Vineeto: It’s ok, it is a natural reaction when you try to break through before you are ready – though it means that your arguments don’t make sense. It’s too early to even contemplate it, you could go to the “advanced base camp” first, then “camp 3”. (Uphill Mountaineering) Plenty of time to worry later. There is still an in-control virtual freedom available even if you never want to take the ultimate step.
Vineeto: Upgrading your present situation to pragmatic virtual freedom will give you a new confidence that being increasingly felicitous and innocuous (happy and harmless) is possible to live every day, in every situation – provided you sincerely and honestly leave no stone untouched. It means trying it out in real life what you often may have only rationally or conceptually understood but not yet applied in everyday living.
Kuba: So yes I actually experienced this answer the evening after writing the post to you. That evening I did find myself in a more wide and wondrous place and from that place I actually did look back at the argument I made and it had no substance, it was irrelevant when considering from the wide and wondrous place. So I can actually see this point, that with increasing felicity and innocuity there is a solution which becomes obvious, a solution for everybody.
Hi Kuba,
I am very pleased this is settled for you for now. It is indeed a good recognition that when “increasing felicity and innocuity” is possible for you, not as a high achiever, but a normal human being, then it is also possible for others.
Kuba: But your other point is relevant too :
Vineeto: Good, you have come to appreciate the limitations of taking special excursions from the “base camp” – what I had called “your steeple chasing modus operandi” in an earlier message.
Kuba: Those daring excursions form “base camp” are too brief, unstable and desperate to allow ‘me’ to contemplate actually doing something about the human condition. So I completely understand your suggestion to proceed towards a pragmatic in-control virtual freedom. Also those excursions from “base camp” they are done by ‘me’ as ‘I’ am now, too mired in the human condition, looking with the eyes of ‘humanity’ rather than felicitous and innocuous eyes. Then ‘I’ can only try to, as you said, proceed towards some escape fantasy whilst keeping ‘myself’ intact.
So it is eminently sensible to do something practical and down to earth now, which is to establish feeling good (general sense of well-being) as a bottom line of experiencing in all circumstances and at all times – and it is this bit specifically which I have omitted because I was too busy with the steeple chasing modus operandi. Just as an aside, when I first read that phrase I had to google it just to make sure I get you and as soon as I saw the below image I thought “yup that is spot on”.
Now you begin to understand why the term “down to earth” is right under the title on the homepage. It is very significant to take note that an actual freedom from the human condition is no high-flying spiritual escapade. As such your experiencing will eventually be genuinely “in all circumstances and at all times”.
It’s great you looked up “steeple casing” – I picked up the term from a reference in an English movie where they alluded to a particular form of obstacle horse racing but church steeples are far more apt as a metaphor, reminiscent also of the art of parkour.
Kuba: And the interesting thing is that I already know how to get back to feeling good, it’s that I have got distracted over and over again by going on the special excursions instead, and in that steeple chasing modus operandi I would forget about affectively monitoring my mood, in fact even feeling good would become irrelevant from that place. (link)
In due course you will discover that the actualism method is not merely to get back to feeling good, but that by sincerely and thoroughly (if necessary) investigating the triggers you can remove/ dissolve those triggers – be they habits, social identity issues, unhelpful attitude or what not – which are all components of what ‘I’ and ‘me’ consist of and what keeps ‘me’ in place. Doing this ‘I’ get thinner and thinner and less and less substantial, and thus feeling excellent and naiveté start to flourish in a consistent way.
Kuba: And the other thing worth adding is that perhaps arriving at an in-control virtual freedom I might decide this is what I want for the rest of my life, and that would be already incredible. But the thing is that steeple chasing modus operandi would not have this. That if it is not ultimate then it is not even worth considering, and yet it is my life I am living. So this is nice to see now also.
Richard: Ahh … then you would be understanding why I oft-times say that a virtual freedom is not to be sneezed at (and that it is way beyond normal human expectations), then? Because this is how you described it:
• [Respondent]: ‘There is an increase in sensory clarity, especially visual acuity. Along with this increase in clarity there is a ‘purity’ in everything one perceives. The words ‘immaculate’, ‘perfect’, ‘pure’ capture it quite well; everything is wonderful. Strangely, though, the word ‘beautiful’ does not apply. There is no (felt) affect whatsoever. The purity of perception (and the marvellousness of what is perceived) goes beyond affect, leaving only pure, calm wonder. It’s sensory delight without any emotional resonance at all. The sensory delight I’m talking about is not the usual kind of sensuousness/ sensuality that one enjoys in an ordinary state. Rather than being ‘pleasurable’, it is appreciation of the perfection that seems to be inherent in what one is perceiving, which leads to enjoyment of a very different kind.
This is quite extraordinary. There is a sensation of softness in the air, which has a pellucid, jelly-like quality (metaphorically speaking). I’m reminded of something you once wrote about the eyes ‘lightly caressing’, as if one is seeing from the front of the eyeball. I also remember you saying ‘nothing dirty can get in’, and that’s exactly the way it is. Objects that would seem drab, dirty, sullied, soiled in ‘reality’ are immaculate in themselves; any ‘dirtiness’ is overlaid by ‘me’. (‘Richard, are you familiar with this?’; May 20, 2004 17:34 PDT). (Richard, AF List, No. 60c, 15 Jul 2004)
Kuba: And the other thing is that I don’t experience the fear of being a fraud, or a failure etc like I did in the past, and I am no longer afraid of writing to you, and it seems it is because I am slowly stopping the “fake it till you make it”. So this is all beneficial already. (link)
Ha, the instant reward of honesty and sincerity. The more “you make it” the less you need to fear exposure – and all this because you gave up chasing steeples and are coming down to earth. Life is so much simpler and eminently enjoyable this way.
Cheers Vineeto