Journal de Henry

Chrono: I can relate to a lot of what you write. Especially the :

Henry: avoiding my problems and feelings and living in a false ‘actualist identity.’

Chrono: In my experience it has been that some part of me truly believed in those problems/ ideals/ dreams and persisting in feeling them. But also it’s because I am trying to ‘fix’ it while also experiencing those feelings. As an example, I would very often go into states of ‘limerence’ (a hellish state of being). During all of that time I thought that I could not apply the actualism method because of how acutely I felt the suffering, so I would have no choice but to apply real world methods. I went to counsellors and therapists and it did help but only in a ‘keeping my head above water’ kind of way. In the most intense periods of that state there would be the deep desire to end it and there was the desire to do whatever it takes, but I wasn’t sure how. Simply put, it can’t be done from there because ‘I am my feelings and my feelings are me’. It was only when I acknowledged that I had a subsequent realization that all I had to do was enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive. Right in there is the desire to be happy and harmless. I really did want to be happy and harmless. There’s no other path for me. When I realized that, I was able to enjoy life more consistently and felt more like I had autonomy. Something nothing in the real world has been able to offer. Everything in the real world is about ‘keeping my head above water’.

Hi Chrono,

It is a valuable insight that “everything in the real world is about ‘keeping my head above water’”, in line with what Sigmund Freud classified as the aim of psychiatry: to return patients “back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible (and ‘normal’ is categorised by Mr. Sigmund Freud as ‘common human unhappiness’)” (link). As such it is unreasonable to expect any more than keeping your head above water from counsellors and therapists.

However, when you say that “I thought that I could not apply the actualism method because of how acutely I felt the suffering” you seem to have forgotten, or overlooked, a vital ingredient of the actualist tools when applying the actualism method – when your mood falls below feeling good, first get back to feeling good. That, of course, includes recognizing and acknowledging the feeling which is happening (which can sometimes be made difficult by not wanting to recognize it because this might interfere with one’s self-image, or fighting the feeling, which automatically imbues it with a lot more affective energy).

Hence when you realize what feeling is happening, acknowledge it as being part of your genetic inheritance, and stop fighting it. From there it is much easier to get back to neutral and then to feeling good. Only then does it make sense to find out what triggered the feeling and draw the necessary conclusion from the event.

And once you fully take on board that “I am my feelings and my feelings are me” you have the choice of being a different feeling because it is simply silly, when you have the choice, to be something other than happy and harmless.

You might also discover that there is a certain amount of investment in keeping the suffering going (because of some good feeling you cherish, for instance) – elsewhere referred to the addiction of being a ‘being’ (link), and that is a further topic for contemplation. All this is to indicate that it’s not always straightforward to “activate delight”. Nothing can be swept under the carpet in the long run.

Chrono: All of that to say, it’s actually pretty simple. Just as Vineeto has suggested:

[Richard]: ‘To get out of ‘stuckness’ one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. Delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all … and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life … the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is … and one is the experiencing of what is happening. But refrain from possessing it and making it your own … or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared. (Richard, AF List, Alan, 13 Dec 1998).

You do not need to wait “clearing the cobwebs out of some ‘dark corners’ of myself”. Such an activity (in my experience anyway) becomes an exercise in keeping ‘my’ problems alive. You know what it is to feel good. You know what it is like to experience pure intent. Maybe go back through your journal and read through the experience and rememorate it again. Any problems are easily solved when you are feeling good. (link)

You are certainly right when feeling good, feeling better and feeling naïve any problems are more easily solved, or don’t even appear as such, but simply accepted as challenges in the game of becoming actually free.

Cheers Vineeto

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