built care and consideration for others, actual care and consideration.
It is being happy and harmless whilst existing in this world, very involved in it as opposed to removed in some bubble of personal pleasure. It seems to me that time again these thought experiments are deep down trying to do nothing else but prove that life on earth is a sick joke and that it can never be another way, they are designed to maintain the status quo, makes sense as after all they are conjured up by ‘me’ and ‘I’ am forever separated from the benevolence of the actual.
Not at all. Maybe you are out there trying to give CPR to your dying family. All the while glad, happy, content, and delighted. Or maybe you won’t lift a finger. As always, conditions and context dictate. Either way, you’re golden.
Right. And existing in this world means death, disease, sunsets … and broken furnaces. (Damn, got it working for a second there before it crapped out again.)
I can see that I actually don’t want it, I can sincerely say that right now I do not want my life to be free from the drama - I do not want to be free. Well at least it’s good to see that now 
Does not actual freedom demand the ultimate 
