Kuba:
Richard: “As for your query regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitatively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon *naïveté has come to the fore *, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope. (…)
For instance, the degree of intimacy experienced with minera, flora and fauna upon strolling through some botanical gardens with either near-PCE occurring – as in, with rocks, trees and birds, for example – is to the same gradation as when in a social setting such as a typical sitting room situation (as in, with ashtrays, flowers and humans, for instance) yet it is the ‘fellow human being’ element which exemplifies the already astounding diminishment of separation which ensues upon the blessed onset of this *near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. [Emphasis by Kuba]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 Jan 2016)
Kuba: It’s interesting because I remember a while back Claudiu wrote something which I related to experientially, it was essentially that he is able to go across that whole range of the wide and wondrous path from good, great, excellent and that perhaps something else was needed.
And it is interesting because I personally have plenty of experience in what Claudiu wrote, however to tie in Richard’s above quote – I only have plenty of experience where it concerns a progression to an excellence experience.
Hi Kuba,
It’s interesting that you should say that “I only have plenty of experience where it concerns a progression to an excellence experience”. It seems that your focus has primarily been chasing extraordinary experiences, wonderful in themselves, but have not contemplating to up-level your default state of happiness to the next level as Richard explained –
Richard: And, of course, once one does get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ … and after that to ‘feeling excellent’. (This Moment of Being Alive).
And he explains it in detail in the last article he wrote –
Richard: Furthermore, blind nature has provided what the Positive Psychology Network, and the ilk, refer to variously as an “affective adaptation set-point”, or a “hedonic adaptation set-point”, or a “treadmill adaptation set-point” to designate the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of well-being despite major positive or negative events or life changes. The process of affective adaptation is often conceived as a treadmill since no matter how hard a person tries, in their life-long pursuit of happiness, they will inevitably return to the same neutral set-point after a significantly emotional life event. (Marvelling How Well-Equipped Human Beings Are).
Thus when you start with feeling good as your starting default set-point, already better than the more common feeling-neutral state of most people, you can still up-level it to a default set-point of feeling great, feeling excellent and then, with allowing the hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté, you can make being out-from-control your default feeling state.
Kuba: And in fact that was always my primary focus, of course intimacy with others was explored here and there but never as a sole focus. So that when I present this same thing to myself as a question of “do I have plenty of experience travelling the gradations of intimacy all the way to an intimacy experience”? Then the answer is a big fat no.
So it seems there is plenty to discover here still. And the benefit of the focus on the “fellow human being” element is that ‘I’ am not doing it merely for ‘myself’. (link)
Well, what exciting and delicious adventure you are embarking upon now that intimacy has come into focus. Here again you can explore the levelling up in grades of intimacy as detailed elsewhere (link). There is a whole new ‘world’ of sensuousness and naïve intimacy to discover. Here is my favourite of Richard’s stories to give you a taste of what is possible. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Intimacy).
Cheers Vineeto