Kuba; So this whole out from control / not out from control saga that has been going on. What I can say is that there was a qualitative shift last year and this qualitative shift has remained throughout. What changed then, has not unchanged […] being out from control is not a leisurely club to hang out in […] what it means to be out from control is the very antithesis of having such a static plateau to hang out on […] The experience of being out from control is more to do with the lack of anything stable or static rather than chilling out on some rung on an imaginary ladder. Essentially it is to say that being out from control is not a feather in ‘my’ cap, it’s more like ‘I’ am speedily loosing all ‘my’ feathers and ‘my’ cap. […] (link)
Claudiu: I think we both experienced something like this and what it is like being alive has not changed for me either. And the experiential portions of the reports we have made of it are accurate reports of what it is like, at least I haven’t made anything up.
However, does it attain to that which is called “out-from-control virtual freedom” in actualist lingo? There are, I think, two ways to tackle this question.
The first is the mapping approach which is trying to determine whether it really is this. What happened with me is: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that.
Part of that convo is where he asked me something like, do I think that how I am now will inevitably result in self-immolation, or do I think there is something more I have to do to have it happen? I said it was the latter, and he said something along the lines of that that’s good and he was wondering whether I have been “chilling” / waiting around (or something like this) as a possible reason for why I haven’t self-immolated yet.
Another way to take the mapping approach is to compare experience with already-available descriptions. Is something really described as being “nigh-on unstoppable” (link) really compatible with a state that just… stops? Frequently? Even for months at a time?
Kuba: I banished myself from remaining where it is so magical for no good reason at all, and hence I entered a “parenthesis period” that lasted months! (link)
(snip) (link)
Hi Claudiu,
After giving it some deliberation, I decided to comment on the whole topic.
One reason is that I encouraged both yourself and Kuba to collect messages from the forum that appeared to fit the description of being out from control for publishing it on the AFT website, when it eventually turned out that this might not be the case.
The other reason is that I take the words my correspondents write at face value and therefore can only go by what they write, and not what they live day-to-day, when Claudiu’s visit to Geoffrey provided a more complete experience –
Claudiu: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that.
The last but not least reason is that I will have to be more careful in my writing that I better not encourage people to adopt the label of being out-from-control according to what they write, so that time (a person’s and other readers’ most valuable asset) may not be frittered away by believing that they only have to “chill” and wait for the actualism process to complete by itself when this is not yet the case.
For additional help in the action of determining your own situation I have collected some unambiguous quotes from Richard and one from myself from Richard’s selected correspondence (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Dynamic Virtual Freedom) –
Respondent: Can you determine whether someone is living a virtual freedom …
Richard: It is entirely up to the person concerned to determine how they are experiencing this moment of being alive each moment again … if another wishes to fool me, by reporting something which is not the situation then, when all is said and done, they only end up fooling themselves (when I go to bed at night I have had a perfect day and upon waking another perfect day is presenting itself). (Richard, AF List, No. 25a, 15 Jun 2003)
Respondent: However, I think, I am beginning to understand pulling back/ turning away: it is like crossing a Rubicon, an experience of it can be physically felt as an empty space/ throbbing right under the belly (the uterus contracting). But of course, the person in question may be able to corroborate on this much more.
Richard: (…). But you are correct – it is indeed like crossing ‘a boundary, a limit; esp. one which once crossed betokens irrevocable commitment; a point of no return’ (Oxford Dictionary) – and it is only upon such a crossing that the actualism process, as distinct from the actualism method[1], can start whereupon an inevitability thus set in motion begins to gather a momentum all of its own accord.
Then one is on the ride of a lifetime! [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 16 Nov 2009)
[1] (Private correspondence with Claudiu, 29 February 2012, see Claudiu’s Report, 30 October 2013)
Richard: There is a distinct difference betwixt the actualism method and the actualism process – inasmuch the former is voluntary, or still-in-control, and the latter is involuntary, or out-from-control – to the degree that any comparison is akin to chalk and cheese in regards effect). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 7, 10 Dec 2009)
Richard: An obvious out-from-control/ different-way-of-being virtual freedom is an on-going excellence experience (EE) but an on-going intimacy experience (IE) may very well be the most likely state as an EE, being so close to a PCE as to be barely distinguishable … [emphases added]. (List D, No. 12, 9 Dec 2009). (See Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 Jan 2016).
Vineeto: My period of being out-from-control started when I (metaphorically speaking) traversed the ‘wall of fear’, described by Richard as ‘a fear so vast as to best be called dread’ occurring at the ‘utter imminence’ at the gate to an actual freedom. (see first pop-up footnote). Richard described it this way in a private email about me –
Richard: ‘Vineeto, who is now fully out-from-control/ in a fully different-way-of-being, and thus on my side of that enormous wall of fear completely encircling all of humankind, …’ (24.12.2009)
During this period, which for me personally lasted about four-and-a-half weeks before it culminated in the final event on January 5, 2010, I experienced an ever-increasing pull to move forward into what I clearly and unambiguously recognized as my destiny – an irrevocable freedom from the human condition. It set in motion a process that was to undo all of my remaining bonds to humanity, my residue of inhibitions, my last hesitations and any and all lingering doubts. Having finally arrived at being out-from-control, living the ‘beer’ rather than being the ‘doer’, filled me with a previously unknown confidence and certainty that ‘my’ redemption was indeed nigh. [emphases added]. (Direct Route, James, 16 Jan 2010).
Cheers Vineeto