I’m starting to feel good more and more often. Right now I’m experiencing the clarity and coziness and delight of feeling good - total safety and fun at the same time. Where is the anxious and stressed state I’m so familiar with? And did I take a drug? (no 
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I always wanted to feel good but could seemingly never ever manage it. I was just in the way from dawn till dusk - and I came at actualism like a bull out of a gate! Like I was going to bend it to my will haha. But it went the other way. I got punished over and over and totally exhausted until I got the message. Now it’s like feeling good is bending me to “its will”, which is thankfully an utterly benevolent one. I am gladly going along with this state of affairs, which is amazing, as I had started (or never ended) to worry that the wide and wondrous path maybe didn’t exist outside of my fantasy.
Part of the “secret” of actualism seems to be that the road is only wide once you are past a lot of your own obstacles. In my case the entrance to the road might as well have been a pinhole. I remember Geoffrey saying something similar back in the day. I don’t mean to make it sound hard, I’m just stating how it was for me.
I think part of what creates this effect (the impossibility of feeling good when not, and the impossibility of not feeling good when doing so) is the momentum that feeling states have. When you are anxious or stressed or anything else it feels like that will go in perpetuity - like nothing else could ever be possible. And it’s the biggest challenge to disrupt what’s already the case. These feeling states want to lock you into them, and they have the power to make that happen…especially in the way they nest themselves within your identity (the perfect hiding place). In my experience it’s not just a matter of wanting to feel good and getting that automatically. In my experience, at least, it’s almost impossible if you don’t investigate very thoroughly and with a LOT of understanding and friendliness towards yourself. I know temperament comes into it too and I always very driven and ambitious.
By the same token, feeling good has momentum too - right now I feel it will never end. It would almost be impossible to conjure a feeling to ruin this delightful state right now, because feeling good is just too delicious and “me” and “it” are one. It’s almost like letting the universe play me like a saxophone. It’s a kind of frequency that you tap into, but not by force, like I always wanted to. It’s a real catch 22 that wanting actual freedom too badly will really, really not work.
I know I used to write a lot about “actively enjoying” etc but what I was really trying to do back then was to go over the self….like trying to override my real desires and feelings and instincts and resentment for being alive by brute force. It’s not the way. You can’t pretend that the self is not there, and then abuse it or suppress it or manipulate it to get some outcome. The self needs to be treated with care, graciously and gently like you’d treat a little kid almost. It will cling so hard to what it thinks it wants with a powerful grip, and investigating is a way of gently prying it’s toys away from its little hands.
Anyway I don’t want to talk like I’ve finished the journey, it seems it’s just starting! Just wanted to jot down some thoughts on my merry way.