Kuba: So I was speaking with Sonya last night about my reluctance to abandon ‘humanity’. Initially it seemed like a selfish thing to do, to allow oneself utter freedom whilst ‘others’ are ‘back there’ suffering. This created the impression that the caring thing was to remain and to continue offering help from within ‘humanity’.
Hi Kuba,
Ha, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ had similar deliberations –
VINEETO: It reminds me of the story of the philosopher’s cave (I think it was Kant) – everyone is huddled in a cave, living in imagination and considering the outside world as very, very dangerous. One person has gone outside the cave and reports that it is delightfully safe out here. Kant then suggests that this one person should go back into the cave to convince others that it is safe to leave.
I sometimes think that I have to ‘feel’ where the other is coming from, in order to communicate – and whooshsh, I am back in the muddle of emotions, beliefs and collective fantasies. Well, slowly, slowly, after a hundred failures I start to grasp that there is no point in going back into Mr. Kant’s cave… (note: It was in fact Plato’s story from The Republic). (Actualism, Vineeto, AF List, Alan-b, 6.2.1999).
Kuba: But it very quickly became clear to us that no actual benefit would happen as the result of ‘me’ remaining. Even helping others whilst remaining an identity is only made trickier, not only because it can be emotionally turbulent but also because it is experienced as ‘dirty’ by the others.
Offering help whilst outside of the human condition is completely free from any pathos and so not only is it more effective but it comes without all the ‘dirt’.
Sonya mentioned that in fact it is the other way around, that ‘I’ remain to help from the ‘inside’ only to assuage ‘my’ own feelings. All those feelings of guilt are designed to get ‘me’ right back into the herd where ‘I’ belong.
Exactly. Once you recognize the pattern it is easier to decline sooner rather than later. There is no other reason than the instinctual passion to remain within the herd “where ‘I’ belong”. The feelings of guilt are only one of the possibly many tricks of ‘me’ to achieve this objective.
Kuba: Indeed it is as if ‘I’ am a cattle, where ‘I’ cannot find any action within ‘myself’ that would exist completely outside of the ‘herd’. ‘I’ and the ‘herd’ are inextricably linked. It’s interesting because I have abandoned ‘humanity’ to the extent that I have virtually eliminated the social identity. But there is a much more fundamental aspect of what it means to be ‘one of many’. It goes deeper than just the beliefs and values that were taught to ‘me’ by society. [emphasis added].
Even though you may or may not be correct when you say “I have virtually eliminated the social identity”, you are certainly correct in your observation that “‘I’ and the ‘herd’ are inextricably linked”, because belonging to humanity is an instinctual passion, and as such “it is impossible to separate the whirlpool or the eddy (the vortex) from the swirling stuff which is the cause of it”.
• [Richard]: Put expressively the affective feelings swirl around forming a whirlpool or an eddy (which vortex is the ‘presence’, the ‘spirit’, the ‘being’): mostly peoples experience ‘self’ as being a centre, around which the affective feelings form a barrier, which centre could be graphically likened to a dot in a circle (the circle being the affective feelings) which is what gives rise to the [spiritual] admonitions to break down the walls, the barriers, with which the centre protects itself.
Those people who are self-realised have realised that there is no ‘dot’ in the centre of the circle … hence the word ‘void’. (Richard, AF List, No. 25a, 10 June 2003).
I put it in that expressive way because it is not possible to separate out the feeler from the very feelings he/she is – just as it is impossible to separate the whirlpool or the eddy (the vortex) from the swirling stuff which is the cause of it as, for example, a whirlpool or an eddy (a vortex) of water or air is the very swirling water or air (the one is not distinct from the other) – hence ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’.
If you have followed all the above thus far you will find the following informative:• [Co-Respondent]: ‘So the feelings are innative to the human being, that means they are actual. Instead the feeler is a real entity, but not actual.
• [Richard]: ‘… just because the genetic-inheritance of the instinctual passions is actual – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), being a nucleic acid in which the sugar component is deoxyribose, is a chemical substance – does not necessarily mean that a feeling engendered by that genetic software programme, such as the feeling of fear for example, is actual – any more than the fearer it automatically forms itself into by its very occurrence is actual – especially as you go on to say that the feeler is a real entity but not actual (which implies that the fearer is not the fear – as in ‘I’ am not ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are not ‘me’ – which, at the very least, smacks of denial if not detachment/ disassociation or even full-blown disidentification from one’s roots).
Now, I could go on from this to say that the feeling is a movement, a motion, and not a thing, as there is no such happening as a stationary (static) feeling and that it is this very movement or motion of the feeling in action when it occurs which automatically forms the feeler (such as in the whirlpool of water/air analogy above) but, again, it would be far more fruitful if you were to intimately examine all this, by feeling it out for yourself rather than just thinking about it, and if you were to actually do so – literally feel it for yourself – you will surely find out, just as ‘I’ did all those years ago, that you are your feelings (as in ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings) and your feelings are you (as in ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’).
The actualism method is an experiential method … not an intellectual method (an analytical method, a psychological method, a philosophical method) or any other self-preserving method of inaction. (Richard, AF List, No. 44e, 9 Oct 2003).
[emphases added]. (Richard, AF List, No. 25g, 1 Dec 2004).
This also answers @Andrew’s hypothetical musings if the ‘self’ is independent from the feeler and can be separated out and treated like a buffet to choose a particular ‘self’. (link) The whole affair is an exercise in dissociation to ensure that ‘I’ remain as ‘I’ am. For instance, to be naïve, requires to be ruthlessly honest with oneself, which then gives access to sincerity (genuine, originally referred to a plant which was of pure stock) and is the key to naiveté. To allow naiveté is to be like a child again (with adult sensibilities), to be ingenuous, simple and unsophisticated and to be what you are rather than what (internalized) other people want you to be. Hence being ruthlessly honest with oneself is an unavoidable prerequisite.
Kuba: Which means that it has to be the solid experience of the actuality of others which offers that something outside of ‘humanity’, a motivation that allows ‘me’ to do something different than simply circling back to the herd. (link)
Yes, though I would call it ‘experiencing the other as a person in their own right’, because “the solid experience of the actuality of others” requires an ongoing PCE. The very fact that feeling beings bemoan the dearth of actually free people indicates that ultimately nothing less will do in regards the actual caring they are looking for.
Cheers Vineeto