Henry: My belief has been that people are inherently good – a sort of 'look for the good in people’, overlooking the obvious evils and bad vibes that are rife.
Part of this has had to do with seeing everyone as a mere victim – to circumstances, to their psychologies, to their upbringings. Ultimately helpless. Within this view, it is impossible to change and we just have to accept how things are. It conveniently lets everyone off the hook, including myself, for falling short. It means that any change must come from ‘outside,’ essentially from a god.
Yes, what makes this pernicious outlook more difficult to penetrate that it has now become the mainstream creed. And that it lets you off the hook makes it all the more attractive for those being content with second rate solutions. It’s good you are starting to see through the charade.
Henry: Everyone gets to be ‘good,’ (a mere victim) at the cost of being helpless. The effect of considering others and myself helpless is irresponsibility – a failure to take the necessary steps to change whatever it is that’s happening. If we are just victims, there’s no point in even trying, it’s better to just accept what’s happening.
Indeed, and thus the suicide rate is higher than ever. And so is the murder rate, given that even hardened criminals are considered mere victims who only need some therapy.
Henry: However, that isn’t the case. We do have the ability to appraise our situations and make different choices, to experiment, to dare to try something different.
As such, the entire narrative falls apart: I am not a victim, because I can do something different. And neither are anyone else. If they cared to, they could do differently. Everyone is only being the way they are because they’re too afraid to do anything different.
Indeed.
Richard: I was born of ordinary parents, was sent to an ordinary state school – receiving an average education until I was fifteen years of age – took an ordinary job and worked for a living. I eventually got married and had four children and bought a house and … in short, I was relatively normal and did all the expected things. Thus did I live my life for thirty two years according to the ‘tried and true’ methods as laid down by the countless millions of other humans that had lived before me. I tried my best to make their system work to produce the optimum result … but to no avail. Only then did I make the first and most important movement of my own volition … I discarded the ‘tried and true’ as being the ‘tried and failed’. (I did say ‘I was relatively normal’ because one thing, and one thing alone, stood out that distinguished me from whomsoever else I met: I wanted to know – as an actuality – just what it was to be a human being here on this planet, as this body, in this life-time.) [Emphasis added] (Richard, List A, No. 26)
It’s just as well that you have dealt “with fear and aggression” enough to dare to do something radically different – enjoy and appreciate being alive despite everyone playing the victim or pretending to play the victim.
Henry: And that is the evil present in me. That’s what I allow.
Ha, it looks as if you are starting to disallow it now. You might like this one –
Richard: Non-belief: My favourite subject as beliefs are the bane of humankind. Beliefs have been so instrumental in killing, maiming, torturing and otherwise causing such pain and suffering since the dawn of human history, that one wonders that they are given any credence at all these days. It behoves one to examine each and every belief – especially those that pass for ‘truths’ – and watch them disappear out of one’s life forever. It is so liberating to be free of beliefs – of believing itself – that I cannot recommend their elimination highly enough. One’s sense of identity is largely made up of beliefs … beliefs and feelings. In fact a belief is an emotion-backed thought. The vast majority of the beliefs that one carries are not invented by oneself; they were imbibed with the mother’s milk and added to thereupon up to the present day. They are inherited beliefs, put into the child with love and fear – reward and punishment. It is no wonder human beings are such a desperate lot. A ‘mature Adult’ is actually a lost, lonely and frightened entity careering around in confusion and delusion.
However, it is never too late to begin to undo that which has been done to you. One of the marvellous aspects of entering into actualism is that it is a wide and wondrous path full of delight and discovery … with some down-turns from time-to-time as the old ways reassert themselves. I will not pretend for a moment that all is rosy when one begins to dismantle one’s belief system; one’s very identity is at stake … not to mention the self. The identity and self will put up a good fight for they want to stay in existence as they have a lot to lose. To wit: their life. As the sense of self is firmly based upon the instinct for survival, it will get up to all kinds of tricks to retain and regain its ascendancy. But it is not a hopeless case: if I can do it, anyone can. I am not special. I was born of normal parents and went to an ordinary State school. I got a job and worked for a living like anyone else. I became married and raised a family. I claim no special abilities other than a determination to succeed in my desired ambition. In 1980 I had what is known as a ‘Peak Experience’ wherein I experienced the perfection and purity of the universe as-it-is. I was hooked! I devoted myself to the task of setting myself free of absolutely everything that stood in the way of attaining what I had experienced. The word ‘fail’ is not in my vocabulary. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 1, 26 June 1997).
Cheers Vineeto