James' Journal

James: Been pulling myself up by my bootstraps and the results are paying off. I have been experiencing enjoyment and appreciation slowly but surely. How sweet it is! (link)

Hi James,

Good to hear from you and I am glad you “been experiencing enjoyment and appreciation” despite “the uncertainty of my various health conditions”. (link)

I looked up the term ‘pulling oneself up by the bootstraps’ which ‘Peter’ introduced and ‘he’ and ‘Vineeto’ made use of on several occasions. They both used it in a similar sense of ‘getting back to feeling good’ as quickly as possible but with a hint that it sometimes was an effort to extract oneself from the glue of the ubiquitous human condition.

‘VINEETO’: There is something else that helps me and that is to remember to be friends with myself and rather than being down on myself for being irritated or fearful to instead give myself a pat on the back for noticing that I was. This way it’s much easier to pull myself up by my bootstraps and to get back to being happy again in no time. It’s a persistent habit to break, this telling myself off for not being perfectly happy for 24hrs a day, but I do notice it much quicker these days than I used to. Then it is not so much a matter of weening myself off the ‘trough of the Human Condition’, as you call it, but more a slipping out of ‘my’ skin and sensately – and sensuously – enjoying being here.
I also had to realize that after I’ve been through certain intense feelings and passions there is nothing further to be learned from staying in the feeling. I used to be suspicious of Richard’s expression of ‘nipping the feeling in the bud’, ostensibly for the reason that it could be confused with repressing the feeling. But now I realized that I was also avoiding the technique itself because ‘I’ wanted to hang onto being ‘the explorer’ of deep passions whenever they occurred and I can see now that there is neither meaning nor value in ceaselessly examining an instinctual passion over and over and over again. In other words I have come to understand that no valuable insight is to be gained from deeply and repeatedly feeling fear – the most prominent of the passions for me – and this understanding has greatly helped to simply notice and label the feeling, in this case my fear of oblivion, and then get on with enjoying this moment of being alive, which is after all the point of actualism. (V – Actual Freedom Mailing List Correspondence Gary – 7))

Richard used the expression only once (“writ large”) in this quote –

Richard: Speaking personally from experience, eventually – and ultimately – all the instincts are undone instantly via psychological and psychic ‘self’-sacrifice. This is, purely and simply, altruism at its very best … and altruism’s energy is an instinctual passion (this is indeed hoisting oneself by one’s bootstraps … writ large). However, until the initiation of the process that leads to ‘self’-immolation is consciously triggered – whereupon the ending of ‘me’ happens of its own accord – one can become acutely aware of the operation of the instinctual passions as they are experienced moment-to-moment. It is but the same ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ investigation of beliefs and feelings … only extended deeper into one’s psyche.
Strangely enough, it does mean an exploration into the psychic realm … which is why it is essential that one first establishes a firm base – called virtual freedom – to fall back upon when the going gets tough. A journey into one’s psyche – which is the human psyche – is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee … one must have nerves of steel to go all the way. The rewards for doing so are immense, however, and the ramifications far-reaching.
It means peace-on-earth, in this life-time, as this flesh and blood body. (Mailing List 'AF' Respondent Mark)

And here is one just for fun –

JAMES: … I speak with personal experience because I have been in two cults in the past. One of them was very similar to this one which is why I think I initially identified with this one so well. I have extreme reservations about sending this to this list because I am sure it will be denied …
RICHARD: Yes, as I understand it, from the information provided to this Mailing List by several concerned people, I cannot know that it is a cult because I am in denial … so, given that you too see that I am in denial (‘I am sure it will be denied’), perhaps you can throw a little light on the matter for me if I share with you something from my personal life that I am currently involved in up to my neck (some would say obsessed with).
Four-five years ago I purchased a computer for the first time: at the time I considered it a major achievement if I could manage to get cash out of an ATM and I was incapable of tuning my TV and VCR (I arranged to get them tuned from the shop I purchased them from as part of the deal) so I searched around for someone who demonstrably knew about computing and who was willing to share their expertise with me.
So as to ensure anonymity I will call the person I found ‘Rachael’ and the name of the small company she was a director of ‘Bootstrap Computers’: I came to look upon Rachael as my mentor as she was only too happy to take the time to coach me through, not only the early stages of learning about the computer’s software programmes, but even through the more advanced stages wherein, thanks to her guidance and tutelage, I was coming into direct contact with the deeper aspects of the (to me at least) arcane world of computer hardware. For the sake of convenience she called the system she had devised to assist people like me ‘bootstrapism’ and digitally provided brochures, pamphlets, articles and books (there are even two that are for sale in paper-back form).
However, I have since found out – the more I became drawn into the intricacies of the computer condition – that not only was there a coterie that had formed around Rachael and the Bootstrap Computers organisation – but that I was starting to use the same-same lingo as all these other bootstrapists that she had sucked into her … dare I say it … her cult. And to think that all this was because I was ignorant enough to take advice from another – to follow another’s advice – instead of starting off from scratch (painting symbols on cave walls with various iron oxides and subsequently inventing pencils, pens, paper, typewriters and thence computers) in isolation from my fellow human beings.
Now, here is my problem: I have confronted her again and again – I have even hurled gutter invective against her and/or her followers using all the satirical criticism I can muster – but she steadfastly maintains that bootstrapism is not a cult and that she is not a cult-leader … and not even unknowingly a cult-leader being deviously used by her followers at that. Obviously, seeing that she denies all the charges levelled against her, she is in denial too.
What should I do … especially as I still want to learn about computers? (Richard, AF List, James, 12 Jul 2001).

You have come a long way since then, James – and now you can really enjoy and appreciate the tangible practical results of “bootstrapism” – “how sweet it is!”

It is truly marvellous.

Cheers Vineeto

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