Thank you Vineeto, the initial (intellectual) answer which came up was that - “well those suffering others could clean themselves up”, it wouldn’t be an actual freedom but they could be virtually free.
This is a demonstration of the kind of mindset which you wrote here :
Don’t you find it somewhat ironic that those who are affectively eager to try to help don’t know how to, and those who know what to do are hesitant?
So for whatever reason ‘I’ have been able to clean ‘myself’ up enough that life is good (in that “in the meantime” manner) and so ‘I’ am now hesitant to accept full responsibility.
And yet it is back to front because if not for ‘me’ there would be no need for the method in the first place. It wouldn’t be a situation where some “manage to make it” and others don’t. It is clear that at the current state of affairs it takes an unusual person to even consider applying the method, and then to succeed and then to go all the way. But the way out of taking full responsibility for ‘me’ is that - “Oh well ‘I’ cleaned ‘myself’ up, so surely others can too”.
In short it is as if ‘I’ do not face the urgency of the situation fully because ‘I’ have managed to “do alright”. The one thing that stands out here is wow how incredibly selfish this is.
It makes me think back to the hierarchy, as if ‘I’ have (by chance) managed to land on a higher rung of a ladder and then ‘I’ am gladly looking at those below clawing for survival. ‘I’ can weave some kind of a story that goes - “oh well it’s because ‘I’ was a special ‘I’, that is why ‘I’ am here and ‘they’ are there”.
There is definitely some kind of complacency that I can see here, it’s not urgent for ‘me’, well not urgent enough to sacrifice ‘myself’ for clearly. But even so the entire mindset is wrong to even allow such a thing as sacrificing ‘myself’. For as long as ‘I’ am chilling out on that “alright” rung of the ladder ‘I’ am clearly only concerned with ‘myself’.
This brings to mind what Geoffrey wrote :
RICHARD:I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity.
Geoffrey: Who is that ‘me’, if not humanity?
‘I’ am humanity. And as such, ‘my’ destiny can be achieved.
“Pleasant and wholesome” could become a refuge, a hiding place, for an individual ‘I’, a special ‘I’, fortified in dissociation from the dark soil of humanity by its acquired ‘actualist identity’.
If one is to be humanity, then nothing of humanity shall be foreign to one.
“The psyche is a frightful place” indeed.
What is it that Richard admires about ‘me’? Daring, and audacity.
It seems ‘I’ am chilling in that “alright place”, dissociated from the “dark soil of humanity”, from here any concern about actual freedom is primarily about what it would mean for ‘me’. As such it’s not a pressing matter for ‘me’, in the sense of a fire raging through. So sure ‘I’ will run at some invisible walls from time to time, then do some more cleaning up etc. But in all of this ‘I’ am as if blind to the role that ‘I’ play in this mess, to the fact that a fire is raging through right now.
So I can see that in the past the caring was almost like a means to the end? Something like - “Well ‘I’ want to reach ‘my’ goal and for that ‘I’ have to care”. Whereas it seems like the caring has to come as a first priority, otherwise it is ‘my’ existence that will take priority.
Also I can see that any pride in ‘my’ success with the actualism method has to be a furphy, fundamentally and at core ‘I’ am no different at all to those other 'I’s. How is it that this particular ‘I’ made some kind of success and others have failed? It wasn’t ‘me’ that was special, ‘I’ am exactly the same as those other 'I’s, the success that ‘I’ am enjoying in this complacent manner is because of the circumstances that ‘I’ found ‘myself’ in. It’s not so different to being born into a rich family with great connections and then making podcasts about hard work leading to success whilst millions starve.