Kuba: Thank you for your reply, I am considering now whether after all these years I have not fully understood this key aspect of actualism – which is to actively channel ‘my’ affective energy from the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and towards the felicitous and innocuous feelings.
Vineeto: This acknowledgement that you are your feelings allows you to channel the affective energy from the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feeling towards felicitous/ innocuous feelings by choosing to be felicity/ innocuity.
Kuba: Which is to say that at the core of it there is no pre-set list of conditions which ‘I’ have to tick off as the ‘doer’ before felicity and innocuity is granted to ‘me’ – this is completely the wrong paradigm. It pre-supposes that felicity and innocuity is something that is granted as an end result of some kind of deterministic domino effect, all the while ‘I’ remain passive, waiting.
Hi Kuba,
You put it well – this is the difference between actively taken life into your hands and changing yourself fundamentally, rather than following the reward/ punishment template and therefore passively wait for an authority, ‘mother nature’, karma or some supernatural force/ entity to capriciously dish out the rewards. In fact, this is one big difference between the straight and narrow path and the wide and wondrous path.
Kuba: I guess this is exactly what the ‘doer’ is all about, that is how ‘I’ experience life as the ‘doer’. In that ‘I’ operate from the back-seat, ticking off the ‘right things’ and hoping that the goods will be delivered to ‘me’.
So instead what happens is that ‘I’ choose to ‘be’ the felicitous and innocuous feelings instead of ‘being’ the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings. Then ‘I’ am no longer operating from the back-seat, ‘I’ am directly and actively involved in how ‘I’ am experiencing this moment of being alive.
Of course as you mentioned this can only work if ‘I’ first fully acknowledge that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings, which means that no feelings can be repressed, suppressed or dissociated from.
This seems to be quite a common obstacle – to fully comprehend that it is not ‘my’ fault that ‘I’ am the instinctual passions (not just the tender ones but also the savage ones), that ‘I’ am not to blame for ‘my’ genetic inheritance but instead can unilaterally do something about it. The sooner this is understood the easier it is to be the feeling one chooses to be.
Kuba: I remember on the AFT a correspondent asked something along the lines of “how long does it take for the actualism method to bear fruit”, Richard responded along the lines of “about as long as it takes to see that feeling bad sucks”.
Ha, this is such an excellent pithy quote. It took a while but I think I found what you are referring to –
RESPONDENT: How soon will the rewards can be reaped by the method (in getting rid of the ‘me’) so that the momentum can be acquired by the success rather than the veracity/ power of your words?
RICHARD: About as soon as it takes to realise that feeling anything other than happy and harmless sucks … and sucks big-time at that. (Richard, AF List, No. 71, 9 July 2004a)
Kuba: So this is exactly what I am trying to point to, that the correspondent saw himself as merely a passive entity, hoping that some discipline will provide ‘him’ with the goods. This kind of paradigm has one as a victim to one’s feelings and moods and simply waiting and hoping that change will come as a result of ‘doing’ the ‘right things’. As if ticking off a long list of requirements and then handing in ‘my’ assignment to receive ‘my’ reward.
More importantly – you can see that now. And as I understood you, it came about when you recognized that you had wanted to hide the undesirable feelings from yourself and others.
Kuba: But actually it’s a lot simpler and more direct than that, ‘I’ don’t have to wait for anything at all, the goods can be delivered right now. What ‘I’ do is acknowledge that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and then direct ‘my’ affective energy into ‘being’ the felicitous and innocuous feelings.
Bingo, it is really that simple.
Kuba: This is somewhat convoluted but I guess what I am getting at is the difference between ‘doing’ and ‘being’ . With ‘doing’ being something passive, living from the back-seat, waiting, trusting and hoping. Whereas ‘being’ is ‘me’ actively involved in how ‘I’ am experiencing this moment of being alive, no more waiting. (link)
Before you make it into a new concept or map or something sophisticated – it is simply a matter of doing it – each time you “feeling anything other than happy and harmless”.
Cheers Vineeto