Journal de Henry

Journals
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@FrankN good points, thank you!

Freedom is a goal, something that ‘I’ am trying to accomplish - I realized just now in looking up the below that that’s something that can be done with less & less desire itself.

”Richard had said that I needed to want it like nothing before. I pondered on what I had wanted before and recalled a simple childhood memory of being excited about going to the swimming pool when I was about 10 years old. There was this completely sincere and thrilling ‘jumping out of my skin’ desire to get in the pool. I was beginning to feel a similarly sincere thirst for oblivion.”

-From the Man from Sydney’s report of becoming free

” VINEETO: As ‘I’ am a feeling ‘being’ I cannot experience life devoid of feelings (unless in a PCE) – any ‘no-feelings’ are still feelings of dullness, lacklustre-ness, listlessness, resentment or boredom or are the result of one repressing one’s feelings and as such are not neutral at all.

From the three kinds of feelings – good feelings, bad feelings and felicitous feelings – the felicitous feelings are in fact the neutral feelings in that they render ‘me’ useless as my experience of life is already enchanting and delightful while both the good and the bad feelings give ‘me’ credence and sustenance and thus increase the dominance of ‘me’ as a feeler.

As Richard recommends –

Richard: I can recommend that one minimises the effect that both the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ feelings have on you (the enhancement of the ‘good’ feelings has been tried and tried again and again and has failed and failed again and again). The affective energy previously channelled into the vain attempt to combat the ‘bad’ with the ‘good’ is now released to expand the felicitous feelings which, along with sensuousness (another no-no in spirituality) and naiveté‚ will result in a wide-eyed wonder which may very well eventuate in apperceptiveness … given sufficient pure intent to bring about peace-on-earth by allowing the already always existing perfection to become apparent.

(Emphases mine)

Thanks for pointing this out though because it looks like I somewhat misunderstood the “channeling affective energy” as channeling energy into desire to become free, when really it’s channeling energy into the felicitous & innocuous emotions. Perhaps desire can still be used at times to get things started, but it can’t be depended on day-in, day-out to make progress.

Now I’m contemplating that “wanting like nothing before,” without desire… interesting :thinking::thinking::thinking:

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In the feeling world, “There is only one thing worse than not getting what you want; getting what you want”.

Very interesting discussion; what is “wanting without desire?”

Sounds like a koan.

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This has certainly been the case for me on numerous occasions! :sweat_smile:

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It seems the answer is intuited, desire has that hungry aspect to it, where wanting can be clean & simple

So I can badly want something, want it more than I’ve ever wanted, without desire being the forefront…

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Ok - re-reading @Srinath 's report of becoming free, he does cite desire several times as something he ramps up prior to becoming free, so he did find it useful to use - perhaps due to his ‘short runway’ approach?

“I was revving up my desire and then revving it up some more to paraphrase Richard.”

“There was this completely sincere and thrilling ‘jumping out of my skin’ desire to get in the pool. I was beginning to feel a similarly sincere thirst for oblivion.”

Interesting…

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Something similar happens to me Henry, if it is not a game app its instagram or write someone on txt apps. I noticed the bad effect last week I was on vacation, at the beach. Celphone obsession constantly spoiling the rest. What I found interesting is to observe the feeling that goes with that. Mostly anxiety and behind it resentment of being here or not being living x,y,z situation. Avoidance of simply enjoying being here, alive.

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Reading this correspondence that @geoffrey turned us on to the other day, ‘I’ am what is left when the high from these addictions to cell phones, apps, etc. wears off.

Richard: What you are (presumably) experiencing right now is ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am when all of the external causes of happiness, gladness, cheerfulness and so on are stripped away … and of course ‘I’ want to ‘play some more now’ because ‘I’ do not like being ‘me’.

Yet, perversely, ‘I’ am addicted to being ‘me’ … and it is this addiction which is why there is no peace on earth.

Not very pleasant, being ‘me’! So I wish to escape.

But then ironically I’m addicted to staying ‘me,’ too.

The only genuine escape is oblivion itself.

So then we can turn that same impulse, “this sucks! I want to escape” into, “by being fascinated with this moment, by enjoying this moment, then I am finishing the job” where the addictions are only ever a temporary ‘fix’

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Just now had a glimpse that all my problems are of my own creation and perpetuation

Playing soccer in perfect weather I was reminded of playing as a kid on the same field, days of clean ambience and delight

And there as an adult carrying this familiar heavy self around

It’s just me doing it, there’s no reason beyond that at all. Pure force of habit and a refusal to let things go

I’m in the way of really living, of all the potential and promise that life has. Nothing else than me.

Setting this memory as intent as much as I can.

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8|10|22

I want to be dating someone partly as a verification that I’m a remarkable person

But as long as I’m not living the purity of perfection, I know that I’m not, I know that I’m falling short

So even attaining my desire will not satisfy. I’ll know.

The dating someone is just a coverup, it’s to feel better about falling short.

Which changes what my goals are.

It means that I’ll need a different approach than I’ve had.

I don’t want to be mediocre anymore! I want to be excellent!

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I am approaching my destiny, and my destiny is approaching me.

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@henryyyyyyyyyy I’m right there with you.

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:ocean: :ocean:

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8|14|22

A few times lately I’ve found myself getting choked up when watching something and seeing someone being ‘the hero’ or ‘the champion’ that everyone celebrates and is proud of

A couple things I can already see

I don’t necessarily want to do all the things required to be a hero or champion in others’ eyes

I also have some physical or practical life limitations that make certain attainments impossible or at least unlikely

Like having a lot of money or being an olympic champion

It’s an environment I can feel safe in, those around me adoring me

So I fight to arrange things so that others around me are adoring me

Those are only ever temporary, that’s the addiction to being ‘me’

I can use the same addiction for a permanent safety, the safety of the actual world

The issue here is that I usually feel unsafe around people. Not knowing how they’ll react to me or treat me

I think I feel it at work a lot, knowing that sometimes people are aggressive or mean when they feel threatened. I’ve had a few jobs where that would happen a lot

Part of why I want to be special, remarkable, is so I can get that adoration and thus feel safe.

It’s dependent on always being able to manipulate the emotions of others so that they always ‘adore’

But their adoration is dependent on them being in an adoring mood… if they don’t feel good, they will not adore. It doesn’t matter what I accomplish.

I’ve noticed this in my fantasizing too, that I’m hunting around for something that will make me special so when I encounter a pretty girl they’ll be attracted to that ‘something special’

My whole life has been a rubbish bin of discarded ‘special things’ that I’ve tried out on girls to varying degrees of success

But never lasting success. There’s a return to the mean

Ha… literally mean

Identities

Trying to fool them into thinking I’m special

Trying to fool myself

Trying to be special

This is my chance. Becoming free

I’ve felt disappointed in the past because I’ve tried to use being an actualist as my ticket to specialness/adoration

But it doesn’t work that way. People don’t understand… plus I’m not free anyway. Just hopeful

Even if they were to understand, it wouldn’t guarantee adoration. It’s only a matter of time before people’s moods flip

So that adoration cycle is an addiction. It’s trying to make something transient into something permanent

The first thing I can do is stop chasing that addiction

The second thing is to discover that I’m already safe here

I’ve been pursuing girls to get away from myself, to escape from loneliness with beauty and social engagement

The fact of my experience is, I have a limit for how much social engagement I want. A few hours a day and I’m usually pretty topped up

That’s a bit of its own issue… learning to be around people without feeling that I need to entertain them

I think that was inculcated in me, I can see my mother behaving the same way

I can see myself hunting around for ‘what to do’ right now

I have a persistent fear around that. ‘What to do’

What’s supposed to be happening?

I want to be having fun, but I believe that I have to arrange things a certain way for that to happen

I believe that it’s inaccessible, that I’ve found myself in a blind alley with no way to get there

I’ve both made it conditional on some of those things that I may not be able to access from here

At the least I don’t know what steps to take

I’ve been adding debt to my life trying to hurry to a point where I can do something that I imagine might result in having a good time

But I don’t even have confidence about that. I’ve been quite discouraged in the social sphere because of the transience and mirage of adoration

When I was a little kid it was easy, people love little kids. Well… often. Not even then. But it was easier I think

Where it was hard was my peers even then

It wears you down to chase a mirage for decades

This intelligence knows it doesn’t work even as I try to pursue it

It undercuts my energy

When I was younger I could be more naive about it because I didn’t know it would fail over and over

I didn’t know how bad I would feel

Pretty much my worst fear has been being ‘normal’

Being ‘normal’ feels the same as death. I guess that’s what I’ve been trying to escape by various means

I don’t have to be normal, I can become free

Others will probably still project that I’m normal

I’ve even started to act more normal as I’ve seen that my ‘abnormal’ image wasn’t really getting me the results I wanted

My being counterculture mostly came from insecurity of not succeeding in the culture

I tried it out as another way to be special

I’ve tried to use the PCE for that too.

I’ve fallen back into my humanity over and over and over

Well, getting discouraged is just another way of putting it off

There is perfection here

I have to answer this question

What do I do? What is the best thing to do?

I have to learn by doing

I don’t even know what I’m interested in these days

Girls and video games. I’m like a high schooler

I feel embarrassed about that

I’m supposed to ‘grow up’

Some people would be impressed by me succeeding in the grown-up world

I’ve resisted that a lot in my life

By not being afraid of it I can make better decisions. Even if I don’t go that route.

What is the fear?

Probably being exhausted by it

Not having time for the things that I enjoy

Well that would be pretty silly if I took it that far. To where I was having less fun

The issue is that I have some beliefs that there is something to find there, that’s worth doing

Maybe there is. I’m not sure from my current position

I feel constrained

Time to sleep

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Your honesty is draining because it’s so accurate.

Yet, the premise I am working on is that it’s not the problem we think it is. The depth we fear, the endless longing which our intelligence knows is futile, is but a mirage. With a certain amount of this honesty, something will snap.

We will, at some point in the drama, have enough of it. Like, really have enough.

Right now I was doing some “noting” Al la, Vipassana.

Just noting again and again how much I resent my knees and legs, my hips. My hatred of this body morphs around. If it’s not one thing today, it will be another. How much honesty is needed? We shall see. No rationalisations will work.

Narcistic feelings are compensation for this hatred. It’s not enough just to be honest, one must also be sincere. It’s comical really. How can the entity being produced and sustained by this body have such vehement animosity towards it’s progenitor? What a bizarre state of affairs.

Shall I lean on another to make me feel better? How could another ever change my mind?

I am not special. I am in the midst of the vast herd of normal. Normal. What an abused place of comfort. Normal is a sickness. The endless hiding from the patent fact that none of us will ever be truly adored. As you say, what trick could you ever pull to ensure endless adoration?

Even the most remarkable and attractive are shunned by their significant others. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Need we say anything more? Not even they, in all their physical perfection could secure each other’s unending adoration.

What a mess. There is but a single ray of intelligent action; complete honesty and sincerity with a large and cheeky dash of comedy.

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This is still such a trigger for me. Like some films or tv shows showing bravery and sacrifice, I will cry like a baby.

I don’t even pretend to want to try and be a hero. What moves me more now is because I know I am nothing like that. In real world terms, I am a total coward. Actualism is probably the bravest thing I have ever done. It triggers me more because I value that so much it seems.

So true. It is tiresome, that vigilance. For me it is like a total reflex, like walking and breathing, I am just vigilant straight away. It is a big killer of current time awareness, which would be a more effective use of my attention rather than a fearful vigilant state lol.

Interesting, spots destroyed my chances and I just gave up. Made me more stubborn, I am me and I am not going to change for anybody, fuck you all. You put all that effort in and it still didn’t pay off lol.

95% of all my relationships happened since practicing actualism and the periods of greater felicity have directly correlated with periods of interest from women. With every relationship killing my momentum, but at least I got to learn more about how I tick and how love won’t be the cure to all humanity’s ills.

I chase the adoration, in the small ways. A smiler, a wink, a nice glance…I crave it so bad. I went to my mum’s house on my own on the weekend and travelled by bus and had several positive encounters with women and instantly killed my felicity. I was chasing a fix again or replaying the memory of the attention constantly because it gave me a dopamine fix.

I am trying to acknowledge that I’m safe here too. It seems so hard.

Wow, same. This is what I meant about the need for some form of exceptionalism. I even hated getting married, having kids and mortgage. It was so normal and it felt like a betrayal of my own values.

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Man I know this one so well, I spent so many years chasing this very thing as well and could see no way out. I just realised now that this thing has more or less entirely disappeared now.

What it took for me was to confirm for myself that there is something better than this craving-high cycle. A bit anticlimactic for the ending of a drama that lasted years but this seems to be it.

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There are moments when having an EE or when the felicity goes deeper, like borderline EE, and it seems I am more present and harder to fall into those habits.

The more brief moment of felicity established from HAIETMOBA or a wordless current time awareness tend to get disrupted quicker.

Going from another feeling state into the need for attention is even worse. It will get you out of a moment of sorrow or anger but trap you deeper in the lust cycle. It was a really hot heatwave day and with no intimacy with my wife now, the horniness, sexual tension is definitely starting to amp up again. I have forgotten what this is like.

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What I realised after writing about the crave-high cycle is that it seems the choice to abandon ‘being’ is no different. I am addicted to ‘being’ in the same way I am addicted to craving so that I can eventually have my high, or to fear so that I can have my security. It seems when I have truly had enough of ‘being’ with all that it entails that I can decide to self immolate.

I can see this on a smaller level with my need to find problems with life so that I can then come up with solutions, I do this so that I can continue ‘being’. It’s been the same with any other dramas that revolve around bouncing from bad to good.

It reminds me of the convo we had during one of the chats which was about the addiction to suffering so that I can have a relief from suffering.

In fact the above has finally clicked to me :grin: I am addicted to suffering because it ensures ‘being’. I am not ready yet to take the path of no return, I want to continue that cycle of suffering and relief because it ensures ‘being’. I do not want to end suffering yet, I have a stake in it still.

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Yes, the whole thing is a mirage

I’ve been going a bit slower in my investigations because when I’ve tried to hurry it with abstractions the investigations haven’t stuck. So far that approach has been more effective. If I can punch enough holes in my reality, it’s a lot more flimsy.
It has helped me to be more engaged with my desires. It has brought sincerity out in me. All parts of me want to understand this, to do it well. It has made me quite uncomfortable at times, which I take as encouragement. I’ve been too dissociated in the past to make progress, it’s nice having this sincerity. It’s a breath of fresh vitality.

Precisely

:ok_hand:

Yes… it’s in my very nature. I sustain myself, sustain this body, sustain this species, through hatred. Through fearful groveling. That is ‘me’ operating as designed.

@Andrew @son_of_bob Yes, ‘normal’ is probably a kind of retirement from trying. It’s too discouraging trying all the time… in the USA we have a derogatory term, ‘tryhard’ for people that try to do things. What cruel creatures we are. And it’s all born of this constant competition to be special, to get that adoration. We’ll tear eachother down any chance we get. If someone else is lower, that means I’m one step higher on the rung.

I just read something (was it on this forum? I can’t remember…) that was saying that the world’s richest people don’t spend all their money because the money itself is the value… that dollar amount is the status symbol which is more valuable than anything they could buy with the money. That makes perfect sense. Anything we spend money on is just to try and be special. The acquisition of money or accomplishment is just another bid for specialness.

:ok_hand: :ok_hand:

Abandoning the need for adoration… what a bold move… and yet, it is what can result in peace.

This morning one of my coworkers was acting very strangely, almost like a clown - trying to get some reaction out of me. I could see she was my mirror, all the antics I get up to to be liked. It’s so exhausting and ridiculous. Whatever ‘accomplishment’ is no different, just a different tactic.

It’s time, @son_of_bob! Each step of investigation, each new step toward felicity, is going deeper into the hinterland of humanity. Facing your own cowardice is bravery itself, and everything humanity has yearned for is on the other side. It’s all worth it. I have such an appreciation for you and everyone here who is facing this down. Facing down their humanity.

I’ve seen before that seeing fear itself is the most frightening thing, it’s like placing two mirrors facing eachother. That fear can mount infinitely. It is courage itself to go there.

With those investigations come confidence. With confidence the real-world fearlessness comes too. I’m facing down all these real-world investigations around girls for about the 1,000th time and it is getting easier. That is the real-world success and fearlessness coming around, almost as a side-effect. It’s part of what gets ‘me’ on board with all of this.

I think that it is who ‘I’ am, distilled. Richard describes the self as this snivelling frightened lonely thing. You’ve found yourself :stuck_out_tongue:

Some motivation for me has been not wanting to be pathetic anymore. I will do what is necessary to not be a sad excuse for an adult. I will die for this.

I remember doing an investigation a couple years ago sitting in front of a mirror and making a sincere appraisal of the person I saw. As if I had just met myself for the first time. And what I saw was a pathetic person. I exuded it. And I’m realizing now that that’s the core of my investigation last night as well. I feel pathetic, I yearn for adoration to ‘prove’ that I’m not pathetic, I fall short, and I hunt for some other way to prove it. That’s what the whole drama is about. But there is only one permanent solution to being pathetic, and that is to not ‘be’ at all.

In the meantime I can be less pathetic bit by bit.

This is just another way to cover up the pain, I think. I’ve recently seen that anger comes directly on the heels of sadness… aggression to fight my way out of the sad loneliness that is ‘me’

Everything that happens educates us on ‘humanity’ and/or the actual… it’s true that nothing can go wrong

Ah! So you haven’t given up!

It’s funny how we can hold these contradictory beliefs

You’ve had PCEs and EEs, right? ‘You’ aren’t safe in ‘yourself,’ ‘you’ is suffering itself. But the actual world is safe… when you can get the scent of the actual world in your nose, the safety is intuited there

I’ve noticed you speaking a lot about how much you’ve enjoyed creativity as an addiction… one aspect of creative work is fascination, which is also an attribute of apperception. I’ve been leaning a lot on fascination lately to propel me, it’s something that ‘I’ can connect with. The more fascination, the closer I am to the actual world, and the safety becomes clear. It’s when I go the other way, deeper into me – or, deeper into one of ‘my’ many addictions – that I feel less & less safe.

From this perspective it’s impressive we continue to suffer. I’m in a bubble of suffering surrounded by perfection

The crazy thing about the actual world is it’s even bigger than this… ‘I’ remember experiencing strangeness upon discovering the actual world, discovering the situation, so I think ‘I’ have to be strange… but the strangeness is much, much bigger than ‘my’ strangeness…

I think you see this a lot in people that have experimented with substances, they think the answer is to get weirder & weirder

:ok_hand:

I see it as, I still think I can ‘win’ somehow. The dissociation is like going into hibernation in hopes that in a few years everyone will realize how special I am :sweat_smile:

Oh dear, what a situation. ‘I’ can’t seem to understand that there’s a time limit on this, I will die one day. I could spend decades in dissociation. Almost like in chess, moving the same piece back & forth, stalling for time. Truly pathetic.

Geoffrey described in one of the chats that in the fairy tales, the story is that we’re born in a boring little no-name village, and then one day it’s revealed: I’m actually the son of the king! And everyone realizes how special I am, and showers prizes and adoration on me, as I properly deserve. Think Luke Skywalker…

On some level I believe I’m Luke Skywalker, and it’s very annoying that no one else sees that… ‘I’ have to keep coming up with these fake identities to chase attention… how obnoxious! And any day surely they will realize…

It’s all playing out in my head, in my psyche

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That is so helpful henryyyyyyyyyyy , :appreciation: