Richard: A general rule of thumb is: if it is a preference it is a self-less inclination; if it is an urge it is a self-centred desire. (Richard, AF List, 25d, 14 Jan 2004).
Vineeto: Please note – the aim it not to become self-less as in unselfish, but less “self-centred”, more naïve.
If you put everything on a preference basis you soon find out that this self-diminishing inclination makes being continuously happy and harmless much easier and increasingly fun, evincing marvel and wonder.
AdamH: I’ve been pondering the ‘put everything on a preference basis’ for the last few days. At various times in the past I tried to approach things through this lens and did not always have success. Like a lot of things with actualism it seems like the method and the goal are the same thing here.
Hi Adam,
As putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis goes against the instinctual drive of ‘self’-survival, it is to be expected that you “did not always have success”. Don’t let this discourage you, if you really want to become happy and harmless.
AdamH: ‘I’ have some resentment that the method and the goal are the same thing, because it doesn’t give me something ‘I’ can do to maintain but reshape my influence. Techniques that allow ‘me’ to assert something unique and special about ‘me’ are much preferred haha.
Ah, have you considered how feeling happy and harmless, even when 23hrs a day, compares to being spontaneously felicitous and innocuous every moment of your life? This is not merely a difference in degree but a qualitative difference in kind, so much so that it is inconceivable/ incomprehensible and unimaginable/ unbelievable to any identity whatsoever. It is entirely outside of ‘my’ territory.
Is the resentment that you will need to accustom yourself to the permanent living of actuality or else it would blow your fuses?
[Richard]: ‘After living in the condition of virtual freedom for sufficient time to absorb all the ramifications of a blithesome life, it is highly likely that the ultimate condition can happen.
‘I’ do not make it happen, because ‘I’ cannot make it happen. What is more … ‘I’ am not required to make it happen. An actual freedom happens of itself only when one is fully ready, and not before. One has to become acclimatised to benignity, benevolence and blitheness, because the purity of the actual is so powerful that it would ‘blow the fuses’ if one was to venture into this territory ill-prepared. To precipitously apprehend the vast stillness of infinitude would be too much, too fast, too soon … one could go mad with the super-abundance of pleasure that pours forth’. (‘Richard’s Journal’ ©1997 The Actual Freedom Trust. Page: 150). (link)
Or is the resentment perhaps that you, the interloper, intend to rule the roost for the rest of your physical life with all the misery and mayhem that this entails?
AdamH: However, when ‘I’ keep in mind what it is like for me and others when everything is on a preference basis, even ‘I’ can get on board with it after some coaxing. It’s evident though, that it puts me on a direct course for self-immolation.
Ha, a reluctant agreement “after some coaxing” … and then the instant ‘self-immolation-card’ presented as the ‘worst case’ fear-scenario.
Remember, “illegitimi non carborandum”. (see Chrono, 2 Oct 2025).
Cheers Vineeto