Hunterad's journal

[hunterad]

My focus lately has been on sincerity, naivete, and investigating/approaching the feeling of worry without getting to caught up in what the worry/stress is about.

Something I’ve been considering is that if I am sincerely well-intentioned, most of the worry is gone because it relates to me calculating around interactions in the corporate environment.

Is this what sincerity and naivete is about? In some ways it seems to fit with what I’ve read, but I don’t know if I can 100% distinguish it from pacifism, except that the intention behind it is genuinely not about being holier than thou and grabbing onto a principle, more just about choosing to live in an easier and simpler way for the inherent value of that.

The fear that prevents me from committing to it more is that I will be left defenseless, which is nothing new. I think what’s strange to me is that I’m waiting for some ‘final’ insight that shows me very clearly how this naivete does not actually leave me defenseless before I commit. Perhaps that insight is something that is only gained from practical experience with being that way and is not something I can really prove to myself ahead of time? Is it just a confidence that builds with experience as opposed to an understanding that I finally ‘work out’?

[Vineeto]

Adam-H: My focus lately has been on sincerity, naiveté, and investigating/ approaching the feeling of worry without getting to caught up in what the worry/ stress is about.
Something I’ve been considering is that if I am sincerely well-intentioned, most of the worry is gone because it relates to me calculating around interactions in the corporate environment.

Hi Adam,

A sensible approach. When you say “considering” do you mean mentally considering or does this extend to applying this in practice – being “sincerely well-intentioned” and see what happens?

Adam-H: Is this what sincerity and naiveté is about?

Synonyms to being “well-intentioned” are “well-meaning, benevolent [wishing well], kindly, and sincere” (Cambridge Dictionary) so it does fit with what you have read about benevolence … and sincerity is the key to naiveté – “that intimate aspect of oneself that is usually kept hidden away for fear of seeming foolish (a simpleton) … it is like being a child again but with adult sensibilities (wherein one can separate out the distinction between being naïve and being gullible/ trusting).” (link)

Adam-H: In some ways it seems to fit with what I’ve read, but I don’t know if I can 100% distinguish it from pacifism, except that the intention behind it is genuinely not about being holier than thou and grabbing onto a principle, more just about choosing to live in an easier and simpler way for the inherent value of that.

Ah, feeling good come what may, to have fun, to enjoy life and being benevolent and considerate is not pacifism – the doctrine of non-violence. With your adult sensibilities you can easily distinguish between the two very distinct categories. Here are just three examples of Richard’s catalogued quotes re pacifism and you will see that pacifism has nothing at all to do with being benevolent, sincere and naïve. On the contrary, pacifism is to suppress one’s aggression and turn them into pacifistic submission –

Richard: 5. Whenever someone attacks me I always have the option to defend myself if the situation warrants such a course of action … there is no ‘turning the other cheek’ pacifism, defeatism, fatalism or martyrdom operating in this flesh and blood body (…) Have you ever noticed that it is bodiless entities that propagate the ‘do not defend yourself’ dictum? (Richard, AF List, No. 15, #pacifism)

13. If one were to be devious enough to be a pacifist, then all of the pre-conceived truths – the beliefs which come with being a pacifist – dictate one’s course of action and not the facts of the situation themselves. Thus one never meets each situation fresh … which is pretty silly seeing that each situation is novel. (Richard, List C, No. 4b, #pacifist)

27. Put simply: it is not violence per se (as in physical force/restraint) or the potential for violence which is the problem: it is ‘me’, as the emotions and passions, fuelling the violence, or fuelling the potential for violence, who begets all the misery and mayhem. (Richard, AF List, No. 98, #pacifism)

Adam-H: The fear that prevents me from committing to it more is that I will be left defenseless, which is nothing new. I think what’s strange to me is that I’m waiting for some ‘final’ insight that shows me very clearly how this naiveté does not actually leave me defenseless before I commit. Perhaps that insight is something that is only gained from practical experience with being that way and is not something I can really prove to myself ahead of time? Is it just a confidence that builds with experience as opposed to an understanding that I finally ‘work out’? (link)

Yes, confidence comes with practical experience. Waiting for the “final insight” is exactly the opposite of naiveté – to work it all out in your mind beforehand is the very thing preventing it from happening. It is actually fun to dare allowing this “intimate aspect of oneself that is usually kept hidden away for fear of seeming foolish” to come to the fore, this naiveté which allows you to enjoy and appreciate being alive to the extent of living in wide-eyed wonder and amazement, day after day. Then what others think of you is no longer of importance – you no longer have the goal of being an important person who has a certain ‘status’. You are playing a different game altogether – that of having fun and cherishing each moment of being alive whilst being benevolent and considerate towards everyone including yourself.

As for being “defenseless” against physical attacks – once you abandon any notion of having to practice pacifism you can respond as each situation requires, with adult sensibilities. However, if you are concerned about being “defenseless” in the face of taunts, ridicule, injuries to your pride, honour and status, or for sometimes feeling foolish, then Claudiu’s report from January 2025 might give you some clue and encouragement –

Claudiu: The other wondrous recent insight was in seeing how I am actually not ‘special’ in that I am essentially the same as any other feeling-being out there. In terms of what I am at my core. In other words I don’t have to maintain or hold onto or try to prop up any aspect of myself that would set me apart or above anyone else – because I am the same at core! This is something I can’t change – I can only self-immolate to remedy this situation.
This was seen as an immense relief of a huge burden that I no longer have to maintain myself in all these various small ways. In other words I am free to do anything, and anyone is free to say or think or do whatever in response, and none of it matters in terms of me having to prop myself up or defend myself or do anything. Cause I already know I’m not special, there is nothing I can actually defend to change this fact! (link)

As a reminder I leave you with a summary of the process from sincerity to naiveté –

Richard: ‘Perhaps the following summary of the way the actualism method works in practice may be of assistance:

1. Activate sincerity so as to make possible a pure intent to bring about peace and harmony sooner rather than later.
2. Set the standard of experiencing, each moment again, as feeling felicitous/ innocuous to whatever degree humanly possible come-what-may.
3. Where felicity/ innocuity is not occurring find out why not.
4. Seeing the silliness at having those felicitous/ innocuous feelings be usurped, by either the negative or positive feelings, for whatever reason that might be automatically restores felicity/ innocuity.
5. Repeated occurrences of the same reason for felicity/ innocuity loss alerts pre-recognition of impending dissipation which enables pre-emption and ensures a more persistent felicity/ innocuity through habituation.
6. Habitual felicity/ innocuity, and its concomitant enjoyment and appreciation, facilitates naïve sensuosity … a consistent state of wide-eyed wonder, amazement, marvel, and delight.
7. That naiveté, in conjunction with felicitous/ innocuous sensuosity, being the nearest a ‘self’ can come to innocence, allows the overarching benignity and benevolence inherent to the infinitude this infinite and eternal and perpetual universe actually is to operate more and more freely.
8. With this intrinsic benignity and benevolence, which has nothing to do with ‘me’ and ‘my’ doings, freely operating one is the experiencing of what is happening … and the magical fairy-tale-like paradise, which this verdant and azure earth actually is, is sweetly apparent in all its scintillating brilliance.
9. But refrain from possessing it and making it your own … or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 118, 16 June 2006).

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

@Vineeto

A sensible approach. When you say “considering” do you mean mentally considering or does this extend to applying this in practice – being “sincerely well-intentioned” and see what happens?

A bit of both, and it does seem to work when I actually do it.

@Vineeto

Ah, feeling good come what may, to have fun, to enjoy life and being benevolent and considerate is not pacifism – the doctrine of non-violence. With your adult sensibilities you can easily distinguish between the two very distinct categories.

In hindsight I think I didn’t describe my quandary very well here. I suppose I can tell that it is not actually pacifism because it’s plainly not a doctrine or moral I’m following. It would be closer to say that my worry was that naivete will have the same effect as pacifism, where I am not able to defend myself. It’s useful to recognize that a sincerely well intentioned and naive person will be motivated to take action appropriate to the circumstances, even if that means defending themself.

@Vineeto

Yes, confidence comes with practical experience. Waiting for the “final insight” is exactly the opposite of naiveté – to work it all out in your mind beforehand is the very thing preventing it from happening.

This is very helpful, I can see that part of me has been waiting for that final insight for a long time. The other part of me cares enough to just risk it and go in without fully knowing what the outcome will be.

@Vineeto

As for being “defenseless” against physical attacks – once you abandon any notion of having to practice pacifism you can respond as each situation requires, with adult sensibilities. However, if you are concerned about being “defenseless” in the face of taunts, ridicule, injuries to your pride, honour and status, or for sometimes feeling foolish, then Claudiu’s report from January 2025 might give you some clue and encouragement –

Claudiu: The other wondrous recent insight was in seeing how I am actually not ‘special’ in that I am essentially the same as any other feeling-being out there. In terms of what I am at my core. In other words I don’t have to maintain or hold onto or try to prop up any aspect of myself that would set me apart or above anyone else – because I am the same at core! This is something I can’t change – I can only self-immolate to remedy this situation.
This was seen as an immense relief of a huge burden that I no longer have to maintain myself in all these various small ways. In other words I am free to do anything, and anyone is free to say or think or do whatever in response, and none of it matters in terms of me having to prop myself up or defend myself or do anything. Cause I already know I’m not special, there is nothing I can actually defend to change this fact! (link)

Thanks, this is indeed an interesting point! It helps to remember that the self I’m defending is essentially the same as any other ‘self’.

Anyways, I think the way forward seems pretty clear! Continue to cultivate sincerity and naivete, and the confidence that I can function, defend myself, and do everything I need to do will keep growing. It seems like if I my aim is sufficiently pure then it doesn’t really conflict with anything of genuine value.

[Vineeto]

@hunterad

@Vineeto

A sensible approach. When you say “considering” do you mean mentally considering or does this extend to applying this in practice – being “sincerely well-intentioned” and see what happens?

A bit of both, and it does seem to work when I actually do it.

@Vineeto

Ah, feeling good come what may, to have fun, to enjoy life and being benevolent and considerate is not pacifism – the doctrine of non-violence. With your adult sensibilities you can easily distinguish between the two very distinct categories.

In hindsight I think I didn’t describe my quandary very well here. I suppose I can tell that it is not actually pacifism because it’s plainly not a doctrine or moral I’m following. It would be closer to say that my worry was that naivete will have the same effect as pacifism, where I am not able to defend myself. It’s useful to recognize that a sincerely well intentioned and naive person will be motivated to take action appropriate to the circumstances, even if that means defending themself.

Hi Adam,

Your “quandary” does not make sense to me in light of what you said above, that being “sincerely well-intentioned” “does seem to work when I actually do it”. It more looks like a worry which does have no leg to stand on. Is there perhaps still a smidgen of some pacifistic moral or principle prescribing you should not defend yourself when you are naïve?

-

Vineeto: Yes, confidence comes with practical experience. Waiting for the “final insight” is exactly the opposite of naiveté – to work it all out in your mind beforehand is the very thing preventing it from happening.

Adam-H: This is very helpful, I can see that part of me has been waiting for that final insight for a long time. The other part of me cares enough to just risk it and go in without fully knowing what the outcome will be.

Excellent. As you previously said –

Adam: *It’s also clear to me how being my own best friend was missing.
It’s interesting that being your own best friend sort of has two meanings:

1. don’t be hard on yourself for your mistakes
2. actually want what’s best for yourself, meaning you won’t let yourself ruin your own day (8 Jan 2026)*

Which means when you “actually want what’s best for yourself”, you care “enough to just risk it”. Change can only happen when you allow it to occur.

-

Vineeto: As for being “defenseless” against physical attacks – once you abandon any notion of having to practice pacifism you can respond as each situation requires, with adult sensibilities. However, if you are concerned about being “defenseless” in the face of taunts, ridicule, injuries to your pride, honour and status, or for sometimes feeling foolish, then Claudiu’s report from January 2025 might give you some clue and encouragement –

Claudiu: The other wondrous recent insight was in seeing how I am actually not ‘special’ in that I am essentially the same as any other feeling-being out there. In terms of what I am at my core. In other words I don’t have to maintain or hold onto or try to prop up any aspect of myself that would set me apart or above anyone else – because I am the same at core! This is something I can’t change – I can only self-immolate to remedy this situation.
This was seen as an immense relief of a huge burden that I no longer have to maintain myself in all these various small ways. In other words I am free to do anything, and anyone is free to say or think or do whatever in response, and none of it matters in terms of me having to prop myself up or defend myself or do anything. Cause I already know I’m not special, there is nothing I can actually defend to change this fact! (link)

Adam-H: Thanks, this is indeed an interesting point! It helps to remember that the self I’m defending is essentially the same as any other ‘self’.

Indeed – it also means the very same emotions and passions which motivate the other to behave in a way that you feel threatened (defenseless) are the same emotions and passions which you are defending. So when you feel defenseless, first get back to feeling good. Then there may well be nothing to defend and nothing to hide. As such every situation where you feel threatened (emotionally/ psychically) is an opportunity to explore ‘me’, or which aspect of ‘you’ you are defending/ hiding.

It’s a sometimes challenging but altogether fascinating and fun process.

Adam-H: Anyways, I think the way forward seems pretty clear! Continue to cultivate sincerity and naiveté, and the confidence that I can function, defend myself, and do everything I need to do will keep growing. It seems like if I my aim is sufficiently pure then it doesn’t really conflict with anything of genuine value. (link)

When you feel like a benevolent big kid having fun you are on the right track –

Richard to Syd: … this naïve boy from the farm writing all these millions of words, this big kid with adult sensibilities tapping with two fingers at this keyboard, is perpetually aged circa 14 years (à la the ‘Peter Pan’ chronicles for example) until physical death. (Richard, List D, Syd, 31 Dec 2009)
Respondent: It’s as if you are reading my mind … I was going to type something very similar, you beat me to it!
Richard: G’day No. 7, Aha … somebody finally understands!
You know, I have been telling this to people for years but to no avail … for a recent instance:
• [Richard]: ‘ ( … ) around the time of puberty onwards, adolescents become increasingly serious and childhood fun gives way to societally-inculcated obligations and responsibility.
As these are embedded into an instinctually affective programme (I have seen many a frisky lamb turn into a sedate sheep, and frolicsome calves into sombre cattle, as maturity takes its toll) they turn into having the appearance of being innate … when they are not.
Life here in this actual world – the world of sensuous delight – is akin to being a child again but with the undeniable advantage of adult sensibilities; when the occasion calls for it I can adopt a suitably solemn expression, nod sagely as appropriate, and get away with being just a big kid having a ball in the otherwise grim and glum land of the grown-ups; indeed, I can even tell them how much fun I am having – that I am just a big kid – and yet they are so serious they assume me to be making some kind of obscure or idiosyncratic joke’. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 14 Dec 2009)
(Richard, List D, No. 7, 5 Jan 2010)

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

@Vineeto

Your “quandary” does not make sense to me in light of what you said above, that being “sincerely well-intentioned” “does seem to work when I actually do it”. It more looks like a worry which does have no leg to stand on. Is there perhaps still a smidgen of some pacifistic moral or principle prescribing you should not defend yourself when you are naïve?

It doesnt make sense to me either anymore, I was trying to ‘resurrect’ that worry to see if there was anything left, but it seems very insubstantial now. It’s becoming clearer that when my intentions are genuinely good, i take actions appropriate to the circumstances, and at least for now it all seems very simple.

Very much appreciating these two quotes right now:

@Vineeto

[Richard]: ‘ ( … ) around the time of puberty onwards, adolescents become increasingly serious and childhood fun gives way to societally-inculcated obligations and responsibility.
As these are embedded into an instinctually affective programme (I have seen many a frisky lamb turn into a sedate sheep, and frolicsome calves into sombre cattle, as maturity takes its toll) they turn into having the appearance of being innate … when they are not.
Life here in this actual world – the world of sensuous delight – is akin to being a child again but with the undeniable advantage of adult sensibilities; when the occasion calls for it I can adopt a suitably solemn expression, nod sagely as appropriate, and get away with being just a big kid having a ball in the otherwise grim and glum land of the grown-ups; indeed, I can even tell them how much fun I am having – that I am just a big kid – and yet they are so serious they assume me to be making some kind of obscure or idiosyncratic joke’. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 14 Dec 2009)
(Richard, List D, No. 7, 5 Jan 2010)

and this one:

@Vineeto

Respondent No. 4: It all starts with being as fundamentally benign as possible. That’s the bedrock on which you can base an in-control happiness … which can then lead to an out-from-control happiness/ delight/ wonderment … which leads to more and more direct experiences of the actual world … where everything is doing itself.
And once you tap into this often enough, and the sheer (f)actuality of the universe is what eventually does ‘you’ in. (Message 8138, 11 December 2009)

[hunterad]

It’s never felt more possible than it does right now. Sincerity is the key to naivete - when I am sincerely benign, the need to control myself fades away. Without the pressure to control myself, life is an easy and fun affair.

When I lose it, all I need is to reestablish the intent to be happy and harmless in the world as it is with people as they are. Establishing that intent at the most heartfelt sincere level leads directly back to being carefree. No matter what challenges I’m facing, I know that I will do my best if my intent and sincerity is at its best, so once I’m at that point there’s no need to worry.

I think what would have gotten me here sooner was to focus more on harmlessness and sincerity as their own reward. Happiness can be seen as something that happens to me. Harmless intentions are more clearly coming from me, how I am disposed towards the universe.

[Vineeto]

Adam-H: It’s never felt more possible than it does right now. Sincerity is the key to naiveté – when I am sincerely benign, the need to control myself fades away. Without the pressure to control myself, life is an easy and fun affair.
When I lose it, all I need is to reestablish the intent to be happy and harmless in the world as it is with people as they are. Establishing that intent at the most heartfelt sincere level leads directly back to being carefree. No matter what challenges I’m facing, I know that I will do my best if my intent and sincerity is at its best, so once I’m at that point there’s no need to worry.

Hi Adam,

It seems you have lost/ overcome your various worries about being naïve and are discovering how easy it is to live naïvely (being “sincerely benign’). In hindsight, it’s such an easy thing to do and yet all the dire warnings of the serious sophisticates make it out to be something dangerous, ridiculous or even contemptible. They say: “Don’t have too much fun, it’s bad for you”.

Adam-H: I think what would have gotten me here sooner was to focus more on harmlessness and sincerity as their own reward.

In actualism, being happy and harmless are two aspects of the same condition – you cannot be happy unless you are also harmless and you cannot be genuinely harmless unless you are also happy.

Richard: “(…) it may be worthwhile bearing in mind that it is impossible to be happy (be happy as in being carefree), as distinct from feeling happy, without being harmless (being harmless as in being innocuous), as distinct from feeling harmless, and to be happy *and* harmless is to be unable to induce suffering – etymologically the word ‘harmless’ (harm + less) comes from the Old Norse ‘harmr’ (meaning grief, sorrow) – either in oneself or another”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, AF List, No. 62, 26 Mar 2004).

I can also recommend Claudiu’s excellent post on harmlessness (link)

Adam-H: Happiness can be seen as something that happens to me.

Happiness can only “be seen as something that happens to me” when you are solely focussing on a conditional happiness, which is dependent on certain events and circumstances, whereas you have the option of feeling good, each moment again, delighting in the awareness of being alive in this very moment, which is unconditional.

So when you aim to feel good and enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive you don’t go around looking for ‘happy circumstances that might happen to you’, you aim to enjoy each moment of being alive, whilst looking at and removing the obstacles that prevent you from feeling good.

Richard: A caused, or conditional, enjoyment and appreciation has a beginning and an end – it is dependent upon situations and circumstances – whereas an uncaused, or unconditional, enjoyment and appreciation is perpetual, aeonian (beginningless and endless) and occurs solely by virtue of being vitally alive – being dynamically here at this particular place in infinite space at this very moment in eternal time as a sensuous, reflective flesh-and-blood body only – and thus dependent upon no one, no thing, and no event. (…). Doing something pleasant/ beneficial – or something pleasurable/ beneficent happening – is a bonus on top of the sheer delight of being alive/ being here. (Richard, List D, Srinath, 5 Jan 2014).

Adam-H: Harmless intentions are more clearly coming from me, how I am disposed towards the universe. (link)

I understand why you make this distinction but when you understand that being happy and being harmless is one and the same condition then many of your prior concerns regarding pacificism, putting the other before oneself or similar moral connotations fall by the wayside. When you are happy in an unconditional way – because you have dealt with the obstacles to being happy – you are automatically harmless, and should you feel not harmless you can equally explore why not and deal with the cause right then and there. In that way your “harmless intentions” can never develop into a moral/ moralistic principle.

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

@Vineeto

It seems you have lost/ overcome your various worries about being naïve and are discovering how easy it is to live naïvely (being “sincerely benign’). In hindsight, it’s such an easy thing to do and yet all the dire warnings of the serious sophisticates make it out to be something dangerous, ridiculous or even contemptible. They say: “Don’t have too much fun, it’s bad for you”.

Yes, it’s fascinating to think about how myself and the other ‘serious sophisticates’ tick. Why would we choose to experience life in such a serious way? It feels like at least partly it is a way to ‘get back at’ life or people. Like I am unwilling to improve things if it has to be me changing, because why should I have to change when others are just as bad or worse? Or why should I enjoy things as they are when they could be better?

@Vineeto

In actualism, being happy and harmless are two aspects of the same condition – you cannot be happy unless you are also harmless and you cannot be genuinely harmless unless you are also happy.

@Vineeto

Happiness can only “be seen as something that happens to me” when you are solely focussing on a conditional happiness, which is dependent on certain events and circumstances, whereas you have the option of feeling good, each moment again, delighting in the awareness of being alive in this very moment, which is unconditional.

I think for me personally, I understood these things at an intellectual level all along, but I still mixed up what I was aiming at when it came to happiness a bit more than harmlessness. It wasn’t as blatant as looking for happy circumstances. More like ‘if I follow the actualism steps then I will be happy’. Something between enjoying and appreciating life here and now and chasing happy external circumstances.

@Vineeto

I understand why you make this distinction but when you understand that being happy and being harmless is one and the same condition then many of your prior concerns regarding pacificism, putting the other before oneself or similar moral connotations fall by the wayside. When you are happy in an unconditional way – because you have dealt with the obstacles to being happy – you are automatically harmless, and should you feel not harmless you can equally explore why not and deal with the cause right then and there. In that way your “harmless intentions” can never develop into a moral/ moralistic principle.

I think this is a good point, and it could be easy to mistake what harmlessness is about in subtle ways similar to how I would sometimes misunderstand what happiness is about… so looking for that feeling/attitude which is both at once is key.

[Vineeto]

@hunterad

@Vineeto

It seems you have lost/ overcome your various worries about being naïve and are discovering how easy it is to live naïvely (being “sincerely benign’). In hindsight, it’s such an easy thing to do and yet all the dire warnings of the serious sophisticates make it out to be something dangerous, ridiculous or even contemptible. They say: “Don’t have too much fun, it’s bad for you”.

Yes, it’s fascinating to think about how myself and the other ‘serious sophisticates’ tick. Why would we choose to experience life in such a serious way? It feels like at least partly it is a way to ‘get back at’ life or people. Like I am unwilling to improve things if it has to be me changing, because why should I have to change when others are just as bad or worse? Or why should I enjoy things as they are when they could be better?

Hi Adam,

Are your questions purely rhetorical, voicing the attitude of “serious sophisticates” or do you share that sentiment that “why should I have to change when others are just as bad or worse?”, for instance, or “I am unwilling to improve things if it has to be me changing”?

Just in case you have any remnants of resistance to unilaterally change, for your own benefit (and simultaneously others’ benefit), Andrew’s experiential insight can give you confirmation that it’s worthwhile doing so –

Andrew: … I have no one else to blame except my feeling reality … (link)

-

Vineeto: In actualism, being happy and harmless are two aspects of the same condition – you cannot be happy unless you are also harmless and you cannot be genuinely harmless unless you are also happy.

Vineeto: Happiness can only “be seen as something that happens to me” when you are solely focussing on a conditional happiness, which is dependent on certain events and circumstances, whereas you have the option of feeling good, each moment again, delighting in the awareness of being alive in this very moment, which is unconditional.

Adam-H: I think for me personally, I understood these things at an intellectual level all along, but I still mixed up what I was aiming at when it came to happiness a bit more than harmlessness. It wasn’t as blatant as looking for happy circumstances. More like ‘if I follow the actualism steps then I will be happy’. Something between enjoying and appreciating life here and now and chasing happy external circumstances.

You seem now to have gained a more experiential understanding because yesterday you said –

Adam-H: It’s never felt more possible than it does right now. Sincerity is the key to naivete – when I am sincerely benign, the need to control myself fades away. Without the pressure to control myself, life is an easy and fun affair. (link)

-

Vineeto: I understand why you make this distinction but when you understand that being happy and being harmless is one and the same condition then many of your prior concerns regarding pacificism, putting the other before oneself or similar moral connotations fall by the wayside. When you are happy in an unconditional way – because you have dealt with the obstacles to being happy – you are automatically harmless, and should you feel not harmless you can equally explore why not and deal with the cause right then and there. In that way your “harmless intentions” can never develop into a moral/ moralistic principle.

Adam-H: I think this is a good point, and it could be easy to mistake what harmlessness is about in subtle ways similar to how I would sometimes misunderstand what happiness is about… so looking for that feeling/ attitude which is both at once is key. (link)

Yes, whilst you aim to be feeling good, i.e. maximise the felicitous and innocuous feelings, the actualism tools to reach your aim are to facilitate removing the obstacles that are in the way of feeling good. Once the obstacle (either a ‘good’ or bad feeling or an insalubrious belief or habit) is removed you are automatically back to feeling good.

In other words, you don’t have to create feeling happy or feeling harmless – it happens when you remove what is preventing you from feeling happy and harmless.

Richard: Purity is an actual condition, intrinsic to the perfection of the infinitude of this universe … the only one we have. A human being can tap into this purity by pure intent. Pure intent can be activated with sincere attention paid to the state of naiveté. To be naive is to be virginal, unaffected, unselfconsciously artless – in short: ingenuous. Naiveté is a much-maligned word, having the common assumption that it implies gullibility. Nevertheless, to be naive means to be simple and unsophisticated. Pride is derived from an intellect inured to naive innocence; to such an intellect, to be guileless appears to be gullible, stupid. In actuality, one has to be gullible to be sophisticated, to be wise in the ways of the real world. The ‘worldly-wise’ realists are not in touch with the purity of innocence; they readily obey the peremptory decrees of the cultured sophisticates. A sample of such decrees are: ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower’, or ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’, or ‘You’ve got to be tough to survive in the real world’, or ‘It’s dog eat dog out there’ … and so on. Such people are said to have ‘lost their innocence’. Human beings have not ‘lost their innocence’ – they never had it in the first place. (Richard, List A, No. 26).

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

I realized I’ve been going in circles a bit recently, treading over ground I’ve previously covered. I’ve had periods where it made sense to me that I could be happy and harmless, and that this would automatically lead in the direction of letting go of the controls, and that it was safe to do so because I had confidence in how I would handle the world and the people around me.

I started doubting this at some point, it started seeming again like I was choosing between safety and security (mostly in terms of job/financial stability) vs. happiness and harmlessness. I’m trying to really drill into this since it is almost always some variation of this worry that pulls me out of being happy and harmless.

As so often I’ve gotten into a logical argument with myself where the two sides of me are trying to prove/disprove that it’s safe to be happy and harmless. Tracing back through my correspondence in this journal it seems like what has worked before is ceasing the intellectual arguments and rememorating a naive moment, where I was able to be happy and harmless without knowing for sure that everything would ‘work out’. So at least for a bit, that’s what I’m going to try getting back to.

[Vineeto]

Adam-H: I realized I’ve been going in circles a bit recently, treading over ground I’ve previously covered.

Hi Adam,

A good realisation. I remember you had a realisation that may be related in February this year –

Adam-H: I’ve been thinking of actualism in terms of two ‘modes of failure’. One is “can’t get back to feeling good” the other is “won’t get back to feeling good”. When it feels more like a “can’t” that’s the sign I’m deceiving myself and I need to dial up the ‘being my own best friend’ energy and get to a place where I can clearly recognize what feeling I am ‘being’. I think the DhO pseudo-actualism practice history is what made it so difficult to figure this out, but I’ve made huge progress on this side lately. (18 Feb 2026)

When you keep these realisations in mind it enables you to actualise them. Once getting into the habit of acting on them “it operates spontaneously each moment again” –

Respondent: Is there any difference between a realisation and an actualisation?
Richard: Generally speaking a realisation is an understanding of something previously not cognised and an actualisation is the putting of that comprehension into action … as in acting upon that cognisance so that it is experiential and not only intellectual.
For instance: (…)

• [Richard]: ‘… many years ago, during my five years of an itinerant lifestyle, I would jot down various things in pencil in a notebook: some time later (maybe six weeks or six months) when looking back through the jottings I would quite often be taken by some of them and would wonder why I was not living them … why they were not an actuality in my life.
In short: sometimes (or even quite often) it takes a while before a realisation becomes an actualisation[1]. (Richard, AF List, No. 27e, 3 Apr 2003).
Footnote [1]: unless a realisation is actualised, meaning that it operates spontaneously each moment again, it remains just that … a realisation.

(Sundry, Frequent Questions, Difference between Realisation and Actualisation)

And another one from the same collection –

James: What about when I find out what happened to end feeling good and I see that it is silly to keep worrying about it yet that doesn’t stop the worrying and I am not back to feeling good?
Richard: Two things immediately leap to mind … (1) you value feeling worry (a feeling of anxious concern) over feeling good (a general sense of well-being) … and (2) you have not really seen it is silly to feel bad (a general sense of ill-being). What I would suggest, at this point, is to feel the silliness of feeling bad (in this case feeling anxiety) … then the seeing (as in a realisation) might very well have the desired effect (as in an actualisation) of once more feeling good. (Richard, AF List, James, 13 July 2004a).

Adam-H: I’ve had periods where it made sense to me that I could be happy and harmless, and that this would automatically lead in the direction of letting go of the controls, and that it was safe to do so because I had confidence in how I would handle the world and the people around me.
I started doubting this at some point, it started seeming again like I was choosing between safety and security (mostly in terms of job/ financial stability) vs. happiness and harmlessness. I’m trying to really drill into this since it is almost always some variation of this worry that pulls me out of being happy and harmless.

It may be well too early to contemplate letting go of the controls until feeling good becomes your default modus operandi. Then you can uplevel to being non-conditionally happy and harmless. Otherwise, as it happened you end up having another topic to be doubting and worry about (“in terms of job/ financial stability”). This is what Richard says in regards to unconditional enjoyment of being alive –

Richard: A caused, or conditional, enjoyment and appreciation has a beginning and an end – it is dependent upon situations and circumstances – whereas an uncaused, or unconditional, enjoyment and appreciation is perpetual, aeonian (beginningless and endless) and occurs solely by virtue of being vitally alive – being dynamically here at this particular place in infinite space at this very moment in eternal time as a sensuous, reflective flesh-and-blood body only – and thus dependent upon no one, no thing, and no event. (…). (Richard, List D, No. 44, 2 Jan 2014)

And, explaining this quote further –

Richard: (…) More to the point, I also definitively say ‘perpetual, aeonian (beginningless and endless)’ solely by virtue of being alive/ being here – as in, regardless of doing anything at all/ of anything at all happening – as an engaged response to my co-respondent reporting just that … to wit: ‘eventually the fascination *that it is this moment* sets in and I am once more enjoying life’ [emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Srinath, 5 Jan 2014)

Regarding “job/ financial stability” I am reminded of a previous realisation where you wrote –

Adam-H: Where I still get off track is when I want to ‘be somebody’, somebody important. It’s clear how I still have a competing motivation to be recognized, especially in my career and work, and that keeps me from more wholeheartedly committing. I think that by fully acknowledging this and sensibly evaluating ‘will this motivation deliver the goods?’ it is losing some influence. (14 Nov 2025)

Could it be that the desire to be “somebody important” is mixed in with the worry for safety and financial stability? I am asking because when you are feeling good why would that interfere with “job/ financial stability”? However, if you want to be somebody important and climb the social ladder then you might have a reason to be in conflict with your superior or co-workers.

Even though this post might get too long, here is part of Richard’s correspondence with Srinath about peasant mentality which might be entertaining and/or instructive –

Srinath: I feel very much like a white-collar peasant. Engaged in the rat-race to get to the top and realise there is nothing there ala what John Lennon and your friend spoke about.
Richard: What is there at the top is, of course, money/ assets, fame/ prestige and, especially, power – albeit a puny power, being over people (to have them do as bid), and not a potent power, as over the physical world (to directly effect beneficial material modification) – but there is ‘nothing there’ of intrinsic value (as in, nothing of significance, in the ‘meaning of life’ significance, that is).
Srinath: I can relate to the Stockholm Syndrome aspect quite well too.
Richard: Good … capture-bonding (i.e., loyalty to ‘the system’ in this context), when unexamined, enables the continuance of complicity (as already mentioned further above) with its especially insidious loyalty.
Srinath: Professional training is one of gladiatorial combat, where one vies with others to become a member of a small officially sanctioned professional cabal that has a strong financial incentive to maintain the current hierarchy (Training, safety etc. are the other reasons cited – which are quite sensible. Somehow though I think these are secondary). Naturally this inculcates the symptoms you talked about. However I’ve had deep suspicions about ‘the system’ for a while. In some sense this that has lead to my being less focussed on accumulating wealth, assets, prestige, being career focussed etc. than many of my peers. But I wonder if I go far enough.
The question I have for you is: Can you elaborate some more on becoming aware of this peasant mentality – specifically as it relates to practising actualism?
Richard: Essentially, seeing-through the whole sick-and-sorry system and, thus, ceasing to believe in it, is all what is required.
The identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago found it incredibly liberating to no longer be able to believe in it/ be capable of loyalty to it … especially so as ‘he’ had been quite the rebel up until then (the ‘black-sheep’ of the family and all).
In a latter part of his response to your ‘Money as Debt’ post Andrew speaks of having tuned-in to this liberating aspect.
Viz.:

• [Srinath]: ‘(…). From Richard’s posts and the ensuing discussion/ clarifications, I’m also beginning to get a clearer sense now of how the primordial *feelings* of resentment, the peasant mentality and the current monetary system are related’. (Message № 196xx).
• [Andrew]: ‘(…). I felt a liberating quality having this being discussed. Having it all tied together with actualism and being free of the human condition’. (Message № 196xx).

Srinath: For instance would you recommend pragmatically minimising ones involvement in this system as a necessary (or helpful) condition to becoming actually free? Thanks.
Richard: Not necessarily, no … actualism practice works best in the market-place.
Both feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ and feeling-being ‘Peter’ minimised their respective income-streams, within a year or so, but that was more because they valued their time over money than any other reason.
Plus the more one enjoys and appreciates being alive simply by being here, each moment again for as much as is humanly possible, the lower the cost-of-living becomes as less and less discretionary spending is used-up in purchased entertainment, in socialising expenditure (e.g., fashion-house attire, designer-driven accoutrements, status-displaying automobiles, and etcetera), in mood-enhancement payments, in novelty-seeking travel costs, and so on and so forth.
Golly, come to think of it, actualism should accrue quite a few brownie points for being so … um … so environmentally-friendly! (Richard, List D, Srinath, 9 Jun 2015)

Adam-H: As so often I’ve gotten into a logical argument with myself where the two sides of me are trying to prove/ disprove that it’s safe to be happy and harmless. Tracing back through my correspondence in this journal it seems like what has worked before is ceasing the intellectual arguments and rememorating a naive moment, where I was able to be happy and harmless without knowing for sure that everything would ‘work out’. So at least for a bit, that’s what I’m going to try getting back to. (link)

That is a splendid idea. It always works out differently in practice and experientially, where the third alternative to your self-created dichotomy of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ as well as ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ can come into play. It can only be grasped when you are naïve enough to try out something new, and therefore seemingly ‘unsafe’.

Yes, when being happy and harmless is your default state, then you can rememorate “a naïve moment” and eventually recognize, and have it confirmed repeatedly, that everything is working fine without ‘your’, the controller’s input.

Richard: Maybe it is a case of first things first? My experience showed that by allowing the PCE to happen (on a daily basis, sometimes two-three times a day) a momentum built up of its own accord which could not be stopped … an inevitability came into action.
What ‘I’ did was to give ‘myself’ permission to let go of the controls and allow the moment to live me (rather than ‘me’ trying to live in the present). In short: if one ceases objecting to being here – without swinging to an opposite such as gratitude – then the rest is history.
This is because this moment is where it is all at. This moment is where it is all happening – all of the universe is happening all-at-once – and it is all happening all-at-once just here and it is all happening all-at-once right now.
And it is all already always happening anyway … irregardless of ‘me’ and ‘my’ objections. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B James2, 6 June 2001)

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

@Vineeto

Could it be that the desire to be “somebody important” is mixed in with the worry for safety and financial stability? I am asking because when you are feeling good why would that interfere with “job/ financial stability”? However, if you want to be somebody important and climb the social ladder then you might have a reason to be in conflict with your superior or co-workers.

I’ve been considering this. I think you are on the right track to question whether it’s really just about safety/security, but it’s also not exactly about being someone important right now. It feels a bit more like a resentment towards the environment of my work, where nothing is as it seems and everyone (including me) is scheming with their own personal angle. Being naive, straightforward, happy and harmless in this environment feels like bringing a knife to a gunfight. It seems like everyone is misrepresenting the work they are doing and the level of expertise they have, and it feels like doing the same puts me at odds with being happy and harmless. I’m resentful that is is this way and I resent other people essentially doing the same thing I am doing.

Is it just a case of needing some ‘nerves of steel’ to make unilateral change, be happy and harmless, let the chips fall where they may? In terms of my “modes of failure” way of thinking about it, I’m definitely more on the “won’t” side than the “can’t” side. It does seem totally possible, but I am scared to do it because I don’t know if it will work out. But talking through it, it does seem like it’s eventually going to be what I need to do.

[Vineeto]

Vineeto: Could it be that the desire to be “somebody important” is mixed in with the worry for safety and financial stability? I am asking because when you are feeling good why would that interfere with “job/ financial stability”? However, if you want to be somebody important and climb the social ladder then you might have a reason to be in conflict with your superior or co-workers.

Adam-H: I’ve been considering this. I think you are on the right track to question whether it’s really just about safety/ security, but it’s also not exactly about being someone important right now. It feels a bit more like a resentment towards the environment of my work, where nothing is as it seems and everyone (including me) is scheming with their own personal angle. Being naïve, straightforward, happy and harmless in this environment feels like bringing a knife to a gunfight. It seems like everyone is misrepresenting the work they are doing and the level of expertise they have, and it feels like doing the same puts me at odds with being happy and harmless. I’m resentful that it is this way and I resent other people essentially doing the same thing I am doing.

Hi Adam,

Ha, the way you describe it, being “someone important” is out of the question because you can’t even find your footing in this environment which is supposedly about your “safety/ security”.

Adam-H: Is it just a case of needing some ‘nerves of steel’ to make unilateral change, be happy and harmless, let the chips fall where they may?

I see you are still deep into worrying, as if that gives your life the meaning you are looking for. I found a conversation we had in April this year which is still applicable –

Vineeto: Perhaps you can instead rememorate how you were experiencing the world during your PCEs, or how you were when you were genuinely naïve and the world was a wondrous place to explore and appreciate? It’s enjoyment and the very appreciation of it which has the capacity to enhance feeling good, and then feeling better and feeling great. When you feel great a lot of imagined/ anticipated problems reveal themselves as phantoms – but this is not the outcome of rational thinking alone, it comes from feeling good first.
Adam: Part of me wants to dismiss this as a tautological/circular suggestion. It seems like saying “try feeling good, then the worries which are preventing you from feeling good will fade away”. What’s funny is I know it has actually played out this way many times in my experience, so I’m sure it is actually a great suggestion. (3 April 2026)

If it worked before, why not now? You don’t need “nerves of steel” to get back to feeling good, do you?

Moreover, you don’t need to make your ‘self’ perfect, even if everyone else is hypocritically doing that. Your aim is to be happy and harmless, i.e. to channel all the affective energy into the least ‘self’-enhancing feelings so that you can even more enjoy and appreciate being here. The already existing actual world is already perfect, as is your flesh-and-blood body (without the alien entity stuffing it up). You only need to get out of way – whenever you notice you are in the way of the already existing perfection – and enjoy being here. Knowing this you do not have to follow all the bad examples others are giving you and/or competing with them for supremacy – it is plain silly.

Adam-H: In terms of my “modes of failure” way of thinking about it, I’m definitely more on the “won’t” side than the “can’t” side. It does seem totally possible, but I am scared to do it because I don’t know if it will work out. But talking through it, it does seem like it’s eventually going to be what I need to do. (link)

Ok, knowing that fear is preventing you from getting back to being happy and harmless – your life’s aim – then you can cast it aside, decline going down that futile alley, including all the worries you create out of that fear – and get on with feeling good and enjoying being here. It’s just a matter when you realize that enough worry and fear is enough because it doesn’t lead anywhere. In the end nobody is stopping you but yourself.

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

@Vineeto

I see you are still deep into worrying, as if that gives your life the meaning you are looking for.

Interesting way of putting it. I hadn’t quite seen it this way before but yes, this is part of what’s happening I think. I do get something out of the ‘struggle’ and the ‘mystery’ of it. I don’t think that’s the whole cause of the worry but it is definitely part of it.

@Vineeto

If it worked before, why not now? You don’t need “nerves of steel” to get back to feeling good, do you?

Sometimes it seems like i need nerves of steel to move from worrying to enjoying. Enjoying life can seem like a very fearless and bold choice when I am in the grip of worry. Is that different from what your experience was? Perhaps it’s not the actual choice to enjoy that takes nerves of steel, but the willingness to drop the objections first can?

@Vineeto

Moreover, you don’t need to make your ‘self’ perfect, even if everyone else is hypocritically doing that. Your aim is to be happy and harmless, i.e. to channel all the affective energy into the least ‘self’-enhancing feelings so that you can even more enjoy and appreciate being here. The already existing actual world is already perfect, as is your flesh-and-blood body (without the alien entity stuffing it up). You only need to get out of way – whenever you notice you are in the way of the already existing perfection – and enjoy being here. Knowing this you do not have to follow all the bad examples others are giving you and/or competing with them for supremacy – it is plain silly.

This is all very helpful to remember, thanks.

@Vineeto

Ok, knowing that fear is preventing you from getting back to being happy and harmless – your life’s aim – then you can cast it aside, decline going down that futile alley, including all the worries you create out of that fear – and get on with feeling good and enjoying being here. It’s just a matter when you realize that enough worry and fear is enough because it doesn’t lead anywhere. In the end nobody is stopping you but yourself.

Yes, it’s starting to become clear to me that this is true. It’s something that is squarely within my power to do, and I have started getting some renewed determination to proceed in spite of the fear. I’ve been rereading Peter’s journal over the last couple of days and I enjoy hearing about the way his potent motivation came about - “nothing left to lose”.

It does feel like being a different person when I do this, and I don’t know how things will change as a result, but I am also clearly aware that I don’t want to maintain a status quo that includes as an integral piece a backdrop of worry and anxiety.

Cheers Adam

[Vineeto]

@hunterad

@Vineeto

If it worked before, why not now? You don’t need “nerves of steel” to get back to feeling good, do you?

Sometimes it seems like i need nerves of steel to move from worrying to enjoying. Enjoying life can seem like a very fearless and bold choice when I am in the grip of worry. Is that different from what your experience was? Perhaps it’s not the actual choice to enjoy that takes nerves of steel, but the willingness to drop the objections first can?

Hi Adam,

If you need to ‘will’ yourself to enjoying life then you have probably taken on an ‘actualist morality’ that you should be enjoying instead of worrying, and therefore need to power yourself up with “nerves of steel” to “drop the objections”. This is splitting yourself into two, and the two aspects are fighting against each other. Whereas when you can see how silly it is to worry – because worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed, worrying only makes the situation look more complicated it is – then you can quickly go back to feeling good and look at the situation in a more confident and unemotional way. I sent you this quote before, though without the Footnote –

Respondent No 71: I keep day-dreaming/ thinking and get into fears and anxieties … my mind slips away from a simple state (awareness of the moment) to some complex state (memories, feelings, thoughts, recollections) and I get confused.
Richard: It is really very, very simple (which is possibly why it has never been discovered before this): one felt good previously; one is not feeling good now; something happened to one to end that felicitous/ innocuous feeling; one finds out what happened; one sees how silly that is (no matter what it was); one is once more feeling good.
James: What about when I find out what happened to end feeling good and I see that it is silly to keep worrying about it yet that doesn’t stop the worrying and I am not back to feeling good?
Richard: Two things immediately leap to mind … (1) you value feeling worry (a feeling of anxious concern) over feeling good (a general sense of well-being) … and (2) you have not really seen it is silly to feel bad (a general sense of ill-being).
What I would suggest, at this point[1], is to feel the silliness of feeling bad (in this case feeling anxiety) … then the seeing (as in a realisation) might very well have the desired effect (as in an actualisation) of once more feeling good. (Richard, AF List, James, 13 July 2004a).
Footnote: The actualism method – asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) until it becomes a non-verbal attitude towards life/a wordless approach each moment again – is not intellectual exercise (as in arm-chair philosophising) … it is a ‘hands-on’ method. For example:

• [Richard]: ‘… it [the actualism method] is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’.
Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. This attention becomes fascination …’. (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive)

And this is what it looks like in practice –

Richard: One of the very first things realised by the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, all those years ago, was (per favour the indelibly-imprinted four-hour PCE of then-recent memorialisation) that the best thing ‘he’ could do for other people, at all times and in all places, was to cease forthwith being a miserable and malicious blighter, on whatever justifiable occasion it might be, and instead be someone always pleasant and thus engaging to be with, in all situations and circumstances, with the ultimate aim of having the overarching benevolence and benignity of the PCE become apparent, in the everyday/ workaday world, for evermore. (Richard, List D, No. 4b, #profoundreappraisal).

-

Vineeto: Ok, knowing that fear is preventing you from getting back to being happy and harmless – your life’s aim – then you can cast it aside, decline going down that futile alley, including all the worries you create out of that fear – and get on with feeling good and enjoying being here. It’s just a matter when you realize that enough worry and fear is enough because it doesn’t lead anywhere. In the end nobody is stopping you but yourself.

Adam-H: Yes, it’s starting to become clear to me that this is true. It’s something that is squarely within my power to do, and I have started getting some renewed determination to proceed in spite of the fear. I’ve been rereading Peter’s journal over the last couple of days and I enjoy hearing about the way his potent motivation came about – “nothing left to lose”.
It does feel like being a different person when I do this, and I don’t know how things will change as a result, but I am also clearly aware that I don’t want to maintain a status quo that includes as an integral piece a backdrop of worry and anxiety.

Good. When you sit back and contemplate your life’s aim from the perspective of feeling good, then you know that “things will change” because you want them to change, else you would have decided to remain as you are. Fear, or rather thrill (when one no longer tries to fight off/ repress the fear) is par for the course when embarking on a journey as a pioneer of implementing a brand-new way of human consciousness – one which can, with persistence and pure intent, deliver peace-on-earth and the meaning of life.

In a Direct Route correspondence Peter describes his experiences with fear and thrill in a broad perspective on his path to an actual freedom –

Subscriber No. 6: Would you call an Actualist the ‘ultimate thrill-seeker’?
Peter: Thrill-seeking, as in seeking thrills, certainly wasn’t ever my motivation when I was an Actualist.
When I came across Actualism I had exhausted my seeking on the spiritual path (when I got to the stage of walking through a spiritual ashram singing to myself ‘Just give me that olde time religion, give me that olde time religion …’ it was the beginning of the end, although I was to give it a few more tries over a few more years before I had to admit that it was spirituality that was inherently flawed and failed – not me).
Soon after coming across actualism I knew that if I were to make becoming actually free from the human condition my main goal in life then that would inevitably be the end of ‘me’. I described it at the time as being as though I would enter a long tunnel at the end of which was the end of ‘me’ and beyond that again lay an actual freedom.
I also felt the fear of entering the ‘tunnel’ (to continue the metaphor) but I was so drawn to what lay beyond this ‘tunnel’ that I did it anyway. As I bypassed the fear and entered the ‘tunnel’ leading to ‘my’ extinction there was certainly the thrill of setting off on a brand-new adventure. Very soon after I found that fear and thrill were hand in glove companion feelings on the path to an actual freedom – an inherent by-product of ‘my’ commitment to achieving my ultimate goal.
As for fear, it sometimes reared to the surface (like all feelings) and was quite dominant for a while but inevitably always subsided (like all feelings), sometimes it lurked in the background so as to dull my experiencing in periods that felt like I was crossing a vast desert when nothing seemed to be happening, sometimes it surfaced to act as the fuel for doubts and suspicions, sometimes it was ‘missing in action’ during PCEs, sometimes it was so diminutive as to be almost non-existent during an excellence experience, and so on.
An important additional point to note about the feeling of fear is that it can, in some circumstances, easily morph into panic and then intensify into what is commonly known as ‘panic attacks’. Should this happen at any stage on the path, the crucial thing to remember is that this is only the feeling of fear in operation and it is much more sensible not to act upon the fear (to keep one’s hands in one’s pockets as Richard describes it) otherwise the fear will only increase to the point where one inevitably inflicts harm on others by infecting them with one’s own feeling of fear/panic. This means one will have a lot to regret afterwards as the consequences of acting out of panic become clear after the feeling eventually subsides.
As for thrill, the path to an actual freedom is never dull (even when nothing seems to be happening, one is acutely aware that this is so and this awareness itself ensures that life is never dull) and it is very often thrilling (the very act of discovery is thrilling in itself) and it can even be, at times, alarming in its thrillingness. Initially thrill emerged every time my awareness led to an insight or realization about the way ‘I’ operated as a feeling ‘being’ in a particular situation such that the feeling disappeared and never returned again in similar situation. This then left me more able to be harmless and therefore genuinely more happy. Often the thrill was downright exhilarating as a sudden moving forward was experienced, sometimes the thrill was a too-much-too-soon thrill as I felt myself to be on the precipice of an event too daring to even contemplate.
In summary, it was not that I was ‘the ultimate thrill seeker’ as an actualist but the very fact that I embark on a journey contrary to, and therefore away from, the mainstream of society in order to discover the ultimate meaning of life, is in itself a thrilling enterprise.
Thrill is par for the course on the path to an actual freedom, after all it is, quite literally, the adventure of a life-time.
Cheers … Peter.
Richard has written about thrill –

Richard: As the feeling of being cornered is where one is at now then that is where one starts from: as you say that ‘a feeling of fear’ has emerged this is a vital opportunity to look closely at the fear itself (while it is happening) and it will be seen that there are two aspects to fear … the frightening aspect and the thrilling aspect.
Usually the frightening aspect dominates and obscures the thrilling aspect: shifting one’s attention to the thrilling aspect (I often said jokingly that it is down at the bottom left-hand side) will increase the thrill and decrease the fright as the energy of fear shifts its focus and changes into a higher gear … and, as courage is sourced in the thrilling part of fear, the daring to proceed will intensify of its own accord.
But stay with the thrill, by being the thrill, else the fright takes over, daring dissipates, and back out of the corner you come. (Richard, List B, James3, 7 Nov 2002a).

(Direct Route, Peter to No. 6, 26 Jan 2010).

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

Thanks for the response Vineeto, I’m being very persistent with this, because I’m hoping that i can find a more consistently repeatable way of getting back to feeling good. Usually I can get back to feeling good, but sometimes I still get stuck into a worry that I only get out of via waiting it out, sleeping it off, or getting distracted somehow.

I think that’s where I am now, I’m not really worrying anymore, but it’s really only because enough time passed and the feeling ran out of juice.

@Vineeto

If you need to ‘will’ yourself to enjoying life then you have probably taken on an ‘actualist morality’ that you should be enjoying instead of worrying, and therefore need to power yourself up with “nerves of steel” to “drop the objections”. This is splitting yourself into two, and the two aspects are fighting against each other. Whereas when you can see how silly it is to worry – because worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed, worrying only makes the situation look more complicated it is – then you can quickly go back to feeling good and look at the situation in a more confident and unemotional way.

The place where I got stuck with this last round of worrying was that I could intellectually see the silliness of worrying but it was still present. Attempts to ‘feel’ the silliness did seem to take a more forceful will so didn’t really get anywhere. Trying to recognize that ‘I am my feelings’ and it was my choice how to feel and simply decline to keep feeling bad also felt like forcing.

Attempts to investigate the feeling in order to ‘organically’ recognize the silliness didn’t seem to work because I was just going in circles, due to being in the grip of worry none of that investigation led anywhere.

It just seemed like nothing I could do, no direction I could go in was really lessening the worry. I understand both from experience and reading that when there is a heartfelt genuine recognition of the silliness/futility of worry that I get back to feeling good without forcing and without effort. I don’t think I understand how to repeatably/consistently induce that heartfelt recognition, instead I find that sometimes I can get there and sometimes I can’t.

[Vineeto]

Adam-H: Thanks for the response Vineeto, I’m being very persistent with this, because I’m hoping that I can find a more consistently repeatable way of getting back to feeling good. Usually I can get back to feeling good, but sometimes I still get stuck into a worry that I only get out of via waiting it out, sleeping it off, or getting distracted somehow.
I think that’s where I am now, I’m not really worrying anymore, but it’s really only because enough time passed and the feeling ran out of juice.

Hi Adam,

That’s the usual way to deal with unpleasant feelings – “via waiting it out, sleeping it off, or getting distracted somehow”. But as you say, it’s not reliable and certainly is wasting a lot of time which you could spend enjoying and appreciating.

-

Vineeto: If you need to ‘will’ yourself to enjoying life then you have probably taken on an ‘actualist morality’ that you should be enjoying instead of worrying, and therefore need to power yourself up with “nerves of steel” to “drop the objections”. This is splitting yourself into two, and the two aspects are fighting against each other. Whereas when you can see how silly it is to worry – because worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed, worrying only makes the situation look more complicated it is – then you can quickly go back to feeling good and look at the situation in a more confident and unemotional way.

Adam-H: The place where I got stuck with this last round of worrying was that I could intellectually see the silliness of worrying but it was still present. Attempts to ‘feel’ the silliness did seem to take a more forceful will so didn’t really get anywhere. Trying to recognize that ‘I am my feelings’ and it was my choice how to feel and simply decline to keep feeling bad also felt like forcing.

Generally, it’s a matter of employing your intelligence to see the silliness of feeling bad once you notice that there is a diminishment in feeling good. Then first you get back to feeling good before you look at what triggered it. Did you take note that I pointed to a possible ‘actualist morality’ which has the result of two aspects of ‘you’ fighting against each other? Any ‘investigation’ when in the grip of contaminating emotions is fruitless, hence getting back to feeling good first is paramount.

Here are the two extra footnotes next to the word “silliness” in the description of the actualism method –

Respondent: 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? (Richard, AF List, No. 71, 15 Jul 2004).

Respondent: How does the mere seeing how silly it is make us happy once again?
Richard: Because nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth getting malicious or miserable about (let alone compensatingly loving and compassionate) when the realisation that this moment is the only one there ever is becomes the actuality it already always is. (Richard, List D, No. 11, 24 Nov 2009).

And here is a third footnote at the end of that paragraph – “Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is” –

Respondent: Richard, how long do you think will it take before it becomes automatic to have the question running?
Richard: About as long as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks … and sucks big-time at that. …
Respondent: How soon will the rewards can be reaped by the method (in getting rid of the ‘me’) so that the momentum can be acquired by the success rather than the veracity/ power of your words?
Richard: About as soon as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks … and sucks big-time at that. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 71, 9 Jun 2004).

Chrono posted a field-tested pro-tip only four days ago (did you see it?) –

Chrono: Also a reinforcement in regards to feeling good, it’s the tracing back to the trigger (and before) which can restore feeling good and not going into the feeling to fix it. The trigger sets off the feelings. (link)

When you get back to feeling good – with the benefit to be able to think more clearly – you can then look at what triggered the recent period of worry. For instance – as a line of investigation – here is what you wrote eight days ago –

Adam-H: I realized I’ve been going in circles a bit recently, treading over ground I’ve previously covered. I’ve had periods where it made sense to me that I could be happy and harmless, and that this would automatically lead in the direction of letting go of the controls, and that it was safe to do so because I had confidence in how I would handle the world and the people around me.
I started doubting this at some point, it started seeming again like I was choosing between safety and security (mostly in terms of job/financial stability) vs. happiness and harmlessness. I’m trying to really drill into this since it is almost always some variation of this worry that pulls me out of being happy and harmless.

What stands out is you were surmising that when you are successfully feeling good “this would automatically lead in the direction of letting go of the controls” with a reaction of doubt (and fear) regarding your “safety and security (mostly in terms of job/financial stability)”. As such it would appear that feeling worried on an ongoing basis is deemed safer to ‘you’ than being happy and harmless.

The trouble with having an intellectual/ imaginary plan drawn from descriptions of other actualists shortly before the pivotal event occurred without being fully informed. “Letting go of the controls” only happens when one has gained sufficient experiential insight and confidence by being unconditionally happy and harmless for most of the day, i.e. having levelled up one’s baseline from feeling good to feeling happy and harmless to being naïve and feeling excellent on a daily basis. Based on such personal experience one day one can accede that the ‘controller’ is no longer required. It will happen neither “automatically” nor inadvertently, and certainly only via the dynamically enabled pure intent which pulls you forward to go all the way. Hence your presuming of “this would automatically lead in the direction of” is pure conjecture at this point.

Adam-H: Attempts to investigate the feeling in order to ‘organically’ recognize the silliness didn’t seem to work because I was just going in circles, due to being in the grip of worry none of that investigation led anywhere.
It just seemed like nothing I could do, no direction I could go in was really lessening the worry. I understand both from experience and reading that when there is a heartfelt genuine recognition of the silliness/futility of worry that I get back to feeling good without forcing and without effort. I don’t think I understand how to repeatably/ consistently induce that heartfelt recognition, instead I find that sometimes I can get there and sometimes I can’t. (link)

Richard generally suggests to see the silliness (as a matter of common sense). When I searched the website I found he used the expression “to feel the silliness” only once, when James reported he had no success in seeing the silliness (Richard, AF List, James, 13 July 2004a) in the quote I sent to you seven days ago (19 June 2026). He repeated this quote as a suggestion to Respondent No. 71 (link) who had at first great trouble seeing the silliness of feeling bad. After an extensive correspondence No. 71 was finally successful, due to the following information –

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).

I don’t advise to “repeatably/ consistently induce that heartfelt recognition” because Richard only suggested “to feel the silliness of feeling bad” “at this point”, as a one-off measure, so to speak, when point (1) and (2) below prevent one from getting back to feeling good. It’s only when intelligence is temporarily so impaired by strong feelings that one cannot grasp the common sense of seeing the silliness of feeling bad that he suggested “to feel the silliness of feeling bad”. Viz.:

James: What about when I find out what happened to end feeling good and I see that it is silly to keep worrying about it yet that doesn’t stop the worrying and I am not back to feeling good?
Richard: Two things immediately leap to mind … (1) you value feeling worry (a feeling of anxious concern) over feeling good (a general sense of well-being) … and (2) you have not really seen it is silly to feel bad (a general sense of ill-being). What I would suggest, at this point, is to feel the silliness of feeling bad (in this case feeling anxiety) … then the seeing (as in a realisation) might very well have the desired effect (as in an actualisation) of once more feeling good. (Richard, AF List, James, 13 July 2004a).

Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ sometimes exaggerated a bad feeling until it felt so obviously ridiculous to continue to be that way.

However, as you observed in previous posts, it is ultimately a matter of intent – do I want to be happy and harmless or not? Do I want to be a friend to myself – “actually want what’s best for yourself, meaning you won’t let yourself ruin your own day”? (2 May 2026) Do I want to free myself from the addiction to suffering and worry (which all human beings have)? (see 8 Jan 2026)

Cheers Vineeto

[hunterad]

I’ve been writing a response to this post, and it was getting a bit long and repetitive, so I’m trying to distill it down a bit instead of responding point by point, but rest assured I have read every word of your post and thank you for continuing to talk me through it Vineeto. Also FWIW, those footnotes around seeing the silliness are some of the parts of the AFT site that I have reread the most out of any content because I grasp how important they are.

Basically, what I am hearing is that getting back to feeling good should come from a simple and clear moment of common sense evaluation of the silliness of feeling bad. Trying to force myself towards feeling good is counterproductive, thinking through the bad feeling while it is still present is counterproductive.

In the past when my attempt to see the silliness of a bad feeling does not lead automatically back to feeling good, I often try to go down one of those two paths which maybe only makes things harder. Perhaps the key for me next time I am feeling bad is to try to patiently see the silliness while specifically avoiding those things I understand to be counterproductive, even if it means doing nothing and sitting on my hands until the silliness of feeling bad becomes more clear?

[hunterad]

I’ve been continuing to think about this a bit, and I’m wondering if ‘neither expressing nor repressing’ is effectively what I have stumbled into with this. I’ve never quite thought about it this way, but is neither expressing nor repressing effectively the “actualization” of the “realization” that feeling bad is silly?

[Vineeto]

Adam-H: I’ve been writing a response to this post, and it was getting a bit long and repetitive, so I’m trying to distill it down a bit instead of responding point by point, but rest assured I have read every word of your post and thank you for continuing to talk me through it Vineeto. Also FWIW, those footnotes around seeing the silliness are some of the parts of the AFT site that I have reread the most out of any content because I grasp how important they are.
Basically, what I am hearing is that getting back to feeling good should come from a simple and clear moment of common sense evaluation of the silliness of feeling bad. Trying to force myself towards feeling good is counterproductive, thinking through the bad feeling while it is still present is counterproductive.
In the past when my attempt to see the silliness of a bad feeling does not lead automatically back to feeling good, I often try to go down one of those two paths which maybe only makes things harder. Perhaps the key for me next time I am feeling bad is to try to patiently see the silliness while specifically avoiding those things I understand to be counterproductive, even if it means doing nothing and sitting on my hands until the silliness of feeling bad becomes more clear? (link)

Hi Adam,

What is vital for your seeing the silliness of being sad, worried, angry or being tempted by the lure of ‘good feelings’ is to remember and comprehend that your aim and intent is to be enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive, the only moment you can dynamically experience – in other words something entirely new to human experience. Of course you will find obstacles that are not easy to overcome, else an actual freedom would have been discovered centuries ago.

Perhaps this correspondence on the Direct Route can give you some idea of the scope how ‘not normal’ your intent to be happy and harmless really is –

Subscriber No. 18: LOONY CULT –
Richard: G’day No. 18,
What on earth was the editor, of one of the two official newspapers in Rockland County (located 19 kilometres north-northwest of New York City), a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 3,941 copies, thinking upon reading the following invitation on the announcement page (such as to inspire email registration, and thus subscription to the mail-out list of a ‘LOONY CULT’ of all things, by his deliberative action of typing out and sending an email to the advertised address)? Viz.:

[quote]: ‘The directors of The Actual Freedom Trust are making available – initially for the next 30 days only – the services of an electronic mail-out facility, whereby queries or requests for clarification of this long-awaited public announcement can be responded to by the persons concerned themselves, which will ensure that everybody registering their email address (simply by asking questions/ requesting clarification from a working email address of their own) simultaneously receives the same response.

The email address for the mail-out facility is: direct-route@actualfreedom.com.au.
Please direct all queries and requests for clarification of this long-awaited public announcement to that email address’. (Long Awaited Announcement).
Ha … just what will those 3,941 good citizens of Rockland County think when they find out that their editor – their editor, mind you, and not just the publisher with his musings – has finally flipped and joined the mail-out list of a ‘LOONY CULT’ of all things, eh?
Subscriber No. 18: GO DO SOMETHING NORMAL …
Richard: Hmm … do you mean go do ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ like killing one’s fellow human beings by the millions, with the blessing and full support of the state (which includes those 3,941 good citizens of Rockland County), perchance?
Perhaps if I were to put it this way: given that in the last 100 years 160,000,000 normal people were killed by their normal fellow human beings doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, in wars alone, there is the distinct possibility that the same or similar way of doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ will happen in the next 100 years … that is, some peoples now living and some peoples not yet even born, are going to go do ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ and kill (or be killed by their fellow human beings doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’) in some battle, some conflict, some hostilities, created solely by human beings doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, at some place on this otherwise fair planet we all live on.
In monetary terms, world-wide military spending, by human beings doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, for the year 2003, for example, was $997.2 billion.
For instance: there are 24 ‘major’ wars (wars with more than 1,000 casualties) currently occurring amongst peoples doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ as you read this – wherein people are actually killing and wounding and maiming, by doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, and being killed and wounded and maimed whilst doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ – and 22 ‘minor’ wars (wars with less than 1,000 casualties) also occurring amongst peoples doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ and 22 recently concluded or suspended wars, also amongst peoples doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’.
Furthermore, all the murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence by peoples doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides by peoples doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ (in the last 100 years an estimated 40,000,000 normal people killed themselves), will continue on unabated unless radical change occurs: someone, somewhere is being murdered, by someone doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, and someone, somewhere is doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ by murdering, as these words scroll past you; someone, somewhere is being tortured, by someone doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, and someone, somewhere is doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ by torturing (as detailed by ‘Amnesty International’), right now; someone, somewhere is doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ by being beaten up and someone, somewhere is doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’ by doing the beating, in yet another case of domestic violence, at this very instant; somewhere some child is being brutalised, by someone doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, and being thus frightened out of their wits, in yet another case of child abuse, by human beings doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, at this very moment; and such suffering, as sadness, loneliness, grief, depression, and so on, by peoples doing ‘SOMETHING NORMAL’, is going on in uncountable numbers of utterly miserable lives all around the world … and yet you see fit to shout out (in full caps cyber parlance), at your fellow subscribers to this ‘LOONY CULT’, to ‘GO DO SOMETHING NORMAL’?
Are you for real, No. 18?
Subscriber No. 18: … AND SHUT UP WITH YOUR FANTASY.
Richard: ‘Tis not a ‘FANTASY’ but a fact that the already always existing peace-on-earth is now apparent for more than just one human being (which always was, arguably, just a ‘freak of nature’ occurrence) and there is now no way of stopping yet more and more outbreaks of individual peace-on-earth happening, from now on, as this entirely fresh era to human history ushers in a new epoch of human experience.
Put simplistically (for emphasis): war is over, No. 18, if ‘you’ (the identity within) want it to be. (Direct Route, Richard to No. 18, 16 Jan 2010).

Adam-H: I’ve been continuing to think about this a bit, and I’m wondering if ‘neither expressing nor repressing’ is effectively what I have stumbled into with this. I’ve never quite thought about it this way, but is neither expressing nor repressing effectively the “actualization” of the “realization” that feeling bad is silly? (link)

The suggestion of getting back to feeling good first is to give you a chance of sorting out more sensibly, without being clouded by a range of affective feelings, what triggered (i.e. started) the diminishment of feeling good. [Richard]: “… any analysing and/or psychologising and/or philosophising whilst one is in the grip of debilitating feelings usually does not achieve much (other than spiralling around and around in varying degrees of despair and despondency or whatever) anyway.” Once you can think more clearly and identify the trigger that got you “stuck into a worry”, you can determine if it is suitable to either nip this feeling in the bud – if it turns out to be habit you already have well explored – or if you need to look deeper for a particular pattern, concept, belief or hoped-for reward.

When you identify a specific feeling, then you use this feature of the actualism method of neither expressing nor repressing both the good *and* bad affective feelings so that the third alternative may hove into view. You can find various descriptions how to deal with fear in the Selected Correspondence (2) or in Frequent Questions (for instance “How to End Fear”? and also “How to End Anger”?).

Cheers Vineeto