Yes, that’s the idea. By staying in the normal race, it is ‘self’ perpetuating by nature. It’s not my original idea, but from Richards journal. ‘I’ give to ’ society ’ and it gives ‘me’ purpose. Practically, there is also actual society, where people are cooperating with each other. The garbage collection happens, the mines are exporting materials, the various businesses producing products. That’s practical. But there is also the ‘society’ which has no actual use. The set of beliefs around work ethic, social hierarchy, keeping up with the pack.
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“Evening” just sounds strange. Elsewhere “even” is used for entirely different meanings.
One can even use the same word to describe smoothing out a surface. Or making something more balanced.
Ha, I just looked up “evening”. Turns out the different meanings are from different root words.
Mines exporting materials are not beneficial to humanity and to the planet in the long term…
Everything that has a beginning, has an end, Neo.
(@Miguel Use this submission to play around with the footnote settings. I would also be interested in your comments and feedback to what is presented below.)
You know I think you made the right call to narrow the scope of your article. Those doubts and ideas you yourself were entertaining, and which you were going to ask me to develop/exemplify, could be controversial as it strikes at, and questions, one of the central premises of actualism, namely, that all instances of either happiness or unhappiness are the result of one’s choice or preference. [1][2][3]
Richard no doubt would object to the characterization of his position as a “premise.” He would maintain that his position derives from experience, which is to him synonymous with irrefutable objective fact. As such, there is no question or doubt or debate as to the matter.[4] To be clear, there is no need to doubt his self report. But to take what is the case for one person, or even a handful of people, and apply that to every human being, is a gross extrapolation. As such, the characterization of Richard’s position as being a “premise” is warranted. For in this instance he is not only commenting on his experience and his capacities, but on the experiences and capacities of all eight billion human beings. And he does so with precisely the same consummate conviction and conclusiveness. Yet not only do his conclusions pertaining to the experiences and capacities of humanankind extend far the beyond the boundaries of his limited data set, they also do not even reflect the data which he encounters. That is to say, in addition to projecting his nature onto human nature through an inductive advancement from the specific to the general, perhaps due to an over-reliance on his insight that “I” am humanity and humanity is “me,”[5] he simultaneously discounts, disregards, and dismisses submitted evidence that undermines and weakens his inductively inferred conclusions, such as those countless experiential reports expressing an inability to choose how each moment is being experienced.[6]
(Putting aside all the above for a moment, it is worth mentioning that if one were to discover or attain to the power to choose how one feels irrespective of events – and the cases of Richard et alia demonstrate that this ability is within the range of human potential – then it would be much more than just “silly” to ever again opt to feel bad. Rather, it would be incomprehensibly ludicrous, absurd, preposterous, unconscionable, inconceivable, outrageous even. The term “silly” to describe such a ridiculous course of action would make it a laughable understatement. Given Richard’s propensity towards unassuming and subtle humor, I envision him making these understatements with not a little bit of tongue thrust into the cheek.)
In addition, I find it instructive, as you similarly did @Miguel, to consider those “different physical and psychological cases” which reveal a gap between the wanting of something and its attainment. A gap which is evident after one considers, as you did, the “impossibility for someone to do certain physical things while having a certain disability no matter how strongly he/she wants to do it, to psychological cases, including scenarios equivalent to wanting to be rich vs. being able to be rich, not wanting to get cancer vs. not being able to avoid it, etc.” Those considerations are relevant because this principle premise of actualism awkardly extends itself into the fields of medicine, biology, and neurology, all the while appropriating a bold stance that are rather contrary to the findings, research, and models being developed in those fields.[7] [8] For example, Richard apparently had such control over his own experiences and psychological state that to this day he cannot fathom how a human being could descend into psychotic states against their will. Since the premise is that every experience and psychological state of every person is the result of a personal choice, then the conclusion is that psychosis is a choice, a decision that people willfuly make.[7:1] This position, this outlook, that human beings choose to be psychotic, is, in my opinion, not only unempathetic to the persons impaired by psychosis – placing fault on the afflicted person for their unfortunate disorder – but it is so remarkably odd and idiosyncratic, and so contrary to the available literature developed through painstaking research[8:1], that the word “delusional” to describe such an outlook seems ironically fitting.[9][10]
To close out, I will offer a brief comment pertaining to the degree or intensity or sincerity or pureness of the want, desire, will, intention, or volition to be happy which is being prescribed in actualism, since that has been a popular topic in recent days. Envision a scenario where a genie or magic fairy appeared before you, granting you the option to choose either everlasting happiness or everlasting unhappiness. Which would you choose? Would you not choose happiness as a matter of course? Or would you spend countless hours analyzing yourself and agonizing over whether you really or truly wanted to be happy? That you, and no doubt a vast majority of people randomly inverviewed on the street, would choose everlasting happiness without hesitation reveals that people generally are already naturally disposed to want happiness and well-being to a degree that meets or exceeds the standards proposed in actualism.[11] The fact that everlasting happiness fails to manifest for so many despite the requisite want being inherently active suggests the influence of other “hidden variables.”
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Richard (2009): It is plainly and simply ‘my’ choice as to how ‘I’ experience this moment.
Mailing List 'D' Respondent No. 13 ↩︎ -
Richard (2016): It is your choice, and your choice alone, as to how you feel, each moment again.
Mailing List 'D' Martin ↩︎ -
MARTIN: When someone cuts in front of me in line I feel slightly humiliated / embarassed / annoyed.
RICHARD: Why do you choose to feel “slightly humiliated / embarrassed / annoyed” when someone cuts in front of you in line when you could choose to feel good (a general feeling of well-being) instead
Mailing List 'D' Martin ↩︎ -
RESPONDENT No. 60: The way Richard put it, it sounded like he was able to simply choose the way he felt, and seemed surprised that others could not.
RESPONDENT: It does sort of give that impression.
RICHARD: It does far more than merely give that impression … it is precisely what I am saying.
RESPONDENT: Interestingly ‘the option method’ is built upon the premise that one can choose at any moment happiness … interesting.
RICHARD: ‘Tis not a [quote] ‘premise’ [endquote] that one can choose to be as happy (and as harmless) as is humanly possible each moment again – it is experientially evident that it be possible.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 68 ↩︎ -
Richard (1999): In investigating my nature I am investigating human nature Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 33 ↩︎
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RESPONDENT: I do not experience it as possible to choose how I am feeling at any given moment.
RICHARD: If it be not you who is doing that choosing then who is? For instance: who was it who chose to [quote] ‘feel continually wretched and frustrated and miserable’ [endquote] whilst trying to hoist themself into the air by their shoelaces if it was not you? And who, for another instance, preferred to [quote] ‘gradually yet persistently add feelings of frustration and bewilderment’ [endquote], at the fact that the method you have been applying was not working, if not you? Or, for yet another instance, who is it that decides, on occasion, to deal with the vicissitudes of life by [quote] ‘throwing a tantrum’ [endquote] if it be not you?
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 60 ↩︎ -
Richard (2003): When a ‘normal’ person becomes ‘psychotic’ it is because they have found the pressures of life too much to handle and have chosen for psychosis as their way out.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 3 ↩︎ ↩︎ -
(Wikipedia): A very large number of medical conditions can cause psychosis, sometimes called secondary psychosis. Examples include:
. disorders causing delirium (toxic psychosis), in which consciousness is disturbed
. neurodevelopmental disorders and chromosomal abnormalities, including velocardiofacial syndrome
. neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and Parkinson’s disease
. focal neurological disease, such as stroke, brain tumors,multiple sclerosis, and some forms of epilepsy
. malignancy (typically via masses in the brain, paraneoplastic syndromes)
. infectious and postinfectious syndromes, including infections causing delirium, viral encephalitis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, syphilis
. endocrine disease, such as hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Cushing’s syndrome, hypoparathyroidism and hyperparathyroidism;
. sex hormones also affect psychotic symptoms and sometimes giving birth can provoke psychosis, termed postpartum psychosis
. inborn errors of metabolism, such as Wilson’s disease, porphyria, and homocysteinemia.
. nutritional deficiency, such as vitamin B12 deficiency
. other acquired metabolic disorders, including electrolyte disturbances such as hypocalcemia, hypernatremia, hyponatremia, hypokalemia, hypomagnesemia, hypermagnesemia, hypercalcemia, and hypophosphatemia, but also hypoglycemia, hypoxia, and failure of the liver or kidneys
. autoimmune and related disorders, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus, SLE), sarcoidosis, Hashimoto’s encephalopathy, anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis, and non-celiac gluten sensitivity
. poisoning, by therapeutic drugs (see below), recreational drugs (see below), and a range of plants, fungi, metals, organic compounds, and a few animal toxins
. sleep disorders, such as in narcolepsy (in which REM sleep intrudes into wakefulness)
. parasitic diseases, such as neurocysticercosis
. huntington disease
Psychosis - Wikipedia ↩︎ ↩︎ -
(Oxford Languages): delusional (adj): characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder." ↩︎
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(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): Delusions are generally accepted to be beliefs which (a) are held with great conviction; (b) defy rational counter-argument; (c) and would be dismissed as false or bizarre by members of the same socio-cultural group."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/delusion/ ↩︎ -
Richard (2003): Many years ago, in face-to-face conversations on the topic of being happy and harmless, sometimes, after going round and round the same nonsense to no avail, I would suggest to my fellow human being that we put what is being discussed into the realm of wishful thinking, a fantasy as it were, and suppose a childhood fairy complete with twinkling wand were to drop by, or a genie were to pop out of a bottle, or whatever, and put to them the opportunity to be either happy (never mind being harmless in this exercise as the aim was to make it as uncomplicated as possible) for the remainder of their life or be unhappy – and whichever they were to choose it would be immediately granted with full irrevocable effect – then which would they choose? Not altogether unsurprisingly the other would invariably say they would choose to be happy, of course (whilst looking at me as if I were some kind of idiot), yet when I would then say that very opportunity is just here, right now, each moment again in actuality, for life itself is indeed a magical wonderland granting happiness and harmlessness by the bucket-load, they would look at me as if I were some kind of trickster (for extracting from them what they really wanted by devious means) and could become quite irked.
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Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 59
[Note: Is it not curious that in this passage that the “irked” response that he received is attributed by him to his tactic for revealing what they truly want, i.e. happiness? Is it not a far more plausible explanation that their irked response stemmed not from any disupute about wanting or not wanting happiness, but rather from Richard’s insistence that all that was needed to attain the fabled “everlasting happiness” was to simply choose for it to be so? It should not come as a surprise then that that sort of “practical” advice garnered a predictable reaction. If not an “irked” reaction than maybe something akin to what is illustrated in this popular internet meme]:
I think this could be pretty straightforwardly explained via people’s tendency to split into internally inconsistent selves. You can easily have one part of yourself that wants something, and another part that does not.
To use the example of descending into psychosis, it’s very simple to say one could consciously not be interested in descending into psychosis, while having another unconscious part that does in fact want to, perhaps as an escape from some uncomfortable belief about the nature of reality.
Whether you consider those unconscious parts of oneself ‘you’ or not is a different issue.
Additionally, the breadth of research thus far collected is correlative in nature; we have no probe which can enter the psyche. For that reason, scientific evidence can not determine causally if someone is ‘deciding’ to become psychotic or not via (for example) genetic, biological, environmental, or drug-related reasons. There may still be a psyche deciding at play in all of those instances.
You mean to say he does object (as you quote him doing so in the next footnote!)
This is a gross mischaracterization which would mean, for example, that Richard believes the sun goes 'round the earth cause he experiences it to be that way.
Maybe an apt analogy is with Newton figuring out the law of universal gravitation. The apple falling on his head, so to speak, led to the insight of how gravity works, which nobody had figured out before.
Now was it a gross extrapolation for Newton to take what is the case for an apple, or even a handful of objects, and then apply that to every single object in all of existence? Well… no. It’s more that he “figured out how it works”.
And so Richard figured out how it (feeling good) works, as in how a feeling-being really ticks.
It comes from seeing that everybody is the ‘same’ feeling-being, at the core. It is indeed a universal thing (for humans). So the core/basic way one feeling-being works, is the same as another.
Not really, and not only because of the preceding. That would be flipping things upside-down. It’s not that we assume , as an axiom or a given, that anyone can choose how they feel, and then derive a practice that only works if that is true, and force it through disregarding any and all evidence.
Rather it’s that Richard discovered that he could choose how he feels, each moment again. And from there he chose to feel good, etc. Then he reported his experience to others, and others found that to be the case for themselves as well. Freak of nature hypothesis has been disproved already, as well as “it’s something in the air down under”. So then we go from there.
The starting point is what actually works. The advice is then derived from this experience of what actually works.
The scientific-level proof will be in the pudding, of many more people succeeding with actualism. Until then, only those who are satisfied with the current level of success of the pioneers, will be able to make effective use of actualism in their lives. Those who aren’t, won’t be able to. I no longer believe every single person is able to do it – for example, about 150,000-200,000 people died today, without ever having had success with actualism.
Again you have it backwards, as if the premise arises in a vacuum or perhaps straight out of one’s deep nether regions, and thereafter infects all thought in a logical chain.
But if you were to read again what Richard wrote in the quote you snipped you will see again that it is the other way around:
That is to say, Richard saying that “As strange as it may sound to normal people, they [people who have become ‘psychotic’] are comfortable with their modus operandi and have no interest in budging one iota from their position … despite their pleas for help (a part of their strategy).” is not a result of a logically drawn out premise, but a result of having spent “considerable time” with schizophrenics, people with bi-polar disorder, depression, etc.
Do you have comparable experience to draw on, direct hands-on experience with such types of mentally ill people, that allows you to say with confidence that Richard is mistaken? Or are you working from a premise? 
In any case even if people with such physical ailments as neurodegenerative disorders, and even let’s say those with psychosis with no clear physical underlying cause, functioned in such a fundamentally different manner that actualism wouldn’t work for them… it would still apply to the ‘normal’ people (which includes ‘Rick’ 
). So it doesn’t really affect anything a person not suffering from such conditions would or wouldn’t.
Indeed Richard even wrote “Actualism is of no use to one who is harbouring a neurotic or psychotic condition or who is an uneducated social misfit with a chip on their shoulder”, so we need not consider such people when discussing how effective actualism is. “Let us first get sensible peoples free of the human condition … then normal people may become interested. When normal people are free of the human condition then peoples genetically prone to mental disorders will not be subject to the ‘status quo of the conditioning which is undoubtedly contributing to the problem’ that makes them choose for psychosis as a way out.” [Actual Freedom Trust Disclaimer]
Hmmmm it more says that people say that they want it but take no actual steps to get it. They pay lip service to it. If you talk with people further you will see they have deep-seated reasons for wanting to feel bad, such as:
- if I felt happy all the time I would be bored
- I feel like the world is so shitty I should always feel a little sad
- I need to feel bad so that I know what feeling good feels like
As well as for example:
- You mean if you succeed, you can’t get angry, meaning if I punch you in the face you wouldn’t get angry? Awesome! [As in imagining all the ways they could take advantage of such a thing.]
Etc… (these are actual responses I’ve gotten). Indeed these same people would have said they generally want to be happy, I’m sure, but you will note that these reasons are directly contradictory to them allowing a genie to grant them everlasting happiness.
I haven’t posed the magic genie question to people myself, but it seems easy for someone to get irked by the question because it reveals the inconsistency so flagrantly. So it would feel like they are being tricked into an answer.
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Ah, so you also notice that gap between the wanting of something and its attainment .
Sure. The point of Richard’s thought experiment with the genie/ magic fairy appearing before you to grant you either eternal happiness or eternal unhappiness, is to make one realize that one naturally already wants to be happy, in spite of all that split off self stuff. Further, that since one already wants to be happy, all things considered, then one just has to choose to be happy, and then !Presto! one will have the eternal happiness that one already desires.
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Richard has, on at least one occasion written that his writing is extemporaneous prose, and that an academic would have field day with it.
I think that on the whole, Richard’s writing should be read as “colloquial writing”.
However, there can be a more academic presentation, which Peter and Vineeto attempted on their section of the AFT. Indeed, I find it very interesting to have the discussions around science and “choice”.
Something to consider is that it’s observable how few people take an active interest in fundamentally changing themselves. Then an even smaller number actually attempt to change themselves, and an even smaller number continue to attempt to change (as most repeatedly fail), and a now even smaller number succeed.
Colloquially, the vast majority are going to “choose” to run the course of their psychic and psychological reality to the grave.
I observe this in others and I observe it in myself.
The pressing question is how to go from interested in changing, to attempt changing, to continue to attempt changing, to actually changing?
One thing I remember @Srinath saying years ago, (I think it was him, maybe @geoffrey ?) was to simply skip over anything which is causing some objections on the AFT and keep going for the prize.
This issue of “choice” regarding feeling good has been a hot topic for a long time.
It’s reasonably easy to skip over it; there is no “choice”.
One simply is turning up each moment, information is gathered and dispensed, and things change when it (the information and organism) coalesce into action.
In which case, the actions are directly correlated to the information already received and being received, but only via the automatic decisions made in the organism, the existing state of the organism will automatically change in some circumstances.
So, we have “information already received” in it’s myriad of forms (the millions of lines of DNA code, the plethora of social conditions, the vast array of environmental conditions), and the information being received (The moment to moment experience, including reading this forum, listening to that song, having a PCE etc etc ).
In this view (which I regard as a fact), ‘my’ job is to stop ‘being’. There is the information that this can happen, there is the ongoing experience that ‘being’ “sucks”, which in itself, is the entire ‘job’ of ‘suffering’ to start with; as Richard said (somewhere), the natural point of suffering is to single that “something is wrong”.
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Indeed, with my sample size of only myself, I have experienced only 2 days ago the precise experience of “information given & received resulting in automatically feeling good”.
When Kuba and Henry replied to my posts, there was the immediate action to feel into the “knot” of rejection, (the emotional underpinning of the Martyr / World Wise identity) , which resolved in a few seconds, and transformed.
One can observe, that at no point did I suddenly become someone who posts a lot on this forum. At no point had I talked about being a Martyr, or a World Wise killjoy. When Kuba and Henry posted, I read the information. Yet those two things (to keep this very simple and mention only 2 factors) came together as actions both physically and mentally.
At no point was a choice made. I have always been a highly communicative person. There was never a time I can remember, that this wasn’t the case. Did I choose? Nope.
Even when the feeling or thought happens “I shouldn’t post so much” occurs , there is little effect beyond maybe a day.
Can I take credit for a factor which lead to that exchange?
It has happened at least twice before that. Actually Josef was involved the other day too. Indeed, there are so many interactions which have shaped my life due to communication of this sort.
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So following this model of “automatic decision process”, this must also be true;
It never a matter of whether one is “wanting” something enough, it’s a matter of the factors that give rise to change haven’t “lined up”. The “wanting” is part of the automatic process of changing, not it’s direct cause. If it were the direct cause then the ‘self’ could just end itself via it’s own psychic energy. Which is like saying I am going to put out the sun by adding more fuel to it. Fighting fire with fire.
One’s actions, both mental and physical, are the results of various factors “lining up” (Yay, I chose to feel good! What a hero!), or “not lining up” (Boo!, I am such a failure at feeling good)
The bits in parentheses are redundant. They are ‘me’.
So being redundant, yet still happening, the information presented in actualism is that ‘i’ in the meantime are best to have fun, enjoy and appreciate, being as happy and harmless as possible, until the moment the really apparent lack of any choice takes over and ‘i’ cease being.
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The information received is that ‘i’ need no longer take ‘myself’ seriously. The message that “something is wrong” delivered via suffering is received, the actions to seek out and find a remedy completed, the alarm can now safely be turned off. Actions are underway, everything that can be done is being done.
I will continue to live as long as my heart holds out, and I look both ways crossing roads, and stay off motorbikes…
It is possible that at any moment things will “line up” and anything could happen towards being free.
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Including, being back here tomorrow with some existential angst, posting about it, and either working it out myself, or someone posting an answer. Or reporting a PCE, or EE, or something cool about life. Or helping someone else (or trying to).
It’s actually far easier to not take ‘myself’ seriously if I consider there not being a “choice” except when speaking colloquially.
I choose to end this post now.
And just like that - one of the central pillars, one of the load bearing walls propping up the entire construct gets chucked for being inconvenient. For being an obstacle, for getting in the way of that which matters more. It’s bold, heretical, iconoclastic. Audacious. Something there of the actualist spirit.
RICK: Yeah, so far nothing has worked.
RICHARD: And that realisation (that despite the best attempts of many and various peoples over many and various millenniums, to bring about peace and harmony by many and various means, so far nothing has worked) is of vital importance as it efficaciously clears the work-bench of all accumulated detritus in one fell-swoop so that one can start afresh.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 50
I am happy that the universe pasted together this arrangement called Andrew.
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Well said. And then it’s a trip to see, to witness in real time, how even this redundant “me” along with this immediate experience currently unfolding in whatever variety of flavor or form is likewise the result of various factors lining up. And it will continue until those various factors line up no more. And that is all.
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Right!
There is no need to worry, or be hopeful, or anything like working oneself up into some lather of desire. That is just ‘me’ doing what ‘I’ to best; arrogating experience. Desiring will happen, wanting will happen, even a lot of wanting will happen.
The moments happen, via all the factors, which will include moments of really wanting answers, really wanting chocolate yoghurt, really wanting it to all just end, really wanting for it to be Tuesday (because I will be with a great woman I met), really wanting to just chill out, really wanting to go to the gym. Really wanting to be somewhere else. Really wanting to understand actualism, myself, what the heck is going on!
There seems to be a threshold where what one may say one wants hasn’t been reached, and the actual doing (or “changing one’s mind”).
In which case, the cognitive dissonance of saying one wants something, and the actions not happening (if it were possible to start with), is replaced with the knowledge that if the factors line up, it’s going to happen.
Fortunately, as you pointed out Rick, we already have a desire to be happy. So, the process isn’t about the replacement of desire, but the gradual and sometimes sudden discovery that that happiness is free and available.
In the “automatic decision model” the very reading of these words has the potential to propel the individual into that happiness.
Which is exactly what Richard has often said.
Just reading it can be enough.
Richard talks about “reading with both eyes open” & “reading with one’s whole being”.
That is also automatic. The information that it is possible to do, can be a factor. For me, it wasn’t. I couldn’t deliberately “read with my whole being”.
However, that is an apt description of what happened when I read the posts by Josef, Henry and Kuba. There was the immediate and automatic influence of the words describing an action which I knew was possible (from experience). The mental and physical actions happened then and there.
I put the phone down. I sat with my eyes closed. I felt down into the feeling and thoughts about the topic. I felt and thought about the accumulated experience. The reality changed.
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