Adam-H: Thanks for sticking with me Vineeto.
I think the answer that I am finding after all this is that “I” was trying to see the silliness of something other than “me”. Like I am trying to very subtly change the target away from what “I” am doing/being, which means that everything that builds on top of that fails.
I was doing it in a very subtle way and using all the right words and terminology with myself, but somehow it was all pointed outwards still. It was pointing towards thoughts and feelings instead of towards myself. Just telling myself “I am my feelings and my feelings are me” doesn’t do anything of course… I have to actually direct it towards “me”.
It’s not genuine confusion about the method that gets me there, it’s just that “I” am always looking for clever ways to subtly get out of the spotlight and perform some version of the method that is changing something other than myself.
I have success → I grasp the success as my achievement → I try to reproduce the success from the plan that I have developed for how I deal with feelings → this plan is what makes me superior to everyone. (link)
Hi Adam,
That’s a good observation of the identity in action.
Now, that you discovered (one of) your cunning ways, which derail your enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive, and before you further generalize what you “always” do “to subtly get out of the spotlight” – the immediate question is what are you going to do in the present situation? What is the possible actualisation of this realisation? Has this realisation enabled you to get back to feeling good and drop the prolonged action of worrying?
Here are two hints, which proved successful for the persons concerned – the first I sent to you on 26 June 2026 –
Respondent: a) I am not able to see the silliness of feeling bad …
Richard: Do you comprehend that, although the past was actual when it was happening, it is not actual now and that, although the future will be actual when it does happen, it is not actual now … that only this moment is actual? If so, do you further comprehend that anytime you felt good/ will feel good does not mean a thing if you are not feeling good now … that a remembered occasion/ an anticipated occasion pales into insignificance if you are feeling bad now? Furthermore, do you understand that to be living this moment – the only moment you are ever alive – by feeling bad is to be frittering away a vital opportunity to be fully alive … to totally enjoy and appreciate being what you indubitably are (a sensate creature) whilst you are here on this planet? If so, is it not silly to waste this only moment you are ever alive by feeling bad … when you could be feeling good?
(snip)
Respondent: Thanks Richard, this was great. I am working on it, and there is great success already i.e. I now see the silliness of feeling bad. (see Richard, AF List, No. 71, 15 Aug 2004).
The second is a message from Kuba sent yesterday –
Kuba: Whereas today when a worry came up it was the recognition that I am wasting this moment of being alive by ‘being’ worry, which cut right through it. I never saw it from that angle, that it is that very activity of worrying which is getting in the way of enjoying and appreciating this (only) moment of being alive. And in the past I have tangled myself in some knots to try to end a worry by going into it and ruminating about it, essentially trying to end worry by worrying about it. But it was exactly that recognition that it is this moment of being alive which was the anchor for all this to work so effortlessly.
So indeed it is like turning my brain upside down. (29 June 2026).
They both refer what is spelt out in the first sentence in Richard’s article “This Moment of Being Alive”, but one sometimes needs to read it again and again to fully grasp the actual meaning and significance of “this very moment which is happening now is your only moment of being alive”.
Cheers Vineeto