Ah, yes
I was wondering and thinking about this, I guess off and on for a long time.
The best I came up with is to stick with the AFT, we are not doing it for ‘them’.
We end ‘them’ in the only way we can, which is to remove another support for ‘their’ reality.
I sorta think a better term than "this flesh and blood body " is in order. The Actual person?
We do it for the actual person currently being enslaved by that imbecile.
Something else that is quite interesting actually… I just noticed now that there is plenty of things that I do which might be considered ‘bit of an asshole’ by other people, but there is a twist!
What I notice noways is that I no longer tend to stretch myself in order to accommodate others emotionally which in the real world terms is definitely an asshole. However my focus is nowadays mostly on the actual consequences of my actions.
As in my consideration is of the practical outcomes of my actions and not whether they are optimised for others emotions/beliefs.
Which leads me to an interesting observation, that in reality it is all back to front! That all of the focus is on whether someones emotions got hurt/optimised for and likewise there is a blindness as to the actual outcomes of what it is that people are doing - it’s madness.
yes! 
You beat me to it.
Yeah.
Which is the “warts and all” appreciation of life.
There’s plenty of hugely abused actual bodies.
It really sorta unappealing to say “bodies” though.
It misses the shear marvel of a conscious human.
The billions of neurones, the incredibly resilient genetics, the endlessly amazing heart, pumping none stop day in, day out.
All of this walking around with the ‘real’ weighing down on them.
These marvellous creatures could be laughing and playing freely, sensuously enjoying being what they are, yet they are ‘driven’ by this bizarre archane feeling of ‘self’ to perpetuate everything from a bad mood, to a world war.
One can do the math on this one;
If the average person has 50 acquaintances, and the world’s population is now 8 billion then;
50^5
50x50 =2500, 2500x50 = 125000, 125000x50=6,250,000, 6,250,000x50 =312,500,000, 312,500,000x50= 15,625,000,000,
In less numbers, it’s probably somewhere around 3 or 4 links between “people you know, knowing people they know”.
That imbecile is fair game.
I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who mows a guy who knows Kevin Bacon
Have you ever considered that everyone’s actions are coming out of the totality of their biology, their upbringing, and all their experiences? In other words, if “you” were them you would behave in basically the same way. After I went beyond merely considering that but let it sink in deeply I found it’s difficult to maintain frustration with individuals behaving imbecilely on an ongoing basis with that insight. However, of course I can still on the spot get frustrated with imbecilic behavior as until the instinctual passions are deleted the possibility of my identity being triggered is of course always there.
This is just a relative issue, sure you’re a better person than them but you still have things you do that aren’t great (as you say, “your grotty self”), so at that point it’s just which direction you look at it. Are you a grotty self, causing chaos & pain in the world, or a righteous person better than everyone else? It doesn’t matter much, because either way you’re playing in the same arena as they are, of ‘selves’ in which those that are ‘righteous’ are contributing to just the same as those assholes are.
It’s still useful that you’ve succeeded at being a relatively good person, but any rancor toward them keeps the whole thing going just as much as any rancor toward your ‘self’ does.
My view has been that a lot of how I’ve wound up a good person is a matter of coincidence as much as anything, my parents raised me to care about others and then a whole long series of coincidental occurrences that led ‘me’ to express the way I do now. The same is true for anyone that’s an asshole. It’s hardly a moral issue at all.
You guys alluded to this as well, but being an asshole isn’t really a pleasant existence, either. It means constantly being involved in an explicit power battle with others, constantly triggering others and having to deal with the consequences of that. It is indeed very separated from purity, which means separated from intimacy, from peace. A lot of times people are assholes as an attempt to cope with their discomfort, essentially careening through life (much like their driving!)
For my part I’ve seen this happen on a spectrum, at different times I organically exist from a lot more care but when I’m feeling more threatened, I find that my natural consideration for others dips substantially too. The main difference in my case is that I’m lucky enough to know how to make the adjustments, or at least know that there’s an adjustment worth making.
I do think there’s a place for individual responsibility in all this, but isn’t that exactly the issue with ‘selves’? If they believe they can get away with something, they’ll do it. This whole becoming free business really is unbelievably radical, especially when it’s considered that the normal alternative to being an asshole is being ‘moral,’ ‘ethical.’
I think the main thing here is that the rancor toward them keeps humanity going, Vineeto says somewhere that Richard was already a good person before he became free, but he saw that that wasn’t enough. There have been lots of good people down through history, but they suffered and they weren’t enough to end suffering.
Actually I think part of the frustration is seeing that morality doesn’t work so all this is quite useful. it’s like being disillusioned with that whole world. Like when I grow up I am told that if I am a good person then everything will go well for me. And then experiencing first hand that even being someone who is relatively happy and harmless you are still basically having to intelligently manoeuvre around all sorts of individuals.
This fundamental belief is something like - keep slotting good deed coins into the society machine and it will always look out for you. But of course this is a big lie, the only way to be ‘looked after’ is to stand on my own two feet and live intelligently, to look after myself.
So right now I can see the whole fabric of this morality kinda peeling back and just see the savagery that is actually going on - then the question is what do I do in this case? And the sensible answer is to go for the purity and perfection, there is no sense in hoping that something out there will have my best interests at heart.
One of the things that shocked me the other day was doing some sparring with some new dude who came into the gym. He was a very large individual, probably 120-130kg and pretty skilled, and clearly living with a point to prove.
When there is that much of a weight difference and when someone is going as hard as he was, when applying a submission I cannot go too slow and controlled as there is just too much muscle to work against, so I catch the guy in a joint lock and very quickly crank the submission then immediately let go before any real damage could be caused.
But the guy protests that I cranked the submission and hurt him, then says “I see, let’s go…” and proceeds to spar with me with an intensity that is clearly intended to hurt me, bearing in mind that there is an enormous weight difference between us he is very capable of snapping my arm like a twig if he does catch me. So now I find myself being attacked by some behemoth who is intent on hurting me if he does catch me in a joint lock.
And it’s this kind of behaviour that I observe, that people are so willing to act so poorly, to go out and intend to hurt someone out of pride, and with that much of a weight difference that could be some real hurt!
So this is where I am at, I cannot hope that being a good person will keep me safe in any way shape or form, being a happy and harmless person I am still in danger - the answer is to remove faith and hope and to live intelligently, to look after myself completely.
It’s like living in Australia; no matter how “good” you are, one doesn’t put one’s hand on anything without checking for spiders.
I used to go for walks around a lake where I worked, but had to stop using those paths because of tiger snakes.
People are really the same. Some are relatively harmless, some downright deadly.
That was in an email to me a decade ago. I doubt I still have it.
It was actually related to what Kuba is talking about, in that I was objecting to my interpretation of Richard’s storyline.
Vineeto (I assume checking with Richard) carefully explained what I wasn’t getting right with the facts (the circumstances of raising his children), and added on something like “do you really think Richard would have wanted to do all this [radically changing, self immolation etc] if he wasn’t already a good person?” (Paraphrasing from a decade old memory).
Additionally, in the same email, she mentions that an actualist holds themselves to a standard way above anything morality and the religions prescribed.
Imitation of the perfection and purity of the actual universe via the potency of one’s pure intent connection with the same, is so far superior to morality in every way, not least the standard of “a good person”.
I should probably clarify this bit, morality certainly works to the extent that it keeps a somewhat smooth fabric to society. It is just that it does not work in terms of creating an eminently successful way of living. Morality ticks a very important box in that most people are not going around fighting, looting, raping etc But even then it is inevitable that some of the malice eventually ‘spills out’ and it is no good having faith in society/others that I will be protected when this inevitably happens. Also as you guys mention that box which is ticked by morality is quite a low standard in comparison to what an actualist is going for.
Morality is concerned with ensuring that the worst excesses of violence do not take place on the regular and it does this somewhat successfully. But because the malicious entity is still in existence there is the inevitable small scale conflicts, arguments, power-trips, manipulations etc which are essentially going on constantly - in this regard morality fails completely, it does not work in terms of promoting peace and harmony.
Ok so I have some clarity on this now, funny because I was just writing to Claudiu recently that the tendency is that it is every other variable before it is ‘me’.
I remember talking to Sonya recently about a trend I notice in women, where the incessant need to blame the man is actually a form of deflection, deflection away from the fact that in order to remain a ‘woman’ one is continually handicapping themselves, and of course some scapegoat needs to be found so that the identity itself is never questioned.
I am doing essentially the same thing here with my ‘righteous anger’, it is a form of deflection away from me, to avoid the fact that I am still bound by fear. I noticed another angle on this today as well when I started feeling resentful about the beliefs that I believe other people hold about me 
It’s like apparently I’m not allowed to be happy because all these people keep projecting all these beliefs on me - and then I quickly noticed that this entire play is going on in my head, it is all my beliefs lol.
This is actually quite huge for me, it’s like someone say with a face disfigurement will create an entire universe of various ‘truths’ on how people perceive them - that entire universe is created out of their initial fear, I’ve been doing this with everything.
I simply cannot accept the possibility of this initial fear coming to fruition so I create an entire host of phantoms to then battle with.
So I went for a nap last night after work and as usual got myself into that cool contemplative space where discoveries seem to be happening of their own accord.
I unlocked what seemed like a whole cinema of childhood memories. They all seem to be around the same period in my life when I was still living in Poland, probably between 6-12 years old. They all contain the same flavour of never ending wonder and the lack of ‘reality’. It made me think about something that I observed in myself when I was growing up. I was getting older each year and more strictly following the path set out by humanity. But I was noticing that life was getting worse and worse by the year, I knew I had lost ‘something’ but that something by then was so deeply buried that I forgot/denied its existence. I just knew that there was more to life than this and that I was travelling in the wrong direction, but it was the only way available.
I can see why there was always this sense of ‘there is more to life’, because I had lived this ‘more’ for so many years when I was young, it wasn’t actual freedom but it was something entirely different to what I live now. I am very appreciative of my parents because when I was young they always wanted me to be able to enjoy a fun and carefree childhood and they facilitated this for me. Everyday was spent pretty much the same way, get back from school and immediately run off to play in the woods, play sports or stay at home and play computer games. In summers I was shipped off to stay with my grandparents for a few months, they had a farm in the countryside where I would hang out. Winters in Poland were awesome with so much snow and I would spend the days exploring the winter wonderland that my home town was.
It is just weird because with my ‘human’ eyes now that place is a different existence, lived by another person. Yet when the memory is unlocked I am tasting that magic and wonder now.
Something that stands out in those memories which is related to this never ending wonder is the ‘stuntedness’ that @Shashank mentioned. I remember what it was like back then, that things were experienced without these ‘additional layers’ and this created this sense of wonder and magic to everything. This seems in line with what @claudiu was writing recently about the ‘anhedonic pleasure’, this direct experiencing was such that it seemed infinitely fascinating and delightful whilst being intrinsic to the experience of anything/everything.
Now the problem seems that somewhere along the line I picked up a certain truth. It says something along the lines of - you cannot have happiness and be a grown up at the same time. It is a belief in the necessity of the human constitution. It is a belief that out of obligation and responsibility I must give up this wonder and become a well functioning adult instead. I carry this truth still now, where I deeply feel that going for this wonderful world I am somehow becoming incapable of functioning. But of course I have plenty of suspicions about this truth haha, it is just a case of discovering the answer experientially. So I have been allowing this magic as much as I can whilst observing myself living life in order to see how I do, so far so good haha.
I am having this little intrusive thought floating out and being considered - What if this wonderful world is all that actually exists… And I can’t quite argue with it, although I can’t completely agree with it either. But it seems like it is not a case of belief/disbelief - it is a case of no longer being able to deny something that is clearly the case.
Jealous of the napping but, but I can relate to the wonder of childhood.
Coming home from school, climbing “the tree” (a huge Cape Lilac) , building Lego, models, drawing, cubby houses, (3 storeys tall in “the tree”). Building bunkers underground. Playing with the dozens of pets. Later, the Atari 1040ST. With its amazing 1MB of RAM! 
I was only just thinking that I have this very open “heart” which just can’t forget that life was so much more fun, and is very confused about how serious everything became.
That seriousness though is more complex than I would otherwise claim. There is a whole lot of waiting going on in it.
I see people, specific people I know “having fun”, but there seems to be something missing in me. I suspect it’s some sort of …
I will stop there. Hijacking your journal now.
More generally, it’s as if we politely acquiesce to the grown up world, trusting that there is some important reason why the “fun must stop”, yet decades later the more sensitive notice that there was never an important reason.
Which of course means, I am thinking there is an important reason to be feeling serious and confused.
