I’ve been looking into what it means to be ‘happy and harmless’ when the rubber meets the road.
It obviously means both absence of sorrow and malice as feelings, both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings. Somehow it helps me to think of this in subtractive (rather than additive) terms. Knowing what is not there, makes evident what is there in its place (feeling good, a felicity and innocuity, all the way to an enjoyment & appreciation).
II.
Based on my learnings from the WomanFromNov, I made a pact with myself to be as honest as to my desires as possible with any subsequent woman. No games, just being frank from the get go. The idea being that if there’s a mismatch in our desires, we can part ways amicably instead of wasting weeks/months playing layered narratives.
Onfray’s Solar Erotics (link) perfectly captures this. So, I thought, if there’s no ‘mutual attraction’ (which is what I’d want, normally) from the get go, we can just go our ways.
III.
But Onfray’s Solar Erotics overlooks the ‘happy and harmless’ part. By playing the Solar Erotics game, I’m still be operating under the paradigm of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, and in particular the ‘good’ feeling of (unilateral) attraction, which doesn’t feel good at all. This attraction (an instant hedonic pleasure) is one final aspect of the socialized desire I had been holding on to, and now – with the sincere intent to be happy and harmless (because duh) – I’m ready and willing to decline it once and for all. And open myself to intimacy aka. ‘closeness’ akin to the immediacy of my PCEs (link).
I quite like all of this. Contrary to what I had thought, it is radical … and I like being radical.
Syd:
I. I’ve been looking into what it means to be ‘happy and harmless’ when the rubber meets the road.
It obviously means both absence of sorrow and malice as feelings, both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings. Somehow it helps me to think of this in subtractive (rather than additive) terms. Knowing what is not there, makes evident what is there in its place (feeling good, a felicity and innocuity, all the way to an enjoyment & appreciation).
II. Based on my learnings from the WomanFromNov, I made a pact with myself to be as honest as to my desires as possible with any subsequent woman. No games, just being frank from the get go. The idea being that if there’s a mismatch in our desires, we can part ways amicably instead of wasting weeks/months playing layered narratives.
Onfray’s Solar Erotics (link) perfectly captures this. So, I thought, if there’s no ‘mutual attraction’ (which is what I’d want, normally) from the get go, we can just go our ways.
Hi Syd,
I cannot help but comment on your latest plan after “looking into what it means to be ‘happy and harmless’ when the rubber meets the road”, especially since at least one other person wholehearted approves of your choice of proceeding.
From the AI summary of the philosophy of this obscure French philosopher Michael Onfray –
“Michel Onfray mounts a vigorous defense of hedonism” -
“Drawing from Epicurus and Lucretius, Onfray suggests that we should treat sexual encounters as the meeting of “atoms” seeking equilibrium and joy.”
“… we must strip away the “priestly” guilt that teaches us to be ashamed of our skin and our senses”
“To love is to give what one has (pleasure) to someone who gives it back” (link)
“Onfray argues for a ‘Reasoned Hedonism’”. (link)
Michael Onfray, in his various suggestions, stays true to the “reasoned hedonism”, in particular the stripping away of guilt – the conscience put in place by society to curb the excesses of the animal instinctual passions.
Regarding stripping away of guilt –
Richard: Warning: It is an utterly fundamental proviso that pure intent [1] be dedicatorily in place – as an overriding/ overarching life-devotional goal which takes absolute precedence over all else – before any such whittling away of the otherwise essential societal/ cultural conditioning be undertaken.[2]
[Tool-tips]:
[1] Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself.
[2]• [Richard]: “(…) the social identity cannot safely be whittled away unless there be the pure intent to be happy and harmless, each moment again, born of the PCE, because this socialised conscience, the moral/ethical and principled entity with its inculcated societal knowledge of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (cultural values), has been implanted for a very good reason.
It is there to control the wayward self which lurks within the human breast … which is why dedication to peace-on-earth is paramount.” (Richard, AF List, No. 25b, 24 Jun 2003).
(Actual Freedom Library, Social Identity)
Here is what Richard has to say to someone equating the actualism method (feeling good) with hedonism. (The respondent’s elder brother was by disposition an unapologetic narcissist, hence his own strong objection to feeling good) –
Respondent:‘(…) In my personal experience: having ‘feeling good’ as an aim – and then trying to feel good – sucks. But having an aim that does feel good, and then using ‘feeling good’ as a guide to whether or not one is on track with that aim, doesn’t suck, and makes sense’. (…) Richard: […] It is pertinent to note, at this point, that the root cause of sorrow – and, hence, malice (e.g., the ‘basic resentment’ above) – is being forever locked-out of paradise. (…)
Not surprisingly, the word innocent (as in, ‘harmless’, ‘innoxious’; ‘sinless’, ‘guiltless’; ‘artless’, ‘naive’; ‘simple’, &c.) stems from the same root as the word nocent (as in, ‘harmful’, ‘hurtful’, ‘injurious’; ‘guilty’, ‘criminal’, &c.) does … namely: the Latin nocēns, nocent-, pres. part. of nocēre, ‘to harm’, ‘hurt’, ‘injure’, with the privative ‘in-‘ affixed as a prefix (i.e., in- + nocent). Viz.:
• innocent (in′ȱ-sënt), a. and n. [‹ ME. innocent, innosent, ‹ OF. (also F.) innocent = It. innocente, ‹ L. innocen(t-)s, harmless, blameless, upright, disinterested, ‹ in- priv. + nocen(t-)s, ppr. of nocere, harm, hurt: see nocent]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).
• nocent (nō′sënt), a. and n. [‹ L. nocen(t-)s, ppr. of nocere, harm, hurt, injure]. I. a. 1. hurtful; mischievous; injurious; doing hurt: as, ‘nocent qualities’. 2. guilty; criminal; nocently (adv.): in a nocent manner; hurtfully; injuriously [rare]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).
(Richard, List D, No. 4b, 4 Jul 2015)
Syd: III. But Onfray’s Solar Erotics overlooks the ‘happy and harmless’ part. By playing the Solar Erotics game, I’m still be operating under the paradigm of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, and in particular the ‘good’ feeling of (unilateral) attraction, which doesn’t feel good at all.
Indeed, Michael Onfray does not only overlook “the ‘happy and harmless’ part”, he rejects it altogether by suggesting “stripping away of guilt” which disregards the other person as a fellow human being – they are to be merely business partners in a negotiated contract of exchanging goods.
Syd: This attraction (an instant hedonic pleasure) is one final aspect of the socialized desire I had been holding on to, and now – with the sincere intent to be happy and harmless (because duh) – I’m ready and willing to decline it once and for all.
Do I understand you correctly that you are saying that you now disregard the hedonistic contracts à la Onfray? So is the ‘French Cuisine’ not all it’s made out to be?
However, your theoretical summary and ‘plan’ makes no sense because you are not merely “operating under the paradigm of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings” – you are your feelings, both ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and remain so unless/ until you are actually free. Hence you cannot merely rationally decide to stop doing it. How do you ‘plan’, “once and for all” to decline attraction, i.e. your sexual desire, without repressing it – it is an instinctual feeling after all?
Syd: And open myself to intimacy aka ‘closeness’ akin to the immediacy of my PCEs (link).
How will you open yourself “to intimacy aka ‘closeness’ akin to the immediacy of my PCEs” when you haven’t experienced any ‘closeness’ with another person in your PCEs. You were on your own in your room when they happened. I distinctly remember that you reported about the first ‘Microsoft PCE’ that you left the house for a short period and the PCE stopped, and then started again when you returned home. Hence you have no experiential information regarding “intimacy aka ‘closeness’” so far, only an “immediacy experience” with the objects in the room (syds-pce-logs).
Syd: I quite like all of this. Contrary to what I had thought, it is radical … and I like being radical. (link).
What would be radical – radically different from how you operated most of your life – is to leave/ quit ‘the philosophy and planning department’ and naïvely experimentally and experientially explore the world of people and events, with the sincere intent firmly in mind to be harmless and happy as much as humanly possible.
I put ‘harmless’ first, because for many it is the more difficult aspect of an actualist’s sincere intent. (Btw, sincere, as used on the website, does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts).
James: Vineeto, This above quote has helped me to understand why I have only experienced pure intent while in a PCE. It’s because as you said above: “because that “genuinely occurring stream” is always outside of ‘you’.” (link)
Hi James,
Here is the quote in context –
Vineeto to Syd: Secondly, I also recommend before trying to genuinely experience pure intent to first aim for understanding, and living, sincere intent, which is to be harmless and happy as much as humanly possible. I put ‘harmless’ first, because for many it is the more difficult aspect of an actualist’s sincere intent. (Btw, sincere, as used on the website, does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts).
When this intent is firmly imbedded and actualised, i.e. apparent to yourself and others in your daily actions you are in a much better position to grasp the experiential meaning of pure intent. In other words, you can only experience this “genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity” when in your daily life you are as benevolent and benign as a feeling being can be – because that “genuinely occurring stream” is always outside of ‘you’. (Actualvineeto, Syd, 14 Feb 2026).
Remember, when you were reporting –
James: I saw what I’ve been doing wrong. I’ve been trying to make an inner connection to pure intent and pure intent is not inner. It is outer. As soon as I saw that my senses perked up. The wind became stronger and the sounds became louder. The waves on the water started shimmering. Everything became brighter. I am confident that I can make a connection to pure intent now. (5Nov24)
And two days after this discovery you had a PCE (7Nov24) which lasted for about 24 hrs.
You also said –
James: ps: My catalyst was seeing there is no inner and outer world. There is only the actual world. (8Nov24)
In the context of “that genuinely occurring stream is always outside of ‘you’” it means, when you direct your attentiveness, and sensuousness, away from the inner world together with its contingent outer world and direct it outside of ‘you’, towards the already always existing actual world, apperceptiveness (a PCE) can happen at any time.
Are you sure Onfray is advocating for stripping away of guilt per se? He is rather talking about stripping away the Christian anti-sex morality (including guilt about sex), which people have successfully done away with it. Indeed, the sexual revolution of the 60s, which you lived through, largely involved shedding those anti-sex religion-inspired attitudes (even though it has taken different forms today), but you surely don’t consider sexual freedom to be harmful?
In regards to “disregard the other person as a fellow human being”, what I find interesting is that my modus operandi with the WomanFromNov largely operated as that (disregard her as a fellow human being) the moment those love feelings usurped, as I was solely focused on my own feelings.
It would have been better, both for me and her, for me to have been honest about my desires as Onfray advocates (and even more so if I had being happy and harmless as overarching priority), though I can’t say if I would have wanted to go as far as to establish a ‘contract’.
Back when I used to eat normal food, I’ve always preferred the likes of Subway sandwiches to the visually-pleasant-but-unpalatable French cuisine.
And no, that is not a theoretical plan, as I’ve already been putting it into practice, rather successfully in fact, simply as a result of making being happy and harmless an overriding or overarching priority in life. Why you found it fitting to equate what I said with ‘sexual desire’ despite my use of the ‘socialized desire’ qualifier is beyond me. Perhaps the word ‘attraction’ doesn’t connote the same thing for both of us? The whole attraction-complex dovetails into various feelings, attitudes, etc. … touching upon even self-perception (which is more foundational than self-evaluation of REBT). I’ve written about it before:
SYD (3 weeks ago): What I’m discovering so far is that sexual arousal per se (in response to visual stimulus) doesn’t disrupt feeling good. That bodily arousal (the electrifying feelings generally between diaphragm and sexual center) in conjunction with the corresponding hedonic pleasure, in fact, is rather a brief pleasure to be enjoyed (sometimes cheekily) for that brief period. It is everything else that happens after that affectively, that’s the problem. I’m still exploring all the components of that ‘everything else’ (including covert forms of hope) but it is easy to pay attention to and decline (as necessary).
‘Attraction’ is then a foundational layer of that “everything else” upon which those other “components” rest. Note also how I describe raw ‘sexual desire’ (arising in response to, say, a curvaceous silhouette as distinct from a corpulent one of prodigious girth) as something that can simply be enjoyed as a brief pleasure (there’s nothing to ‘decline’ at all here).
So, by ‘decline’ I mean - understand (in real-time), tease out, decline going down this familiar route, and choose to stay on the course of being happy and harmless - which, I should add, is now increasingly being seen as a very tangibly pleasant way of being (which understanding then reinforces that sincere intent to keep doing it). As for “once and for all”, I should have used “finally” instead … as in: “I’m, finally, ready and willing to decline it.”.
I’ve indeed experienced a version of ‘closeness’ as indicated at the bottom of that linked post: “I am already starting to have an inkling of how this [immediacy] takes the form of ‘intimacy’ with fellow human beings, and it indeed seems quite delicious, but I’ll refraim from writing about it until I have sufficient experience.”.
I’ll figure it out as I go along.
If you were to be privy to every text exchanged, words uttered, actions performed between myself and the WomanFromNov, you would have surely put ‘happy’ before ‘harmless’ in this particular context.
I do understand what you are saying: happy & harmless are two sides of the same coin. Inseparable. The “when the rubber meets the road” and “’ll focus on the above” above experientially involved discovering the sensibility and felicity of being both – happy and harmless – in tandem. As in, I truly see this. “Yes, this is how I want to be.” kinda of sincerity. The ‘radicality’ for me lies in both (finally) minimizing of what I had so far been putting off (during “how [I] operated most of [my] life”) with gusto … and the inevitably concomitant prioritizing of happiness and harmlessess (contrary to what everyone else has been doing) with zest. What originally prompted me to fully consider all this was your saying that “[I] can only experience this “genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity” when in [my] daily life [I am] as benevolent and benign as a feeling being can be – because that “genuinely occurring stream” is always outside of ‘me’” (link); that’s what made the reliable ‘connection’ in intent, so to speak, between my own PCEs and how I genuinely want to experience each and every moment.
In regards to “[sincerity] does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts”, what does that mean in detail? Are you referring to rememorating one’s PCEs (else why use ‘facts and actuality’)?
This is very simple and yet so important, I am certainly taking note of this for myself. Of course the words happy and harmless as presented on the AFT website do not refer to separate items, it is one package of felicity and innocuity. However it is so easy (I have done it myself) to turn actualism into a pursuit of ‘my’ happiness, which in practice means cunningly pursuing and reinforcing the good feelings and conveniently ignoring their opposite bad feelings. In fact I can observe this bias in myself, that the word harmless can almost become like an addition that comes after happy, an after-thought let’s say. And of course when approaching it that way ‘I’ only spin round and round in self-centred circles. Also I notice in myself that often it took exactly that commitment to harmlessness in order to give up some long held and dear aspect of ‘me’, otherwise if it is just for ‘me’ then ‘I’ might as well remain the same! It is the recognition of what ‘I’ am doing by remaining as ‘I’ am which can break the cycle and this requires that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’.
So it is useful to turn this around and ask myself am ‘I’ first of all being harmless? And interestingly enough happiness comes rather easily when ‘I’ am being harmless to begin with, harmlessness provides a stable platform for ongoing happiness. But the most important part of this, I think, is that the commitment to harmlessness requires that ‘my’ self-centredness progressively diminishes, which means that ‘I’ am then ready to radically change.
This reminds me of something you wrote a while back (paraphrasing) that it is a shame that the recent generation of actualists does not share the same sincere commitment for peace on earth. I remember I took that as a bit of an insult, like “what do you mean!? I am an actualist after all”. And yet it is true that harmlessness has been an afterthought!
But she’s right. I remember Geoffrey and Srinath were the only ones to “just” go for it while the rest of us were moaning and groaning (no wonder they had to take a break from Slack) … and they are now reaping the rewards. They continue to remain my main ‘role models’ in regards to actual freedom, more so than the initial pioneers in fact.
I also see this from the standpoint of peeling off onion layers. I think Claudiu described it as ‘spiral progress’ or somesuch thing. Each of us go at our own pace. There’s nothing to complain about though, because we are having fun in the process, right?
I guess it can be said that ‘Geoffrey’ and ‘Srinath’ dared to care. I do remember Srinath mentioned to me a while back that this was one of the last puzzle pieces that clicked for ‘him’ before self-immolation - caring.
When I first got involved with actualism it was only the first wave that became actually free and after briefly giving it a go I decided to put it to one side for a few years, it seemed so unlikely that anyone else could do it at the time, plus the general proceedings on the forums were kind of weird. And then about 5 years later I came back to find that Geoffrey and Srinath had indeed become actually free! I even remembered Srinath from the forums back when he was still a feeling being, around the time I gave up. So that was massively encouraging for me too, in that those dudes that I saw as feeling beings, had become actually free in the time I gave up on it all, well actually Geoffrey came in and became actually free all in my absence haha. So yeah it can’t be understated just what benefit it is to others when the next person becomes actually free.
What did Srinath mean in explicit detail by that ‘puzzle piece’ of ‘caring’, if I may ask?
I do remember Richard saying that ‘daring’ and ‘caring’ amounts to the same thing:
RESPONDENT:As you have probably gathered I am currently just fact finding and thoroughly enjoying the Actual Freedom web site without having the ‘pure intent’ or indeed the bravery to literally move down the path to actual freedom.
RICHARD: Ahh … courage (and pusillanimity) is another topic: suffice to say for now that daring comes from caring.
I don’t believe he’s referring to affective caring, although it can be a genesis of it:
JAMES:I see that we’re all in the same boat in that we all share the same human condition at root. However, something is missing in that I don’t care about doing it for everybody. This altruistic instinct sounds a lot like ‘love’. The only time I recall feeling altruistic was when I felt ‘love’ and I know that is not what you are talking about. I have also called it oneness in the past when I experienced that I was one with everyone.
RICHARD: Start with where one is at now (where one is not yet at will emerge of its own accord as one proceeds): as you say ‘I don’t care about doing it for everybody’ – implying that ‘I’ only care about doing it for ‘me’ – then that is where ‘I’ am at now.
Do ‘I’ feel the feeling of caring about doing it for ‘me’ or not?
JAMES:So anyway, you are saying this is done by minimising both the good and bad feelings and maximising the felicitous (happiness, delight, etc.).
RICHARD: That is what one can do in the meanwhile for immediate benefit … it also has the added advantage of preparing the way.
JAMES:I do understand about minimising both the good and bad feelings as I have been down the road of trying to eliminate the bad while maximising the good. It is clear that I can’t have the good without the bad.
RICHARD: Exactly … and thus the way is cleared to be launched upon the adventure of a lifetime.
JAMES:Sorry for all the repetition. I was just trying to get at what’s missing. It is obvious now that what is missing is altruism. You said above that altruism is a group instinct and this instinct is just not activated. I can only see altruism in terms of love and compassion and that is not it.
RICHARD: Indeed not – in this context love and compassion lead to ‘self’-surrender not ‘self’-sacrifice – whereas benevolence is the key to altruistic ‘self’-immolation for the benefit of this body and that body and every body.
Hummmm “the electrifying feelings generally between diaphragm and sexual center” that you describe as a “bodily arousal”, are nothing other than the sensation of the hormones triggered off by the affective feelings of sexual desire (aka lust), concomitantly wrapped in and enshrouded by that very feeling of lust in and of itself. As you understood in 2012:
In other words, it already is affective, and with no affective feeling to trigger off in the first place, no hormones would have been produced, and thus no “bodily arousal” would happen like you describe here, with no further “everything else that happens after that affectively”.
Or that is to say: by the time those “electrifying feelings” are being felt, the “problem” has already happened.
Now in actualism we categorize feelings with a three-category system: ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘felicitous’. ‘Desire’ does, of course, firmly fall into the ‘good’ feelings category – while the actualism method is to minimize both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and maximize the ‘felicitous’ ones.
It should be re-iterated of course that ‘good’ feelings do, ehhh, feel pleasurable, lol, lest they would not be called ‘good’. But “feeling pleasurable” is not the actualism method, as Richard explicated to you in 2016:
Just as glee (in the sense above) feels pleasant, so, too does lust! You can find many examples of people, ehhh… enjoying the pleasures of the feeling of lust, on various websites on the internet with ‘hub’ in the name.
It should also be noted that lust has been evolved by nature over millions of years, to not only feel almost irresistibly pleasurable, but to also be highly addicting as well… all for the purpose of blindly propagating the species as furiously and powerfully as can be done. Indeed, much of the modern civilizational framework (with all the morals, mores, and ethics) specifically evolved (culturally rather than biologically) to rein in this powerful force and channel that chaotic energy into productive means. One would be well-advised not to strip away such morals from one’s own life before a better means of dealing with that which they are meant to control be firmly established and committed to, due to the sheer potency of these passions under discussion.
All that to say that you may have better luck with the actualism method by minimizing lust itself in the first place, rather than enjoying it (briefly or not) and thus endorsing it, and then trying to somehow prevent all that inevitably flows from that initial root cause.
(To forestall a predictable response by any reader seeing this, this is not advice to suppress lust either, as the actualism method is to neither express nor suppress the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’ feelings, along with all that entails.)
Perhaps this shall help clarify the current discourse as it seems you may be talking at cross-purposes[1] w/ Vineeto here.
Cheers,
Claudiu
“If two or more people are at cross purposes, they do not understand each other because they are talking about different subjects without realizing this.” (Cambridge Dictionary) ↩︎
Oh, yes, I do agree. At its core, lust is affective, with hormonal sensations (I can feel them even in my teeth & tongue, for instance, not just between diaphragm and sexual center) following suit. And yes, they are highly pleasurable (love the kenjataimu hubs). On their own, they do not diminish my feeling good, or at least not for longer as I can swiftly come back.
That is to say, I do not see how I’m a danger to other people. Rest assured that, if a female of the species is harmed at all because of me, it will never be of sexual or physical nature.
Yes, very soon I’ll get there naturally (as the higher level feelings are sorted out). I know that what you wrote is not repression because of the specific context in which this would happen: “all of the affective energy channelled into being as happy and harmless as is humanly possible” (link).
Yes. Two things to note here:
I’d rather Vineeto point out any and all errors (going off the actualism path) in what I write even at the risk of ‘talking at cross-purposes’
I’m also quite happy to clarify my thinking such as to help the other person understand what I’m trying to convey, so that the exchange remains beneficial.
Also, I’ll use this opportunity to directly respond to Vineeto’s question since I forgot to include it before:
Yes.
If I descend once again into ‘love’, I’ll find my way back to happiness and harmless as swifly as possible (assuming I haven’t yet developed the knack for becoming aware of the ‘bifurcation’ yet). Just being happy and harmless obviate many of these ‘tactics’.
Vineeto to Syd: What would be radical – radically different from how you operated most of your life – is to leave/ quit ‘the philosophy and planning department’ and naïvely experimentally and experientially explore the world of people and events, with the sincere intent firmly in mind to be harmless and happy as much as humanly possible.
I put ‘harmless’ first, because for many it is the more difficult aspect of an actualist’s sincere intent. (Btw, sincere, as used on the website, does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts).
Kuba: This is very simple and yet so important, I am certainly taking note of this for myself. Of course the words happy and harmless as presented on the AFT website do not refer to separate items, it is one package of felicity and innocuity. However it is so easy (I have done it myself) to turn actualism into a pursuit of ‘my’ happiness, which in practice means cunningly pursuing and reinforcing the good feelings and conveniently ignoring their opposite bad feelings. In fact I can observe this bias in myself, that the word harmless can almost become like an addition that comes after happy, an after-thought let’s say. And of course when approaching it that way ‘I’ only spin round and round in self-centred circles. Also I notice in myself that often it took exactly that commitment to harmlessness in order to give up some long held and dear aspect of ‘me’, otherwise if it is just for ‘me’ then ‘I’ might as well remain the same! It is the recognition of what ‘I’ am doing by remaining as ‘I’ am which can break the cycle and this requires that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’.So it is useful to turn this around and ask myself am ‘I’ first of all being harmless? And interestingly enough happiness comes rather easily when ‘I’ am being harmless to begin with, harmlessness provides a stable platform for ongoing happiness. But the most important part of this, I think, is that the commitment to harmlessness requires that ‘my’ self-centredness progressively diminishes, which means that ‘I’ am then ready to radically change.
Hi Kuba,
I appreciate that you more and more can understand the role that being harmless plays in the overall pursuit of whittling down ‘me’ as in becoming less and less ‘self’-centric which is the instinctive norm of being. For me it was the main concern and last question after I became newly free if I was really being harmless in all I did, including all the ramifications and consequences for others in what I said or did. You put it well when you said “this requires that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’”.
Kuba: This reminds me of something you wrote a while back (paraphrasing) that it is a shame that the recent generation of actualists does not share the same sincere commitment for peace on earth. I remember I took that as a bit of an insult, like “what do you mean!? I am an actualist after all”. And yet it is true that harmlessness has been an afterthought! (link)
I could not find where I had mentioned it but I can refer you to where Richard wrote about it – and repeated it as a tool-tip in several other of his correspondences – starting with –
Andrew:I remember reading on the AFT, Richard mentions the general mood of the 1960’s and has good things to say about it. The focus on peace, adventure, challenging social order, an optimistic view that change was possible. Richard: Yet what you remember reading on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is actually what feeling-being ‘Peter’ wrote – feeling-being ‘Richard’s focus in the 1960’s was, instead, on warfare, misadventure, upholding social order, an unenterprising view that change was impossible – which is neatly encapsulated in ‘Peter’s Journal’ via descriptions of then being a typically radicalised university student (per favour the subversive ‘Nouvelle Gauche’ socialistic-communistic propaganda, of Mr. Herbert Marcuse (a.k.a. ‘Father of the New Left’) and the ilk, which gripped the largely proto-revolutionary imagination of those socio-politically impressionable youths of the time).
(…)
Obviously, what was required was an in-depth investigation and exploration, an existential uncovering and discovering, a salutary seeking and finding, of the pitfalls and problems which have beset and tormented both genders – difficulties which were, so had it been ordained, set in concrete and indisputable – as per the hoary “you can’t change human nature” maxim.
That appalling status-quo was simply not acceptable to a handful of persons of a sufficiently naïve sensitivity.
Thus the basic premise was, and is, as simplistic as this: if man and woman cannot or could not live together with nary a bicker or a squabble – let alone a quarrel or a wrangle – then forget about street-marches, assorted ‘love-ins’ and other public-demonstrations calling for world peace because man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself.
*
Is it not high time ‘grown-ups’ began living-up to the title “mature adults” else the next generation, and those thereafter ever anon, also settle for a best which is less than the superlative best? [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Andrew, #2).
It’s best to read the rest in the original because it has several tool-tips attached.
Historically you can say that my parents’ and my own generation were deeply shocked by the devastation of the world-wide war that had just finished, and my own generation had to see with shock-and-horror the ongoing threat of the mutual assured destruction [MAD] of the cold war eventuate into an even bigger hot war. Personally, I was so affected by this looming threat so much that I decided to not bring any children into this then terrifying world. I later veered off into the spiritual search for inner peace and got sold on Rajneesh’s idea of the New Man. (see Peter’s Journal Chapters ‘Spiritual Search’ and ‘Peace’). But both Peter’s and my longing for peace on earth, in this lifetime were put on the right track and imbued with a whole new practical meaning when we met Richard who had a genuine and already proven track record how to achieve it.
Regarding the following generations, despite many minor wars constantly happening, Europe and the US remained overall little affected. Perhaps because of this apparent ‘peace’ – more of an ongoing armistice or truce – people turned to other concern, and fascinatingly one of the generations (X maybe) has now been called the ‘me’-generation – seeming only concerned with themselves, their rights, their self-image and their safe-space. Of course, because this is a generalisation, it is not the case for everyone, but in the context of (not) being vitally interested in peace on earth, as an overarching desire in one’s life, history had an influence on all.
So each has to find their own overarching motivation to want to become actually free from the grip the instinctual passions and the ‘self’-centric identity have on their lives and others. Each needs to find their motivation to dare to come out of their (apparent) safe cave or ‘self’-involvement and eventually develop/ discover a care for a larger circle than themselves. The very nature of an actual freedom (self-immolation) is such that ‘I’ cannot do it for ‘myself’ only. And when Richard says “And to dare to care is to care to dare” (link) he is not merely “saying that ‘daring’ and ‘caring’ amounts to the same thing” as Syd would have it (link). It is a sequential process.
What it means, when written out, that one needs daring/ courage to allow “that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’” as you so aptly put it, and starts deeply caring for one’s fellow humans as well, because they feel like I-as-an-identity feel, they require the same basics for living like I-as-an-identity do, they have the same or similar troubles I-as-an-identity have, they suffer from war and deprivation as I-as-an-identity would do, and so on. It does take daring to care. And, of course, this is an affective caring because it is felt and experienced by feeling beings – it cannot be otherwise until one is actually free (or in a PCE or close to becoming actually free). To want to put off daring to care until one has a PCE or is close to becoming actually free would be utterly silly and delaying one’s destiny forever.
And only then, when I care enough, do I dare to consider a commitment so radical, it has never being dared before Richard – a commitment to whittle away at the whole of the identity to the point that agreeing to ‘my’ demise remains the only sensible thing to do.
Kuba: I guess it can be said that ‘Geoffrey’ and ‘Srinath’ dared to care. I do remember Srinath mentioned to me a while back that this was one of the last puzzle pieces that clicked for ‘him’ before self-immolation – caring. (link)
They certainly did. I have deep respect, admiration and appreciation for both of their daring and caring, and then the daring arising out of their caring.
You will find that the second part of Srinath’s correspondence with Richard is all about him finding out the intricacies and details of caring and learn about the various tricks the identity employs to jump to the (imaginary) end before having walked the walk, and how to finally proceed to a near-actual-caring and one’s destiny.
Syd: Also, I’ll use this opportunity to directly respond to Vineeto’s question since I forgot to include it before:
Vineeto: Do I understand you correctly that you are saying that you now disregard the hedonistic contracts à la Onfray?
Syd: Yes. If I descend once again into ‘love’, I’ll find my way back to happiness and harmless as swiftly as possible (assuming I haven’t yet developed the knack for becoming aware of the ‘bifurcation’ yet). Just being happy and harmless obviate many of these ‘tactics’. (link)
Hi Syd,
Thank you for the clarification. A few things regarding your previous post I will mention –
Syd: … surely don’t consider sexual freedom to be harmful?
Such generalisation is just an undergraduate debating ploy.
There is a world of difference, literally, in what you consider “sexual freedom” and what I call have experienced for many years as an actual intimacy with a fellow human being which may, or may not, involve sexual play. Here is how Richard described it –
Richard: Now, the way to have intimacy unfold, in all its luscious wonder, is to be aware all the while (with that unique human ability to be conscious of being sentient) that your sexual partner likes being with you so much that they are willing to spend their most valuable asset – their time – not only being with you but having you inside them/ having them inside you (dependent upon gender) for this most physically intimate way of associating possible.
In other words one is always aware, with that second-level awareness, all the while primary consciousness is sexually engrossed, just how precious this opportunity is as – out of all 3.0 billion women/ out of all 3.0 billion men (dependent upon gender) – this fellow human being has chosen you, and only you, to be so intimately entwined with. In short: having sex/ being intimate with her/ with him (dependent upon gender) is very special – so special as to be precious – and this very preciosity readily enables giving oneself completely to one’s partner – totally and utterly – during sexual congress. (…). (Richard, List D, No. 20, 9 Dec 2009).
Syd: In regards to “disregard the other person as a fellow human being”, what I find interesting is that my modus operandi with the WomanFromNov largely operated as that (disregard her as a fellow human being) the moment those love feelings usurped, as I was solely focused on my own feelings.
Indeed, already the designation “WomanFromNov” is depersonalised, like a faceless woman known only by the time of her appearance. Will the next one be called WomanFrom… March or May?
Besides, as Claudiu already explained to you (link), the first spanner in the works (as in “usurped”) is lust, before love even appears on the horizon.
Syd: “I can’t say if I would have wanted to go as far as to establish a ‘contract’.”
When I wrote ‘contract’ I meant a “mutual arrangement, deal, settlement, undertaking”.
Syd: In regards to “[sincerity] does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts”, what does that mean in detail? Are you referring to rememorating one’s PCEs (else why use ‘facts and actuality’)? (link)
Richard:Sincere/Sincerity:
The word ‘sincere’ can be traced back to the Latin sincerus, meaning ‘whole’ or ‘pure’ or ‘sound’, and which is arguably derived from the roots ‘sin-’ (one) and ‘crescere’ (to grow) in that the Latin ‘sincerus’ originally referred to a plant which was of pure stock – not a mixture or hybrid – and thus came to mean anything which was genuine (as in ‘true’ or ‘correct’) and not falsified, adulterated, contaminated.
Sincerity is to be in accord with the fact/ being aligned with factuality/ staying true to facticity (as in being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous).[Upload failed] To Be Sincerity: (snipped correspondence to Syd, (Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009)
* Richard: And the key to unlocking naiveté is sincerity, pure and simple. Respondent:Can one ‘try’ to be more sincere? Curious. Richard: Sincerity, or any expansion thereof, is not a matter of trying: anybody can be sincere (about anything) – all it takes is seeing the fact (of anything) – and in this instance the perspicuous awareness of blind nature’s legacy being the arch-crippler of intelligence ensures one stays true to/ correctly aligned with that (that very factuality/ facticity seen).
And which (being aligned with factuality/ staying true to facticity) is what being sincere is … being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous. (Richard, AF List; No. 68d, 18 Oct 2005)
(Richard, Abditorium, Innocence, #Sincere)
There is also a page in Richard’s Catalogue where on the page for ‘sincere’ you find a whole collection of quotes where he talked about being ‘sincere’ with links you can look up for context.
*
As both Kuba and Claudiu have already answered your queries brilliantly I see no need to continue my own involvement in the matter.
I am glad that you recognize that before those electrifying bodily sensations, and concomitant with them, is the affective passion of lust, and thus there is something to “‘decline’” after all (i.e. that it is a choice whether to decline it or not).
Then it’s worth re-assessing just what “feeling good” (in actualist lingo) means, since lust, being a ‘good’ feeling (and not a feeling good), inherently diminishes / takes away from feeling good.
This is not a moral judgement or a definitional trick – they really are just two different things entirely. The trick with the ‘good’ feelings is that they are seductive, and highly appealing to ‘me’, and as such they lure you in, leading you down the garden path[1]…
It is most obvious, when in a remarkable, astoundingly fantastic mood, just how much lust really diminishes from that.
Well, does it not diminish it at all, or does it but only a little?
And if it does but only a little – firstly, why indulge in it at all if it is taking away from feeling good? And secondly, how often does it really “swiftly come back”, and how often does it, ehhh…, swiftly lead to accessing some various hub sites and doing a bit more indulging (perhaps also being perceived as ‘felicitous indulging’ [sic]) and then ‘enjoying’ some kenjataimu afterwards, and once all the hormones of all that has worn off, getting around to looking again at this ‘feeling good’ thing? (This is nought but a food-for-thought rhetorical question of course.)
It’s interesting (and perspicacious) that you brought up harm, as it means you do recognize the lustful passions are inherently harmful. Given you already know that, what more information do you really need in order to get on the path to minimizing rather than indulging in them? (In the actualist way, not the suppressive/repressive way, of course.)
Whether the harmful passions translate into harmful action or not (and it is far better that they do not), does not change their nature (of them being ‘harmful’). Wouldn’t it be so much easier for them not to arise in the first place, rather than having them arise but then having to restrain yourself from acting on them?
I say this because, from experience, when the topic of ceasing to indulge in a harmful feeling (yet with no harmful actions) has come up, I find the approach of “because it’s better for other people” does not, in that mindset, really work. It’s a very self-centered mindset. So, appealing to oneself via the benefit to others, doesn’t work. However as it is a self-centered mindset, appealing to the ‘happiness’ aspect does work, namely and to wit: that it is a far worse experience of being alive, for oneself, to be indulging in lust!
In other words you end up only hurting yourself, both in the short and long-run – all the more perverse because it feels enjoyable (at least for parts of it) in the meantime! But that is how addictions/addictive feelings work – and there is a very good reason that pursuing addictions is called “self-abuse”.
Note that the above is merely an assessment based on the words written here, as such it can certainly be “off”, and as there’s no moralizing or attempting-to-change-the-other coming from this side, if any of it was triggering in any way then whatever harmful passions arise are best directed not towards the feeling-being writing this .
Cheers,
Claudiu
lead (someone) down/up the garden path: to deceive (someone) : to cause (someone) to go, think, or proceed wrongly (Merriam-Webster) ↩︎
Very useful response! And some informative things (in particular I appreciate the ‘happiness’ aspect) to consider as part of my “very soon I’ll get there naturally” pace.
Nope, nothing of that sort at all. Your comments have so far been comprehensively helpful (the last two warrants a re-read as well). I also appreciate that your assessment is “based on the words written here” (if anything, a reply is likely to be “off” if it is not based on the words written here). I’ll be happy to report back re: lust when there’s substantial progress.
I was beginning to get a sense of this distinction myself,[1] and yes, ‘earthly’ is how I would put it as well. Much less ‘heady’. And it is stable. Not to mention, not dependent on others. This is all better by a mile than lust, which is not to downplay the seductiveness-in-the-moment of the later (and all the ‘good’ feelings in general).
Seated and looking through the large window at the city lit by this cleary-sky day … ↩︎
Also, it is a more ‘still’ feeling (I’m content being here). ‘Good’ feeling in contrast have this (relatively uncomfortable) ‘movement’ to them (I want to be somewhere somewhen else).
.