Kuba: Yes I can 100% remember those kind of instances, in fact I was thinking about this yesterday, that the good/bad feelings are identity enhancing, whereas in the direction of felicity and innocuity ‘I’ as ‘self’ become more and more… irrelevant? it’s like the good/bad feelings draw a deeper and harder boundary to ‘me’ as ‘self’, whereas with those felicitous feelings ‘I’ am almost as if slowly being rubbed out, of course never quite but it can lead to a marked diminishment in that feeling of separation.
So yes I can experience times when ‘I’ am being far less ‘self’-centric and it is always wonderful when it happens. But is this altruism? Or is your point that it can lead to where altruism can be activated? (link)
Hi Kuba,
Softening the boundaries of ‘me’ allows you to consider everyone, who is not ‘me’, else why even contemplate an altruistic act.
Remember the long correspondence Richard had with Srinath regarding real-world compassionate/ non-compassionate caring and near-actual caring, which I recently recommended to you?
• [Vineeto]: “The key component for both of us had been caring, a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster. […] my caring for him meant whittling away my identity as much as possible in order to give him (and me) the intimacy we both yearned for”. [emphases added]. (Direct Route, James, 17 Jan 2010).
• [Vineeto]: “I sat in this group, as one of many, and my sole interest was that everyone present (including me as one of those present) enjoyed themselves/ obtained the maximum benefit from our meeting”. [emphasis added]. (Direct Route, James, 16 Jan 2010).
Richard: Thus the “caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster” that Vineeto wrote about (as quoted by Claudiu much further above) – which appears to have become known as a ‘near-actual caring’ these days – is self-evidently a caring which prioritises an actual happiness over an affective happiness any day of the week (else it be a gussied up real-world caring masquerading as a caring which is as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster). (Richard, List D, Srinath2, 28 July 2016)
Perhaps a refreshing of this – and the follow up – correspondence on that page is helpful for you to recognize the correlation of being harmless, considerate, kind, gentle, generous, magnanimous, friendly, and therefore less ‘self’-centric and self-absorbed, and thus able to, and interested in, an increasing caring and inter-personal intimacy to the point of an acutely-empathic caring (equivalent to a near-actual-caring), which for ‘Vineeto’ motivated ‘her’ altruistic action.
Perhaps it’s also worth emphasising that being out-from-control is epitomized by a complete absence of self-centredness –
Richard: 3. Due to ‘her’ naïve intent to be as intimate and without prejudice as possible – which, in conjunction with the absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity that is part-and-parcel of being out-from-control had resulted in the actualism method segueing into the actualism process – ‘her’ cheerful and thus willing concurrence allowed pure intent to dynamically pull ‘her’ evermore unto ‘her’ destiny. (Hence the “dynamic, destinal virtual freedom” nomenclature). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Srinath2, 13 Aug 2016)
Point 4, 5 and 6 in this correspondence should complete the understanding for you how it is all related (if possibly without becoming a concept). 
Kuba: So I seem to be a little confused here… Richard has written that altruism sets in motion a process which leads to ‘my’ self-immolation and you have written to me that once altruism is activated it can be all over in an instant.
Is it that as ‘I’ become less and less ‘self’-centric as an ongoing modus operandi that ‘I’ invite a situation where altruism is activated and ‘I’ am extirpated OR is it that “keeping the window open” of this ongoing progression into being less and less ‘self’-centric is altruism in operation, that this is the process which will lead to ‘my’ demise?
Being “less and less ‘self’-centric” is not altruism, it is thinning out the dominance of ‘me’ in order to allow the universe to live me. Altruism is a single act which leads to ‘my’ demise. ‘Vineeto’ didn’t even think about altruism at the end, it just happened when all fell into place.
Or to put it another way, you can’t think your way out of existence.
There is no either-or, the only process is as Geoffrey put it so brilliantly –
Geoffrey: When one knows what it is one wants, and when one knows what it is one must sacrifice, then only the sensible action remains. (link)
I simply suggested an experiential approach the way ‘Vineeto’ experienced and utilized it.
Kuba: Also is it possible to altruistically set the process in motion and then to obstruct it from completion? Furthermore is that what I have been doing by magically finding another ‘problem’ each time?
Yes, having read all of what you have written so far, this is entirely possible.
But then again, dealing with your objection to physical death one day, and giving up your dream of your soul’s immortality was certainly a necessary beneficial process.
Cheers Vineeto