Vineeto: I am not so sure if it is only a matter of comprehension – you talk about resentment and that you are seeking ‘self’-assertion techniques. I assume, you are aware that the aim of using the actualism method is the opposite – enjoyment and appreciation and a ‘self’-diminishing inclination.
Let me ask you for clarity’s sake – what is it that you want to do with your life? Or … what is your overall aim in life?
Adam-H: Certainly there is no aim that I consciously hold higher than being spontaneously happy and harmless each moment again. But it is evidently not the only thing I want, because otherwise I would stop dilly dallying and focus on maximizing felicity each moment again. So in short – yes I agree that it’s more than a lack of comprehension that stands in my way.
Hi Adam,
This is good to know. I mainly asked this question for your own sake so that you, upon contemplation, see what you want first and foremost in your life. As you probably noticed, being happy and harmless is not a matter of will-power, hence calling your obstacles “dilly dallying” is rather a self-deprecating misnomer. The best way is to address each obstacle to being happy and harmless – unless you can easily nip it in the bud – and find out the cause and reason. Here is how I recently put it to Felix –
Vineeto: However, investigating the obstacles to feeling good is more looking for the reasons why you have those (sticky) negative feelings in the first place, in other words why you keep them. Is there a belief or moral/ dogma or other reason behind it? Are you defending a particular aspect of your identity? (link)
As you have clearly acknowledged to yourself that your avowed aim is to be “spontaneously happy and harmless each moment again”, you can more easily recognize whenever a feeling is leading your away from that destiny, and also more easily recognize that a feeling is not a fact.
Vineeto: Now that you know that you can only have one, or the other, you can decisively find out which direction you want to proceed – ‘self’-enhancing techniques or a naïve felicity and innocuity. Once you know your intent, there is action possible based on this perspicacity (that ‘me’ taking credit spoils both naiveté and purity).
Your destiny is entirely in your hands.
Adam-H: I am indeed more clearly aware that I can have only one and not the other. This awareness is helping to convert my overarching ‘initiative’ that being permanently happy and harmless is what I want to do with the rest of my life and nothing else really comes close into more concrete action – that I have to actually be felicitous and innocuous here and now in these particular circumstances and in spite of these particular uncertainties. (link)
Ha, it sounds like a terrible chore the way you put it “I have to actually be felicitous and innocuous” – don’t make it into a moral doctrine or precept to be obeyed else it gets corrupted into a tool to keep you miserable. How about ‘I prefer to be …’ and ‘I will do whatever necessary to look at, nip in the bud or investigate the obstacle to this happy condition’.
Richard: I might add, though, that naïveté does away with all that ‘heavy lifting’ you spoke of in an earlier e-mail. Viz.:
• [Respondent]: ‘From what I can glean so far, virtual freedom is a period of ‘heavy lifting’. (‘Introduction’; Friday, 27 July 2003).
Where you have gleaned this diaphoretic impression from has got me stumped … here is but one of the many ways I describe the actualism practice:
• [Richard]: ‘… the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition is marked by enjoyment and appreciation – the sheer delight of being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible whilst remaining a ‘self’ – and the slightest diminishment of such felicity/ innocuity is a warning signal (a flashing red light as it were) that one has inadvertently wandered off the way.
One is thus soon back on track … and all because of everyday events.(Richard, AF List, No. 38, 20 Feb 2003).
Or even more specifically to the point of your ‘heavy lifting’ comment:
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘If it is the experiencer that makes efforts to be aware and stay aware, the centre is strengthened, not dissolved, right?
• [Richard]: ‘Since when has naiveté been sudorific? (Richard, List B, No. 12q, 5 Jan 2003).
In short: if it be not either easy (effortless) or fun (enjoyable) then there is something to look at until it is again. (Richard, AF List, No. 46, 9 Aug 2003).
Best of success and a lot of naïve fun.
Cheers Vineeto