Kuba: (…) But indeed there is the third alternative of being sensitive without becoming vulnerable, that is to say that my caring can be cranked up without it becoming an emotional involvement. And that is a wonderful thing! It means there is no reason anymore to hold back on genuine caring and consideration. It also means that I do not require the other to change, which means that for the first time assistance can come freely. (link)
Hi Kuba,
An excellent discovery! It can foster allowing an unprecedented openness and let the other be as close as they like without fear to get entangled and intimacy can flourish like never before.
Kuba to Felix: So with feeling good as a baseline (something that can come to be expected as an “of course”) moving into the “bester” territory will no longer be an escape or a fix, but rather something even more wonderful than what is currently experienced. And then if all else fails you are back to a general sense of well-being.
I do remember at some point on the forum it was as if the methodological, in-control virtual freedom – as pioneered by feeling being ‘Peter’ and ‘Vineeto’ – went out of fashion. Which was kind of odd, of course Richard never went through this and also Geoffrey wrote about aiming for an actual freedom only.
But taking myself as an example, the kind of person I was, with the kind of tendencies that I had – it was the most obvious and immediate thing to focus on. Still when I think about it now I would take a general sense of well being each moment again over an oscillation from anxiety into excellence every time.
The other thing which I can write about from experience is that something incredible can happen when feeling good is established as a baseline and so much so that there is less and less of a ‘normal’ to fall back to. Then that movement into the “bester” territory is not a temporary escape (with the feelings associated with this) and rather it has that delicious flavour of going into gay abandon – and then the socks can be safely blown off (link)
I much appreciate you are putting in a plug for the in-control-virtual freedom and that you pursued it yourself. This is eminently doable and has enormous felicitous consequences not only for the person doing this but has a ripple-effect for everyone they are in contact with. The happy-and-harmless vibes are contagious (as Sonya recently reported (link)) and success breeds success.
Here Richard comments on the important role vibes play in feeling beings’ lives –
RICHARD: However, I will take this opportunity to stress just how vital this matter of affective vibes is, in regards to successful actualism practice, as it is central to the ‘feeling harmless’ aspect of such practice (as in the phrase ‘happy and harmless’ that is) inasmuch the whole point is the minimisation – and the ultimate cessation via extirpation of ‘being’ itself – of any malicious feelings and, thus, their resultant transmission as affective vibes throughout the human psyche. (Richard, List D, No. 15, 28 Oct 2013)
Kuba: So a question from me now… why the ‘doer’ in the first place? What happens to cause this? Is the ‘doer’ a creation of the social conditioning, a myth that is taught so that one lives with responsibility and is thus under control of the tenets of society?
That in order for morality to function effectively one must exist as a ‘doer’, because if ‘I’ am apparently pulling all these levers then ‘I’ can be held under obligation and responsibility.
It seems for me the ‘doer’ is a bit like the appendix at this point
Ha, it seems the ‘doer’ is indeed weakening substantially to even let you write such a sentence uncontested.
Kuba: It seems it was something along these lines, that human beings observed that there were these instinctual passions which were a liability when living in a group and so a make-shift approach was to devise the ‘doer’. Because the ‘doer’ and responsibility/ obligation go like peas and carrots. It ‘worked’ so far as to control the excesses of violence and yet it inevitably leads to separation, resentment, duplicity etc. So it can never be a lasting solution.
It wasn’t even planned like this. As soon as human beings live in a group they have to work out behavioural rules where everyone needs to fit in. Even stone-age people were not free of responsibility and restrictive rules, else human beings would not have survived and thrived. But as you observed, “it can never be a lasting solution” because nothing in regards to living together in peace has eventuated despite sophisticated morals and ethical dictates and technological advances.
Kuba: But not only that, this ‘doer’ cements the human condition in place. For if ‘I’ am not ‘my’ feelings then human nature is apparently set in stone.
Huh so if ‘I’ am indeed ‘my’ feelings then ‘I’ can altruistically sacrifice ‘myself’. If ‘I’ am separated from ‘my’ roots no such thing will ever take place. Furthermore the human condition is not something that happens to ‘me’, not something ‘I’ am a victim to, rather the human condition is what ‘I’ am. (link)
Yes, well said. If ‘I’ don’t acknowledge/ recognize that ‘I’ am my feelings then the actualism method won’t work, then ‘I’ am stuck with believing that ‘I’ am having feelings, and they won’t budge. Only when you can see that freedom is in ‘your’ hands can you start doing something about your situation and unravel the mess which is the human condition.
Kuba: That in order to exist ‘I’ must assert ‘my’ role in what happens, but this goes against the facts. ‘I’ am maintaining ‘myself’ against the facts – no wonder it is a painful endeavour.
The ‘doer’ plays an important role when you start doing something so radically different to your nature and conditioning until you get to the point where you can access pure intent – then you can begin to naïvely allow the universe to live your life.
Kuba: And yet as I write this now pride still remains, and what I mean by this is this fundamental feeling/belief which states that ‘I’ am somehow required, that ‘I’ know better than the universe, that this moment is incomplete if not for ‘my’ tinkering with it. But really this is like a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it is ‘I’ who is the arbiter of how this moment should apparently happen and then when it does not go according to ‘my’ demands ‘I’ take it as proof that ‘I’ am required.
This thing of pride it really does seem to be a key aspect of how ‘I’ maintain ‘myself’, in fact can any identity exist without pride? It is like Richard wrote that ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ biggest achievement which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity. (link)
Ah, the last bulwark against ‘your’ disappearance! And yet Richard also tells you what happens when pride abdicates –
Richard: Without the defences of the identity I can stand proud, as I do not need to maintain myself as ‘someone’ in particular with relation to others. An unusual anonymity has freed me from the ‘normal’ responsibility and onerous task of sustaining ‘myself’. (Richard’s Journal, p. 100).
Now that you discovered that your “caring can be cranked up without it becoming an emotional involvement” (link) any day now the instinctive altruistic impulse can be activated and take the place of your ‘self’-maintaining pride for the benefit of every body. In the meantime the game of how close can we get is still a fun challenge.
Cheers Vineeto