I am indeed 
Sneaky chat?
Yeah I’m free to talk on messages although I can’t zoom.
Righto.
So me and @henryyyyyyyyyy had a similar conversation on this topic a while back. The difference is that in the real world ‘my’ specialness is only defined in relation to others, which means ‘I’ have to stand above others in order to reinforce ‘my’ specialness, so then you have the rat race etc.
In the PCE everybody is unique so they are special by virtue of being unique. So I can see that being special does not have to be denied via humility. It’s similar to what I wrote yesterday, cutting out the middleman.
So in the real world, deep down ‘I’ want to be an individual, but the only way ‘I’ can do that is by standing on the heads of others. In actuality I am already unique which means I do not have to play any of those games, so it’s side-stepping the BS and going straight for the goal, for what I wanted all along.
So this being special via competition is essentially like a coping mechanism, it’s just a poor way of getting what I wanted which is to be a unique individual.
It’s quite cool to contemplate this actually, to find the 3rd alternative to both pride and humility.
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This also makes me think about the talks we had a while back about actual perfection vs ‘functional perfection’, that you can have a better piece of toast and yet they are both perfect.
It seems that because as an identity I am unable to be unique, so instead I search for some approximation of this uniqueness by being better in relation to others. My ‘uniqueness’ is then so intertwined with others that it is extremely unstable.
Whereas if I am actually unique I no longer have to manufacture anything to fill that void. So then I don’t need humility/pride either, I can acknowledge being better/worse at this or that because it is merely something secondary, secondary to the fact that I am already a unique individual, and so is everybody else, hence being special and equity can go hand in hand.
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Why do you imagine that you are not unique in both the real world and actual world?
You are made out of the same psychic material as everyone else in the real, the same physical material in the actual; yet in both worlds, in all eternity and infinite space, there has never been and never will be either another ‘you’ or another you.
You are unique, not because of what you are made out of, but because that is the nature of the universe; it is so vast in it’s scope, that it has produced out of the same stuff infinitely varied things.
I really struggle to comprehend how you could arrive at this conclusion if you have spent any time (and I know you have) reading what’s written on the AFT and seeing how ‘you’ tick.
To be unique is to be one of its kind, both the instinctual and societal aspects of identity are programmed, they are the same passions, the same emotions, the same beliefs, the same values, the same behaviours etc.
They might reshuffle themselves in a myriad of ways but this is not uniqueness, it’s a lie of uniqueness.
It’s like when a child grows up and basically swallows up all the beliefs of its culture, it then shuffles them about into a seemingly novel arrangement and calls it ‘my unique self’. But this is just a lie, you can’t take a bunch of programming from others and make it your own and then call yourself unique. And this is essentially what an identity is.
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I can see how each identity has idiosyncratic components to it, the way each one forms is different to the other, but if you go deeper and look at the ‘stuff’ it’s made of, there isn’t a grain of uniqueness in it.
That’s like saying I have a unique belief or a unique emotion and if I am ‘my’ beliefs/emotions and they are ‘me’ then it’s a lie to say ‘I’ am unique.
It’s also the reason why ‘humanity’ is ‘me’ or why it’s possible to become enlightened and dissolve into the ‘sea of being’, specifically because ‘I’ am not unique.
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Haven’t you ever uncovered a belief in yourself and thought “damn how could I have fallen for this” that is the seeing that what you took to be unique about yourself was merely a piece of programming on repeat.
Have you never observed how all identities behave in these predictably shallow ways, how is that unique?
How is it that we all fall for the same tarot readings describing ‘our unique selves’, or end up going down the same dead ends on repeat as everyone has been for thousands of years.
How is any of this unique lol?
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It’s like ‘I’ am an entire layer cake made of parroted material and right at the top of it ‘I’ place a cherry and say ‘I’m a unique individual’ 
I think I might know what you are getting at, that just as each identity is made of the same stuff but reshuffled in new ways so is the actual flesh and blood body merely the same physical stuff reshuffled.
But this is trying to translate what an actual human is (as experienced apperceptively) into a real world concept so that it can be compared with ‘me’, this is a mistake because there is a certain integrity that cannot be denied when an actual human being is experienced.
The striking thing when you look at anybody in a PCE is that they are actually here, they actually exist right in front of me. This seeing of the actuality of the other makes it impossible to see them as anything other than unique.
But none of this can be compared with what happens in the ‘internal world’.
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This is an interesting distinction actually in terms of the motivation to self immolate.
I remember a PCE a while back when I was walking through a city centre and it was as if I wanted to walk up to everybody and talk to them, simply because they were fellow human beings.
I also remember seeing actual Sonya and being blown away by the fact that she actually exists, it’s such a meaningful thing to experience.
Whereas in my normal mode I am interacting with identities and the 2 experiences are like night and day.
So it’s those actual human beings I am self immolating for, not the identities I usually interact with? 
It makes sense I would do it for those actual flesh and blood bodies, but the problem is they are usually invisible to me.
So I wonder if it is about simply getting closer and closer to seeing the actuality of others, and this is what provides the reason to go all the way.
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To see the actuality of the other imbues the experience with this undeniable meaning and dignity and it’s those flesh and blood bodies that are possessed by an entity just like I posses this flesh and blood body.
The most rotten outcome is that they never get to experience what they actually are, and what they are is so wonderful.
The second outcome is they are made to kill and hurt others as well as themselves.
So this is (intellectually) seeing the reason to self immolate, it has nothing to do with the entities who inhabit those bodies.
It’s interesting though that the PCE where flesh and blood bodies are directly seen is not the place to self immolate from. So ‘I’ the identity have to get close enough somehow whilst still being ‘me’.
It makes me think of Geoffrey seeing the other side of the mirror but not being able to step across to the other side. Or Srinath being denied entry to that mythical land of Moses. Either way it has to be the experience of the actual world that is the reason, something outside of ‘me’ that is worth it, but the commitment is made by ‘me’.
I think perhaps more PCEs needed for now.
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I was thinking the other day how up to this point I was always fascinated in exploring and discovering about ‘me’ and about ‘humanity’, I spent years doing this. It seems that the same fascination has to take place now but in the other direction, towards actuality.
Because other than little discovery here and there the ‘human world’ has been outlined sufficiently, there is not much of value to be found by exploring it further.
But then there is this whole other world that I have left barely touched. I am becoming more fascinated by the prospect of exploring this world. I can see how this can become an obsession in the same way I was obsessed in finding out how ‘I’ tick. Now I can be equally obsessed about exploring and discovering the actual world.
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Since we be invoking @geoffrey, his immolation is marked by realizing he isn’t different than anyone else as an identity:
Later on the way back, I was thinking about this ‘precious’ thing, how only here on this tiny planet right now there are 7 billion people just as ‘unique’ and ‘precious’ as my self, when it clicked… and I burst into laughter. This was simply hilarious. Everybody is so precious. I must then be SO precious hahaha.
The only way a person becomes unique in this life is by accomplishing something extraordinary. Even feeling beings.
It’s a trap to think that you can create a special identity via a paint by number system. All one would have to offer is pretense, and smart people will sniff that out. As would your better sensibilities which is why it’s awkward it is to try to be something you aren’t. Much better to just be yourself. It’s perhaps the most unique thing a feeling-being can do in this life, next to immolation, imo. But there’s no way to approach it without abandoning sacrosanct values and beliefs.
You know this of course 
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This is pretty paradoxical - - and I think there’s a lot of paradoxical things about life and this path. In the argument you use it points out how we are all essentially the same, yet are also obviously unique. No two flowers are the same. But where can one take this other than into the good feelings? It’d be worth pointing out that while you may be unique, you had no part in that. The universe “chose” that for you. A flower doesn’t pick where it will blossom. So there goes feeling good about how unique you are. You’re right that every little creation is unique, never to be repeated. But where should one take that?
Any sense of uniqueness or specialness is fuel for the fire of identity…but so is the opposite found via humility. It’s a very fine line that in my experience can only be crossed via appreciation. That way, at least the affective vibes vibrate in a naive direction. Or just simply recognizing the facts of one’s situation. Any feeling of superiority or inferiority is heading in a fruitless direction.
BUT, since we’re made up of all the same stuff as the universe, and since all of us are feeling beings…we are anything but unique by virtue of simply existing. Though we may feel otherwise.
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Yes probably the better thing to aim for as an identity is to be sincere rather than unique/special. Sincerely rotten
But I’m not sure if your post was aimed at @Andrew or me @edzd ? I am in agreement that uniqueness is not something that ‘I’ can be.
Or by being a flesh and blood body only, then one is actually unique, without having to do anything extraordinary to earn it.
I remember the long PCE I had couple of years back where I was walking around and I saw some women walking around in burkas and I remember thinking that it would be impossible for me to ever have any kind of malice towards people due to differing beliefs, there was no longer a possibility for any kind of tribalism.
They were fellow human beings and so they were unique, regardless of what they choose to do with their life.
It’s the actuality of one’s existence as a flesh and blood body that guarantees uniqueness. And this is actually a really important component because it ensures peace and equity, it is just not possible to treat the other as anything other than a unique individual.
And yeah it is paradoxical because this flesh and blood body is unique, and yet the identity writing these words is not. If I spontaneously go into a PCE right now then I find myself unique as-I-am and so is every other body as no identities exist in actuality.
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