Hi Hunterad,
I am not sure if your choice of words - ‘emotional licentiousness’ is a coincidence or because of the recent discussions but either way I thought I would write a little. The below is not aimed as a critique of what you wrote but more like general observations I have had on this topic recently.
What I am wondering is to what extent an ‘actualist identity’ can get in the way of investigating all feelings. The funny thing is that I can see this doing this little switch around where the ‘good’ feelings are now ‘bad’ according to the ‘actualist identity’
Which means they will be held at an arms length and ‘I’ might try to sort of gingerly walk around them haha.
What worked for me recently because I realised that I was addicted to those feelings - which meant that it wasn’t a question of can they go but do I want them to go - was to actually allow myself (without any morality at all) to experience them fully. Sure if I want ‘emotional licentiousness’ let’s have it (whilst acting in a socially acceptable manner of course).
And then it is a question of - well this is what those feelings deliver, do I want this for the rest of my life? Is this what I am looking for? Does it deliver the goods? etc. What I found was that when those feelings were allowed fully, that the house of cards very quickly began to fall apart. It’s kind of like I took them all the way to their logical conclusion, or more like experiential conclusion.
If you were to allow pride without any morality at all, and to live it as an ongoing modus operandi, you might soon find that actually it is not good enough, not good enough for you and not good enough for others. Then the spell begins to break down, it’s not that ‘I’ am not meant to have those feelings, it is that ‘I’ do not want them.
And I know this can work because it worked for me with Love, a long time ago I simply arrived at the conclusion that I did not want it in my life anymore, from then on there was no need for vigilance because I simply didn’t want it.
Now I wonder if this works all round and actually it is simply what is referred to by ‘being’ ‘my’ feelings, because even with a ‘bad’ feeling such as anxiety let’s say, if ‘I’ don’t try to make it go away but instead live it fully then ‘I’ might very quickly realise that 1. It sucks and 2. It doesn’t go anywhere. And then there is only one direction left to travel - back to feeling good. Oh dear, Vineeto has been saying this for the past year now, well I get it now!![]()
I wonder if it is just me that this has escaped… but I see now that essentially ‘I’ get back to felicity and innocuity because ‘I’ realise that ‘being’ the good/bad feelings sucks. But without ‘being’ those good/bad feelings first ‘I’ never get to make such an informed decision. Of course later on things will be nipped in the bud but initially ‘I’ have to arrive at the experiential conclusion that ‘I’ want the felicitous and innocuous feelings over the good/bad ones. It is a matter of fact choice though, and it is ‘my’ choice.