Kub933's Journal

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844

I literally watched a video of a diagnosed NPD describe the world exactly this way.

Pulled back myself from lending a neighbour a guitar and effects board for this reason; it seemed that it was all “one way”.

I really admire how you can see this stuff. I mean, no matter how I try I can’t get to a place where insight is easy.

It finally makes sense to me that it really does take an experience “outside myself” to have the contrast to see anything at all. Why Craig was confused why anyone without a definitive PCE would be interested in actualism.

Speaking of personality disorders, I remember so clearly those who have interacted on actualist forums over the years.

I just finished watching “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” tonight.

The ending is very interesting.

If you haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it for you.

The best intentions in the real world are so conditional, that in time they become estranged from outcomes and are a point of egoic principle; “I am a good person, you C*@ts!”

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845

Lots of very emotionally charged territory lately, it’s been messy at times :sweat_smile: but the great thing is that I am plowing through it and for the first time in a long while I am randomly finding myself here where it is just so delicious to exist in the world. The direct sensate experience is so satisfying, I am shocked every time that I can forget just how satisfying it is. It makes any other desire pale in comparison, this is pure satisfaction from simply being here, breathing the air, smelling the scents all around, being a body.

I can see what Richard writes that it makes it so that there is no need for an orgasm, because simply being a flesh and blood body is so delicious that there isn’t any kind of void that has to be filled by desire. Whereas ‘I’ am forever locked away in a bubble where all is bland, so ‘I’ need whatever object of desire to provide a temporary satisfaction.

I am having some second wind lately, of finishing what I started a long time ago and then kind of settled for second best, with the belief that I can’t do it, that it is not possible. Daring to peel away some things that have been bubbling away for too long.

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846

It’s been very rocky here too. Won’t get into details, but I’m glad that you keep posting because first of all, it helps me to veer back on track just reading the descriptions and secondly I’m competitive AF (ha… ha!) so I get a needed kick in the behind. Can’t let the rest of you have all the fun for yourself.

(No, but seriously. I had a vision of Geoffrey sailing down from the Far Lands in his purple tracksuit, telling me off for not doing it The Right Way. This, together with a lot of other factors have made me see how I always kept thinking I didn’t have the right stuff for AF and kept elevating others above me as more competent and deserving. And I’d like to step out of this proverbial kitchen I’ve relegated myself to.)

847

OK so lately approach has shifted back to what I was doing a while ago which is to dare to dig into the instinctual programming.

I think at some point I gave up on digging around at this level and instead focused entirely on playing around in the social conditioning.

So basically the instinctual passions were still fuelling all the dramas from underneath but I was too busy trying to come up with ‘solutions’ within ‘humanity’, as if I could solve the human condition from the inside. As if by taking apart the social conditioning I would get to a point where the passions also stop burning.

But this is somewhat back to front, because the root cause is the instinctual programming, the societal stuff only comes on top as a method of coping. So the purpose of investigating and minimising the social identity is so that the passions can then be tackled directly, without distortion.

I think this is where it can get a bit tricky though, the ‘balls of steel’ territory. Because once the societal aspect is somewhat removed then the passions are experienced directly and this can be somewhat unsettling and at times very intense. I think I was avoiding this level of ‘self’ experience. Because the passions are like this endless energy it seems, and it cannot be eliminated either (unless I self immolate).

But then I re-read Peters actualist guide and there were a few bits that helped me get back on track :

The first impediment to freedom, peace and happiness to be tackled is always one’s own social identity. Once there is a sufficient dent in this identity, it is possible to see the underlying passions that fuel the spiritual search

It is vitally important to understand that two stages happen with every investigation of a particular deep seated emotion over a period of time, such as aggression, sex, love, sorrow, authority, desire, etc. – first the social identity is dismantled, only then are the raw instinctual passions underneath are exposed

Once sufficient of this dismantling of one’s social identity has been done, it is then possible to begin to experience the instinctual passions deeply without acting on them – once the ‘lid is off’ then I can have a good look around inside – neither repressing nor expressing – and begin to experience ‘me’ at the very core of my being. The only way it is possible to undergo a significant change in life is by experiencing something deeply and understanding the experience fully

So basically the main bit I was avoiding is the ‘experiencing something deeply and understanding the experience fully’. I was playing with the social conditioning but then as soon as the instinctual programming was experienced with the ‘lid off’ I would avoid and distract myself with something else.

It is really quite a raw experience to experience ‘myself’ so deeply and in such a direct way. It’s as if I am a cornered animal and I want to do ANYTHING but be seen head on. As Peter mentions :

A variety of weird experiences are possible for one’s traditional defences, ways of coping or ways of avoiding, are no longer available. It is often as though one is naked in the world and it takes nerves of steel to not raise one’s traditional defences but to stay with any feelings of vulnerability and fear. Each time one dares to fully lower one’s guard and experience the consequences as only temporary and unsustainable instinctual emotional reactions, one gains more confidence to keep going, no matter what

The cool thing is that I remember doing this in the past and although intense, if I really did spend some time deeply experiencing and fully understanding this instinctual programming that is ‘me’. Often shortly after, I would find myself experiencing these new found levels of clarity, as if a layer which was blocking the direct experience of life was literally removed. This happened last week which I wrote about here - Kub933's Journal - #845 by Kub933.

So basically this experience of clarity following these deep explorations is a preview of what Peter writes about below, when this process is followed through sufficiently :

This latter stage of Virtual Freedom is epitomized by the increasingly free operation of common sense and the diminishing of all of the instinctual passions, both the savage and the tender. One’s awareness becomes increasingly bare of the common neurosis of ‘self’-centred thinking, and apperception is able to freely operate unimpeded by the usual input of chemicals that produce the instinctual passions and emotional reactions. One’s physical senses are freed of the instinctual burden of being constantly on-guard and more and more sensual delight becomes abundantly apparent. Having none of the instinctual drives operating and traditional values and meanings to hang on to can be quite discerning, to say the least, and a learning or accustomizing period is necessary for this new way of living.

So this is the goal I have now, to dare to deeply experience and fully understand the instinctual programming that is ‘me’ at ‘my’ core, ‘my’ very soul. The cool thing is that I see that the way of exploration is no different to exploring the social conditioning. There are many delusions which flow automatically from this instinctual programming, ‘I’ am the main one lol. But all that has to be done is to feel the passions fully whilst at the same time conducting a thorough investigation of these delusions as they manifest themselves. In this way ‘I’ can experience ‘myself’ deeply and understand the experience fully, right at that raw instinctual level. This is applying attentiveness to the passions themselves and by doing so clarity develops.

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848

Hmm, programming?

This is a premise that I can’t immediately understand.

An instinctual passion, (which, as a term, predates actualism, as far as I know) is not programmed.

Programming is the social identity. It requires the raw “machine” for it to work.

It’s the very background on which everything ‘we are’ is formed. The genetic “Multicolor” clay.

It’s the ground of being. The feeling of immortality.

It’s a mistake to approach is as “programming” which can be undone, or logically “reprogrammed”.

My opinion of course.

Sectioning off a part of one’s genetically inherited ‘eternal self’ as a program, will miss what is conveyed in the term “passion”.

One is passionate about oneself. Passionate about being passionate.

849

One becomes passionate about becoming free, giving one’s complete “YES” is being here, now.

My interpretation of reading what Richard wrote; it is about channelling all that affective self into being here, now, as the enjoyment of being alive.

The idea that one can look into instinctual passion, without otherwise creating a seperate “watcher” identity, seems suss.

850

The passions seem too real to be merely programming hey :wink: ?

I guess that is why no one before Richard dared to question the truths which flow from the affective faculty.

What is it about the instinctual passions and therefore ‘me’ being merely programming that you can’t accept?

851

I’ll give an example maybe of how this plays out for me. So one that comes to mind is last year whenever I would have to drive to a different city to teach a class (especially in the colder and darker months) there would be this feeling of fear/despair.
It seemed so crazy but when I followed it through right to the very core I could see this entire instinctually sourced drama playing out.
It was this archaic fear of having to leave the safety and warmth of ‘my lair’ and go into the dark and cold ‘outside’ where ‘danger’ lurked. I had to leave behind ‘my’ loved ones and risk everything being ripped away from me.
I would allow myself to fully experience and explore this drama until eventually it was seen as silly, the end.

Now that doesn’t mean that I eliminated fear itself, however what I did was apply attentiveness to a drama which flows from the instinctual package. And the drama itself was seen to be silly and as such is no longer entertained.

The thing is that you cannot draw a hard line between the instinctual and the societal, it is all programming, one flows from the other. The societal merely takes the delusions which flow from the instinctual package and makes them more sophisticated, and more deeply entrenched in culture etc.

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852

I guess another good thing to contemplate is why is it that all human cultures throughout history fell for the same belief systems (in one way or another) of a soul, the spiritual etc?

Where did that belief originate? And why did it originate in all cases?

Because it is a delusion which flows from the instinctual package itself, the ‘self’ is programmed by blind nature and humans with the capacity to think and communicate turn it into a much more sophisticated construct. But the seed is already planted by blind nature, it is part of the programming.

Hence we can also observe similarities between humans and other animals, animals don’t have the ability to use language and culture (the societal aspect) and yet we can see the outlines of the same core behaviours in them.

This crude sense of danger and safety, attraction and aversion etc is the instinctual programming itself. And actually it’s good that it is just programming, that is why it is not ‘set in stone’, why it can be eliminated, because it is not hardware (though it certainly feels that way).

This is why Richard describes self immolation as deleting a piece of software (with no bin to retrieve from). Also why in a PCE the entire real world disappears and is seen to have never existed in the first place. How could this be possible if the passions were actual?

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853

@Andrew is it that in accepting that it is programming ‘you’ can no longer be heroic? (or something to that effect)

I’ll expand on this since its a pretty vague statement lol. In accepting that the instinctual package is programming and therefore that ‘I’ am equally programmed there is the giving up of certain archetypal stories. In this case the ‘me’ who is the agent, ‘me’ against the world, ‘I’ will make it happen because ‘I’ want it so bad etc.

But it has been said before that ‘I’ do not make actual freedom happen, ‘I’ tag along the whole time feeling that it is ‘me’ running the show, but of course that is part of the mirage itself. So seeing that ‘I’ am this very instinctual programming ‘I’ can no longer entertain certain things. So is there an agenda to remain in this storyline of ‘me’ against the human condition?

Of course the mistake would be to turn this into some belief system where ‘I’ just sit back and do nothing because apparently ‘I’ am not in charge lol, you proceed from where you are, the illusion has a job to do whilst it exists. But eventually the facts speak for themselves.

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854

I dunno. It seems like a lot of this discussion is also predicated on well and truly understanding that you are your feelings, they’re not something that happens to you. Same with the instinctual passions.

I think it might be very easy to keep this as an intellectual understanding without ever getting into the grit of it. Especially after a lifetime of suppressing (or expressing, for that matter) the reflex to do so can get so very ingrained as to almost be impossible to catch in time, or to even notice it happening.

Just my €0.2 from the fringes.

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855

Yeah maybe this is why @Andrew sees it as suss that the instinctual passions could be observed with attentiveness. Yet it’s the same attentiveness that is applied to anything else that happens on the ‘inside’. It goes without saying that whatever drama is being observed ‘I’ am ‘being’ that drama at the same time.

856

I never said that. :rofl:

I was myself looking at my background feeling, and it seemed to me better described as a passion (something that one is engulfed in, like water, vs the computer metaphor of “programming”).

857

I seem to recall Peter and Vineeto calling it “instinctual programming” whilst Richard refers to Instinctual passions.

Does it matter? Well, it just seemed reading your initial post on the subject that there was the idea implied in choosing “programming” as a metaphor that examining would somehow reprogram, or de-program. You didn’t say that, it was just an impression.

858

Man I hate to be a typical pick it apart actualist but you did literally write the below :

You wrote this as a response to a post describing the use of attentiveness to investigate the passions :

Which bit is it that you never said?

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859

Is it that you don’t see experientially how attentiveness could be applied to passions (whereas you see it can be applied to social conditioning) and so you are only left with the option of separating and becoming some dissociated ‘watcher’?

860

Me; “look into an instinctual passion without otherwise creating a seperate “watcher” identity, seems suss.”

You: “Andrew sees it as suss that instinctual passions could be observed with attentiveness.”

The fact they arent exactly the same is irrelevant. They are indeed close enough.

I would argue, as a veteran failure of actualism, all the attentiveness was only ever building a “watcher” like identity.

“Today I will contemplate ‘time’”

“Today I will look into ‘fear’”

Etc etc.

I wish I could find the quote, it’s rather obscure, but somewhere Richard was asked as to why Peter and Vineeto had taken “so long”. He said something like it was all a delaying tactic.

Not a direct quote, maybe less than a paraphrase.

861

Right but are you saying that you have failed to apply attentiveness yourself and instead veered off into some kind of watcher instead. Or are you saying that attentiveness as described on the AFT is a fraud?

862

Hmm, It was the impression I got reading what you wrote. That it was going to be something of an analysis which would undo the programs.

I remember a year ago, there was a momentum in you that was more about contrasting the experience of purity with everything else.

It seems closer to my understanding of the way forward.

It could well be that I don’t think we are ever looking at a feeling. Sure.

What would be looking at the feeling?

It seems to me that only those who, like you, can contrast the purity of the actual with normal, have the vantage point to move in that direction.

Is there something in particular you don’t already understand about what we are calling passions/programming?

I mean go ahead and do it, for sure. It was an impression I got that it was something I might do. I don’t think doing anything I would do is actualism. (besides perhaps being one’s own best friend and sticking at it).

863

Yes agreed, the thing though is that these experiences of purity can’t be bottled up, so it kind of got to a dead end for me. As in I am not committed to allowing pure intent fully but at the same time I don’t want to be hanging around waiting. This ‘in the meantime’ approach of in control virtual freedom seems sensible here, because I don’t have to wait to be happy and harmless, I can change myself as far as humanly possible whilst I am still deciding whether I want to commit to actual freedom. And the more I am happy and harmless each moment again the more obvious it is that actual freedom is a sensible goal.

What I described here would be an example - Kub933's Journal - #851 by Kub933.

I’m not sure about this one actually, it definitely makes the road less rocky when pure intent is active but at the same time you have a brain like I do and our brains are both capable of being aware of their own functioning, and of seeing what is silly and what is sensible. I think these are the only qualities necessary to get going. If you can apply attentiveness to the fact that you got angry when the guy cut you off in traffic then you have all the qualities necessary to explore and investigate at any level.

There is nothing obvious that comes to mind, however it is not just about an overall understanding but about this specific thing now (whatever it is), this drama that is currently in the way, where there is drama it means there is no clarity. With clarity the drama cannot exist.