Yeah blind nature’s programming is pretty simple :
So ultimately, addiction to suffering is all about survival…
Some fun explorations going on today, it is really cool to observe the effect that communicating on here has on me being able to make sense of the human condition in action.
I can literally see the information in various posts triggering certain new lines of enquiry, filling out certain blanks, providing new angles etc eventually leading to new discoveries.
The quote which @henryyyyyyyyyy provided where Richard advises that in practice only altruistic self immolation will do and that in the meantime the most sensible thing to do is feeling as happy and harmless as humanly possible - I finally started seeing the utter sensibility of this approach, yes the goal is actual freedom but what do I do in the meantime? The sensible answer would be I enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive, each moment again. Otherwise I am just waiting and kidding myself in various ways. It is quite simple really, I am either feeling good right now or I am not.
So this morning I started looking at what is it in me which is still addicted to anything but feeling good, why am I still drawn to sorrow and malice and the antidotal ‘good’ feelings?
I could see a certain addiction to these feelings even though it makes absolutely no sense! I can see that they do not assist me in living successfully, and feeling bad sucks, yet somehow I am still sold on the good and bad feelings. So I was trying to work out just what it is that draws me there, why is it that I still want to exist in the mode of - worry/security, despair/re-assurance. Why am I not wholly committed to living life in the mode which I know from direct experience to be superior - one marked by feeling good, by intelligence, by autonomy. What I noticed is that the ‘me’ which wants to remain in that sorrowful and malicious bubble is one who resents being here in this world. Staying in that bubble is a rejection of life, it is saying no to being here and instead wanting to escape some place else. But once again I started looking at the ridiculousness of this action, why? Why do I want to escape? What for?
This is where @Srinath’s recent post about desire started coming through, and also @Andrew’s ‘return to womb’ theory. What I can see is that a lot of these affective mechanisms develop and are set in stone early on in life. When I am young and I do not have the capacity to fully understand the world and to navigate through it intelligently. Instead what I have is my primary caregivers who are able to provide feelings of security, of re-assurance, of love. They are able to tell me what is true when I am unsure as they are the authority. Of course these feelings are only dished out when I am in distress, crying, frustrated, afraid etc. So those good feelings become dependant on the existence of the bad ones, furthermore this is where the division strengthens… There is the scary/unknown world ‘out there’ and there is the warm fuzzy feelings which I can have as long as I remain in ‘my’ sorrowful and malicious bubble.
As I mature these mechanisms are still in place, this is why I fundamentally reject having to ‘go out into the world’ what I wish for deep down is to curl up and remain in this bubble where distress is quickly replaced with reassurance, insecurity corrected by the authority. I do not want to act intelligently, to stand on my own 2 feet, to abandon authority, to reject both the good and the bad. To step out of sorrow and malice is to no longer reject life, this means I no longer have my hiding place, my bubble that I can retreat into. The funny thing of course is that there was never any actual danger which warranted the existence of the bubble, but that is my very point! That these mechanisms were set in stone before I could see this, now I can though.
Getting clarity on these mechanisms has unearthed some deeply buried memories of perfection which are being tasted now, how incredible!
The freedom from being ‘me’ is so incredible it is so weird how each time I forget the extent of it. It seems to be because the fundamental ‘meh’ that is intrinsic to being ‘me’ somehow merges into ‘normal’, only when ‘I’ go into abeyance it is seen just how rotten it is, how far reaching, how debilitating and on the other hand the unbelievable extent of freedom which is possible is seen. The extent of the shift from real to actual is really something that is inconceivable, it has to be experienced, and apparently forgotten about each time lol.
There is always this sense of how could I possibly go from perfection to a dark, cold cell and then forget that such a change has happened!?
There is something else that has just clicked now after a while. I have always had these feelings, that why is it that Srinath and Geoffrey are not doing more, why don’t they write more, why don’t they tell me what to do.
I realised just now that this is some weird reversal of accountability which I have been doing. Because it seems that they have an obligation to carry out a service. So in this set up because they are actually free they now must carry the torch even further, funny because in this set up I am forgetting 2 very important things. The first is that it is me who must sacrifice myself.
And the second and most important point which clicked just now - that they have already committed the ultimate sacrifice, they have already done what they can, they carried the torch as far as they can - and apparently for me this is when they have to do more lol. Conveniently that means that I never have to do it myself!
So I am starting to see it somewhat differently now like it’s flipped on its head. I can see that they have done what they can do, the answer for me is not to demand more of others, this will never put me in a position where I am willing to commit to the same sacrifice. In fact it will keep me in the position of being a follower and forever looking up to the master, which is another way of saying I do not want to do it.
Lots of really fun stuff going on lately. What I have noticed is that this yo-yoing or spiralling which I have been doing for a long time seems to be shifting to a different mode. It is still the same theme of bouncing from purity to ‘being’ but the way in which it is happening is vastly different nowadays vs before.
So initially when I observed this happening I experienced it as shuttling between tasting purity and being plunged into the depths of ‘being’ which at times were like being plunged into hell, it was very intense.
Then eventually it kinda shifted towards this more frustrating stage where I knew that this purity was here, I was experiencing it more and more but inevitably I would trip up and fall back into being stuck in reality. This stage it seems I was stuck in for the longest time.
What I am finding lately is that this bouncing back and forth has gone from → intense → persistent and now it is becoming more like a delightful dance that ‘I’ am involved in. I notice that I am no longer experiencing this purity and then pow I am swimming in it again. But there is something else to it besides the apparent ease, it is like at times my whole brain is being suffused with this magical quality. The image I have in my head is that whereas before there was a cold darkness now there is these dancing, twinkling lights haha. I guess that is the visual approximation of what is going on experientially, of how ‘I’ experience ‘myself’ and the world around.
Although it is not just the dancing, there are times of stuckness still. Today I experienced a mix, at times having to somewhat climb out of a hole in order to find this purity again, and at other times simply allowing this dance to happen and delighting at what is happening.
It seems for this to happen I had to finally release the strong grip which I held around my life. Ooopsie, something big just clicked 
I was struggling to find words to describe just what changed, but just now it became obvious lol - it is the stepping out from control.
Although I don’t know if this is a stable condition or a fleeting experience but there has been a change lately which it seems I have been building up to all this time, to finally have the confidence to release the grip on life, I am now finally doing it.
Something interesting just occurred to me when replying to @Andrew. I can see now the huge role that Pure intent plays in this whole thing and also my resistance to admitting this.
I remember reading Richard mention that it is not up to ‘my’ puny little self, that one has the whole universe with one etc and it somewhat going in one ear and coming out the other. There was different components to this resistance, one of them was some kind of pride - I just could not accept that ‘I’ could be fundamentally wrong, that the way forward was to allow something outside of ‘me’. I just did not want to accept that the answer was not already contained within ‘me’. This was the biggest obstacle, it took the longest to finally accept.
Since I finally accepted this I have been able to allow Pure intent to run this shiz more and more. Because ultimately this is all I can do and all I have to do. It cuts through all the other stuff immediately (if done successfully).
The other part of the resistance (mostly when first coming across actualism) was that pure intent sounded like some magical force that was meant to be floating about as if I am playing elden ring (what a game!). It just seemed utterly ridiculous to propose some life force that is apparently going to do it for me. So I guess the initial obstacle to allowing pure intent is admitting/discovering that it even exists! Then once discovered I am placed on this journey of blending it into my life, which necessitates that ‘I’ agree to it by getting out of the way (for me this essentially revolved around variations of pride).
But what I have noticed today is that if an actualist is able to do that - allow pure intent, then that is essentially the only thing that needs to be done, and what’s more, it is the best thing that can be done. To allow pure intent is what all the other ‘actualist techniques’ are trying to somehow point towards or imitate.
Brilliant. This post in its entirety should be pinned at the very top. Above “Resources.”
Agreed @rick.
This has been sinking in today. How it’s just that.
Verification.
Up until now, I can see I have been believing in actualism. Not a waste of time, as obviously that is what I was capable of.
Today, what Kuba talks about has been exactly where I came back to. What can I do, to verify pure intent exists, that perfection is indeed outside of ‘me’ (it’s a trip to consider that doesn’t mean outside of this body).
Because in those moments which I have started to call “peak experience”, (so as to defuse the “I haven’t had a PCE” excuse), ‘i’ was doing something , but was the experience coming from ‘me’?
I can see now I assumed it was coming from something I was doing directly.
Either that or it was a willful agent outside of this body bestowing it.
Haha I wonder about this. I’m not sure if this becomes a “how many angels on the head of a pin” type argument. But is the point really to allow pure intent, or is it really to enjoy and appreciate and allowing pure intent is something that facilitates that?
I feel like the really true core fundamental impossibly simple to grasp “thing to do” is to just realize that it’s better to enjoy and appreciate instead of not, and that you can always be doing it, and that it’s worth doing, and it’s worth giving everything up - giving all of ‘me’ up - to change and to do this. This seems to be the really ‘tricky’ part, just getting to the point of accepting all that.
Maybe pure intent is required to see this, maybe allowing pure intent is necessary… and certainly pure intent is necessary to get through the social deconstruction process safely — but the reason to do all of those things is this – to enjoy and appreciate being alive!
Ultimately I think these things all become synonymous, once you get everything. Of course enjoying and appreciating is all you have to do… which is/ends up being the same as allowing pure intent… which is/ends up being the same as (non-verbally) asking yourself “how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?”… etc etc… so maybe there’s just multiple angels on this one pin. Or it is all one angel.
But anyway for me it currently makes sense to keep the enjoyment & appreciation as primary. But indeed perhaps all that is needed for this is to allow pure intent fully.
Yeah I think it’s essentially this. Also I guess what I was trying to get at is that pure intent is the core engine which drives all this, in a way that ‘I’ would otherwise struggle on ‘my’ own.
And in my experience it is really like connecting to this super powerful engine that once in action it does it for me, whereas when I find myself in some hole and I am on my own, there is a sense of some real work required to pull myself out. Then as soon as I am connected up again it is smooth sailing.
So the fear of death drama has largely diminished these days, it is not really affecting how I feel each moment anymore.
However I am still pondering on death from time to time, not self immolation but physical death (although can ‘I’ even tell the difference between the two? lol)
This morning I saw news that a very famous grappler has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He is still relatively young and probably lived a pretty healthy life. Seeing this led to that familiar sense of - oh shit, death can indeed happen at any moment.
Then I started looking at why I am still not ok with death right now, the simple answer is that I am not living life fully right now. This is where it gets interesting, because when I experience actuality there is immediately that sense of - life is complete. All of a sudden death is no biggie, it is no longer an issue because life is being experienced as complete right now, nothing more needs to be done or achieved.
Yet ‘I’ am desperately afraid of death because ‘I’ live forever separated from that completeness. What I am getting at mostly is that it is not the fact of death which is the issue but rather the fact that I am not living that completeness and that as an identity I can never live it.
It is a weird dance of continually coming across this completeness and then realising that ‘I’ can never live it. Actually it is bizarre now that I look at what is happening… To know from direct experience that life is actually perfect and complete right now and at the same time to be rotten in such a way that ‘I’ can never get to ‘there’ despite ‘my’ best efforts, despite of how clear it is, how sensible it is, ‘I’ somehow drag ‘myself’ back into reality. I can see there is a point to all this though, to eventually hit that rock bottom realisation that ‘I’ can never escape ‘my’ perversity, then only self-immolation is left as an option to proceed. This process of completeness then back to ‘being’ seems the only way I can ever arrive at that seeing in a way that is not just intellectual.
I would not wish apon anyone even a single moment more in the ‘real’ than needed, but I can assure you that long before you die physically, everything you otherwise would want to live for will be stripped away.
At 47, there is literally nothing that nature wants from me anymore.
Young men dream they are useful because they are, old men dream it because they are not.
I would wish on my enemies what it is like to hold your cold and lifeless love ones in their arms, I would wish my friends the lessons without the experience of it.
It is blazingly short. Life.
So short I swear I was 17 yesterday.
Yeah and this leads to this wall that I am hitting, bearing in mind that life can end at any moment - how can I allow myself to live a second rate life for even a moment when perfection and purity is right here.
And yet somehow ‘I’ am wired to return to that second rate life time and time again - this is what ‘I’ am.
But it just creates this ridiculous contrast in experiencing - to somewhat hold both of these existential ‘modes’ in my hands and jump from one to the other - one of perfection and purity where life is complete beyond belief and one of misery and mayhem that ‘I’ am ultimately never able to escape whilst remaining ‘me’.
And the double whammy is that ‘I’ cannot end myself either. So there is this weird place I find myself in.
There is the experience of the perfection and purity which is right here for the taking, there is the perverse addiction to remaining ‘me’ with all that it entails. And there is that last hurdle which ‘I’ cannot jump through ‘myself’. But things are happening everyday, they are changing. But it seems like this process is out of ‘my’ hands, I cannot see what else ‘I’ could do to somehow accelerate or push it, other than continuing to let this thing play out, exactly as it is already doing.
The other thing I am wondering is about the nature of the ‘psychic suicide’ and how it plays out.
I can see 2 options :
‘I’ am the one who gets ‘myself’ standing at the edge of the cliff and it is ‘me’ who eventually jumps off ensuring ‘my’ eventual demise.
Or
‘I’ can only get ‘myself’ to the edge of the cliff but ‘I’ cannot jump, it is that something outside of ‘myself’ that pushes ‘me’ over, with my complete agreement of course.
I get the sense that it is number 2.
Yes, “I” am wired with all kinds of defences…
A week back I was reflecting upon perfection of the actual world and a fear built up for some reason…there was the fear that fear will no longer remain in perfection, so I’ll be like a frolicking lamb happily walking to become an easy brunch of wolves
Haha or you could re-write this as - there was the fear that fear (aka ‘me’) will no longer remain in perfection. Then the following bit :
I’ll be like a frolicking lamb happily walking to become an easy brunch of wolves
Is seen for what it is, a clever excuse to remain ‘me’, to remain apparently necessary.
Ultimately, ‘I’ am obviously not that ultruistic thing which would jump, or all my lament would have already resulted in that.
Who knows? For someone who has been around so much death, I seem rather determined to ignore it’s immanence.
I would say it’s that naive thing which is missing for me; could the universe truly be benevolent?
So much so that it allows me to continue in misery, as it’s nature is already perfect, and there is nothing in my misery which is not otherwise perfect, in the grand scheme.
It’s perhaps something in the “rotten” core which much become truly greedy and selfish for more of that perfection.
One might say, “what it like nothing else”. 
This whole thing looks different when you consider that ‘you’ don’t actually exist. The universe cannot be benevolent to something that does not exist, just like it couldn’t be benevolent towards Santa Claus.
‘I’ continue ‘my’ own illusory existence and thus perpetuate ‘my’ misery - the universe is not doing any of that, it is ‘me’ believing that ‘I’ exist which does that.