I wonder if the “something missing” is to fully contemplate the enormity of ‘my’ extinction, what that means, in light of pure intent.
Hi Vineeto,
I wanted to bring something else up which I think is far more fruitful to explore. There have always been all sorts of feelings when writing to you, and we have explored quite a few of them already. What is left now I have been able to narrow down to a feeling of embarrassment.
It feels literally as if I am a child again and I have wet my pants and now I am trying to cover up what happened. But this ‘wet patch’ I am trying to cover up is that I have/I am a human nature. And I remember you mentioned that this foolish feeling can be a precursor to naivete.
I can see that the feelings I have been exploring lately - the guilt, shame and embarrassment are all under that same umbrella of self-consciousness, they are all different flavours of the same thing. I can also see that in becoming self-conscious about having/being a human nature I have made the issue personal, as if I am the only human being on earth born that way. So when I hide my human nature I make it seem like it is a personal issue.
And then just a minute ago I did experience that when allowing this self-consciousness to no longer be at arms length, that naivete is just past it, immediately there was this familiar sparkle in the air all around. So it is like those feelings under the umbrella of self-consciousness are literally a blockade to naivete. Because naively enjoying and appreciating necessarily includes all of ‘me’, which means that in order to allow it ‘I’ cannot be busy hiding parts of ‘myself’, the gay abandon aspect of naivete is because there is no longer any need to hide.
The other thing I can see is that this feeling that I need to hide that I am human nature is something like an unwillingness to accept that human beings have an animal heritage, being ashamed at that being the case, and this also blocks naivete. Because naivete is about getting closer and closer to what I am, and this necessarily includes fully acknowledging that human beings have an animal heritage.
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Vineeto: However, your last sentence raised one question – who is the “monkey” and whose “back” is the “monkey” now “off”?
The reason I ask because it is easily possible that you simply shifted chess pieces around and the shape-shifting “monkey” will appear in another guise. On the other hand, you can allow the feelings associated with this “most central part of my persona” to come closer, and closer, so intimately close that you affectively feel that ‘I’ am my feelings [of this persona] and my feelings are ‘me’. Lasting change can only happen, and more importantly pure intent can only emerge, when ‘I’ am no longer dis-associating from ‘me’. (link)
Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
I think I get your point, it is like I created – from the actualist-infused descriptions – an imagined world in which ‘I’ would become free. But that world, being a projection, is always ‘over there’ in the psyche somewhere. So yes to proceed in that way it is akin to proceeding towards enlightenment, it is creating an imaginary world and seeking to find ‘my’ freedom there.
Hi Kuba,
You say that this “most central part of my persona” is a projection, “always ‘over there’ in the psyche somewhere”. Have you considered that to produce a projection – just like casting a slide onto a screen ‘over there’ – there is a projector containing the original image right here.
What happens if you allow the feelings associated with this “most central part of my persona” to come closer, and closer, so intimately close that you affectively feel that ‘I’ am my feelings [of this original image] and my feelings are ‘me’? Not as a cognitive analysis but as an existential affective experience?
Kuba: I find that with these activities coming to an end (the forever problem seeking and the imaginary actualist escapades) there is less and less to write about really.
Good. When it is no longer “over there” but experientially right here, ‘me’, then can you begin to give permission to your eventual demise until you whole-heartedly and joyously agree to go into oblivion.
Kuba: Things have been going well and I have also been experiencing pure intent. Yesterday in particular I kept coming back to it and then I was observing that whilst ‘I’ cannot undo ‘myself’, ‘I’ can keep the connection to pure intent open. It is the experience of pure intent on one hand and the full awareness of ‘me’ on the other which is where something substantial can happen. At times it seems like I am very very close but then it seems there is still something missing and so ‘I’ remain in place by the end.
Apart from contemplating the enormity of ‘your’ extinction (link), perhaps the consideration of the benefit of ‘your’ demise for this body, that body and everybody, as in an “acutely-empathic caring” (link), can supply the missing ingredient?
Richard: By watching/ reading the news bulletins with whatever media one has access to, and utilising one’s affective feelings to really, deeply, primally feel all the anguish and animosity inherent in all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides that parades across billions of TV screens daily, one can become vitally interested in ridding oneself of that which the human animal shares in common ancestry with all sentient beings: the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire.
Because unless one deeply, primally cares about peace on earth one will never even begin to free the crippled intelligence from the debilitating passions bestowed by blind nature. Yet becoming vitally interested is but the preliminary stage, because until one becomes curious as to whether what is being written on an actual freedom can be applied to themselves, only then does the first step begin. For it is only when one becomes curious about the workings of oneself – what makes one tick – is that person participating in their search for freedom for the first time in their life. This is because people mostly look to rearranging their beliefs and truths as being sufficient effort … ‘I’ am willing to be free as long as ‘I’ can remain ‘me’.
In other words: their notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’. (Richard, Gen. Correspondence, Page 9, 4 May 2000).
Mind you, I am not suggesting that your “notion of freedom is a ‘clip-on’”, but you yourself became aware of, and reported, over time, various schemes of “the self’s immortality project” (as the above correspondent perspicaciously called it (link)).
Kuba: Yesterday whilst I was experiencing pure intent there was the seeing that with ‘my’ extinction there will be no-one at all left inside the body, and that with ‘me’ gone the body is just as pristinely pure and magically perfect as the rest of actuality. (link)
Indeed.
It’s pertinent to keep in mind that the social identity is rather persistent even after becoming basically free (link) but that is a topic for another post.
What an amazing adventure!
Cheers Vineeto
Wonderful things happen 
. It’s quite a short path from the fear/dread/reluctance/retience to do so/putting it off/avoiding it/etc., to the actually usually quite mild discomfort whilst doing so, to the “what was the fuss all really about?”, to forgetting ever had that issue in the first place haha.
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Vineeto to Kuba: What happens if you allow the feelings associated with this “most central part of my persona” to come closer, and closer, so intimately close that you affectively feel that ‘I’ am my feelings [of this original image] and my feelings are ‘me’? Not as a cognitive analysis but as an existential affective experience? (link)
Claudiu: Wonderful things happen. It’s quite a short path from the fear/ dread/ reluctance/ reticence to do so/ putting it off/ avoiding it/ etc., to the actually usually quite mild discomfort whilst doing so, to the “what was the fuss all really about?”, to forgetting ever had that issue in the first place haha. (link)
Hi Claudiu,
What an excellent experiential feedback of how to successfully apply the actualism method. Because most of human beings shy away from acknowledging and/or feeling negative feelings, it sometimes takes a deliberate conscious step to bring the feelings closer, and closer, until one affectively experiences that ‘I’ am this feeling. Then magic can happen in an instant and the door to naiveté opens.
This step is often overlooked when at first applying the actualism method because this dis-association happens so automatically for many that it takes some practice to become aware of it happening. Often correspondents have complained that Richard wrote as if the actualism method worked instantly for him – and why does such success elude them. As far as I know from his writing that Richard didn’t experience such automatic dis-association in his application of ‘imitating the actual’ and hence has barely written about it. Having had no concept of a ‘good actualist’ for instance, he did not fight his feelings, but was instead curious, inquisitive, fascinated, explorative – and it worked like a cinch.
I am also reminded of the now famous feedback from No. 60[AF] –
Respondent: ‘It has taken me a hell of a long time to understand the difference between having feelings and being those feelings. Because I have not clearly understood this, I’ve never quite got the hang of paying attention to feelings without praise or blame, and without notions of innocence and culpability, right and wrong, etc getting in the way.
This makes things very interesting. The moment I regard my ‘self’ as ‘having’ a feeling, I’m split down the middle and there’s a secondary reaction on the part of the social identity (an urge to “do something” about the feeling, which in turn evokes more feelings, and so on). Conversely, if I recognise that I am the feeling, it most often dissolves into thin air – and usually pretty quickly too.
This is great. It’s especially helpful with regard to anger and frustration which have been two of my biggest hurdles to date. Previously, when I caught myself being angry, annoyed or frustrated, identifying and paying attention to this feeling would NOT cause it to disappear. On the contrary, the feeling and the awareness of myself as ‘having’ it would sometimes become like a microphone and amplifier locked into a screaming feedback loop.
I’m really pleased that this is no longer happening. It seems almost too easy’. [emphasis in original]. (Thursday 28/10/2004 6:55 PM AEST)
Richard: And again there is a reference to how ‘almost too easy’ actualism is. (Richard, AF List, No. 60g, 30 Oct 2005a).
I much appreciate that you highlighted and emphasized this course of action with your hands-on report.
Cheers Vineeto
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Hi Kuba,
We talked about this issue of embarrassment before, on July 2 2026 (link). Then you were then more specific and honest as to what this “self-consciousness” entailed – pride.
At that time I said to you –
Richard to Jonathan: The semantic part of the discussion pertained to you saying the opposite of pride was embarrassment (see Syd’s Report (link)) – whereupon I pointed out that being humble (aka humility) is the more usual antonym – but given that humiliation and embarrassment are more or less synonymous it required what you characterise as a theological discussion to tease out differing connotations … to wit: the difference betwixt shame and guilt. (…) (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 4 Aug 2013).
Richard: All humility is nothing but the ego being very, very clever … it is but a product of a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning entity called ego. One of the chief attributes of a freedom from a ‘self’ or a ‘Self’ and from believing in a ‘God’ and a ‘Greater Reality’, is a completeness … an absence of the need to control a wayward ‘I’ with moralistic injunctions. Personally I have no humility whatsoever and, of course, neither am I proud. In order to be free of the Human Condition one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement – which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity – and ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body … including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride … and they feed off each other, continuously. For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility … it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realises how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self-centred activity, something astounding occurs. The opposites vanish. (…) (Richard, AF List, No. 4, 9 Jan 1999)
Vineeto: As such, in this situation, don’t just focus on the bad feeling – embarrassment, shame or humiliation – but use it as an indicator for the ‘good’ feeling of pride operating and recognize that it is pride, which stands in the way of you being more and more naïve, unsophisticated and ingenuous. (Kuba15, 2 July 2026).
This ‘self-conscious’ pride is the pride of ‘me’ having kept ‘me’ alive as an identity, with all ‘my’ interfering and affectively convoluted ways ‘I’ have at ‘my’ disposal. When some insight or event reveals some diminishment of this ‘achievement’ ‘I’ respond with the antidote of a variation of humbleness – guilt, shame or embarrassment – to divert attention that ‘my’ substance, my pride has been bruised.
Now you additionally have cloaked the reason for feeling embarrassed as “self-consciousness” and moved it even further away from being something personal – to the “animal heritage” of all human beings.
Instead of chasing your own affective tail, you can approach the feeling of “I have wet my pants” as a welcome event of some diminishment of ‘me’, my self-conscious pride, and appreciate the fact that here is an opportunity to be, and remain, less sophisticated, more ingenuous, more naïve and thus more able to “imitate the actual”.
It’s really easy when looked at from the viewpoint of your aim (applying the fulcrum of pure intent) to be less ‘self’-centric and thus closer to the innocence you want to be.
Cheers Vineeto
Hi Vineeto,
Ah I think I found it! ‘I’ feel embarrassed when talking to you because ‘I’ cannot for the life of ‘me’ get you to respect ‘me’ - so it is pride. And the wanting to be respected is so that ‘I’ am substantiated, taken seriously etc.
So ‘I’ put out ‘my’ feelers, to try to set up the situation to be respected/taken seriously/substantiated, and it falls flat on the ground every single time.
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And a good thing it does, as ‘respect’ will never deliver the goods, i.e. self-immolation in toto . . .
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Vineeto: Instead of chasing your own affective tail, you can approach the feeling of “I have wet my pants” as a welcome event of some diminishment of ‘me’, my self-conscious pride, and appreciate the fact that here is an opportunity to be, and remain, less sophisticated, more ingenuous, more naïve and thus more able to “imitate the actual”.
It’s really easy when looked at from the viewpoint of your aim (applying the fulcrum of pure intent) to be less ‘self’-centric and thus closer to the innocence you want to be. (link)
Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
Ah I think I found it! ‘I’ feel embarrassed when talking to you because ‘I’ cannot for the life of ‘me’ get you to respect ‘me’ – so it is pride. And the wanting to be respected is so that ‘I’ am substantiated, taken seriously etc.
So ‘I’ put out ‘my’ feelers, to try to set up the situation to be respected/ taken seriously/ substantiated, and it falls flat on the ground every single time. (link)
Hi Kuba,
Indeed, and you are not alone in this futile endeavour –
Respondent: I realize that the ‘me’ is still craving for approval from you and others.
Richard: Just for the record: the only thing that will impress me is another’s actual freedom from the human condition … for then they cannot change their mind/ have a change of heart (it being irrevocable).
Respondent: The list social identity! And that is why I write sometimes? Or maybe always? What is behind this desire to bond with you?
Richard: As there is no identity extant in this flesh and blood body – meaning that you could only ever bond with your own projection anyway – you might as well desist from what is nothing but an exercise in futility. (Richard, AF List, No. 30, 7 Jul 2005)
I remember Richard saying this about “the only thing that will impress me” to ‘Vineeto’ and ‘Peter’ as well, which for ‘Vineeto’ put the emphasis of ‘her’ endeavour where it belonged – her own freedom from the human condition. Here is what he wrote regarding Devika –
Richard: My previous companion would oft-times say ‘there is no-one in there’ or ‘there is no-one home’ when feeling me out whilst looking at me quizzically … she also would explain to others that, contrary to expectation, it was sometimes difficult to live with Richard (it could be said that living with some body that is not self-centred would always be easy) as it was impossible for her to have a relationship because there was no-one to make a connection with.
She would also say that Richard does nor support her, as an identity that is, at all … which lack of (affective) caring was disconcerting for her, to say the least, and my current companion has also (correctly) reported this absence of consideration.
Put simply: I am unable to support some-one who does not exist (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world). (Richard, AF List, No. 25a, 10 Jun 2003).
Cheers Vineeto
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Yesterday something quite important clicked…
In the past whenever ‘I’ considered to abandon ‘humanity’ it always seemed that it was ‘humanity’ which was keeping ‘me’ prisoner, that ‘they’ had some kind of power over ‘me’, which was keeping ‘me’ chained. Or ‘I’ would explain it away under some kind of nobility, that this was the reason ‘I’ remained.
Yesterday this got flipped on it’s head, ‘I’ realised that ‘I’ have a secret agenda in remaining a member of ‘humanity’, that it is ‘me’ who requires ‘others’ to maintain ‘my’ very existence as an identity. ‘I’ require ‘them’ to be the mirror in which ‘I’ can catch ‘my’ reflection, that this is how ‘I’ stay in existence.
So then I saw the utter self-centricity of remaining within ‘humanity’, and furthermore that ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’, it is all selfism personified, this whole play is so that ‘I’ can remain in existence.
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