Kub933's Journal

Journals
904

OK so making headway with this one, it’s fascinating stuff. I was on holiday in France the past few days and something kept popping up time and time again. Also had a PCE and a long EE probably due to the holiday atmosphere, these helped to clarify things even further.

Somehow I began to see all the emotions, all the various interactions in light of the fundamental ‘human’ drama of ‘being a group member’. It clicked one day that virtually all that I deal with day to day comes directly from this, it’s an ancient and fundamental aspect of what it means to ‘be human’.

The long EE I had was a glimpse of what it would be like each moment again if I no longer identified as a ‘group member’, it was a glimpse of a life of freedom.
The PCE was a glimpse of what it is like when this archaic drama called the ‘human condition’ is completely out of the way, it’s only perfection.

The reason I wanted to write this is because I can see why I am on the look out for vibes, why I leave that window open, why it is apparently necessary. It is intricately linked with this aspect of ‘being a group member’. In the past, being a valued group member was a necessity for both survival and reproduction, this deeply imbedded habit of constantly feeling others out and then getting involved in all sorts of messy relationships was the way of life. It was a necessity for ‘me’ to fulfil ‘my’ instinctual imperative.

The stakes were high for sure, if I piss of my tribe and they decide to ostracise me I am as good as dead and with no access to females either. This is before I could just go get a new job or call the police or complain to the HR or go on tinder to find a new partner.

So there is this instinctual tendency to (constantly and in each situation) turn other human beings into ‘groups’, and from there to relate in light of this ancient drama with ‘me’ as the group member. Which is silly as none of these things apply anymore, it is an outdated way of living, although I do not see this fully yet. What I can see though is just how pervasive this aspect is and also how it relates to this need to feel others out at all times.

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905

I’ve had this experience the past few days where at times it seems like the step is right there, to step out of ‘humanity’ to no longer be a ‘group member’, I can see the immediate freedom on the other side and also the sensibility of this (as per above post). It’s kind of exciting and then frustrating that something keeps me pinned each time.

It’s as if stepping out of ‘humanity’ is letting that whole house of cards tumble down, all of the various dramas unwinding and nothing of ‘me’ left.

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906

Yes I’ve done that with particular things. When you get to the bottom it’s apparent the emotion is just sourced in fear and I can stop.

That doesn’t mean that I never experience that emotion ever again, but it does weaken its power and in that instance it does cease.

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907

It’s the difference between “latent” and “active”

They can’t be eliminated except by self-immolation, but they can be greatly minimized - as in rendered latent. To an amazing degree anyway (99% of the day).

908

So just now I had a customer ringing to lodge a complaint about the way the couriers related to her mum. As soon as I pick up the phone I experience quite a strong sorrowful and malicious vibe, these things are actually quite interesting because on the surface she is speaking in a perfectly civilised manner and so am I, yet we both experience what is going on under that civilised surface, it’s a psychic battle for survival.

She feels that someone close to her was wronged and she must regain justice, she is there to protect her innocent, elderly mum. In these situations I find that individuals will try to use every possible trick to enforce a narrative in which their feelings are validated. They are hunting for anything at all that could be used to gain a moral high-ground.
It is very much the case of “it is impossible to combat the wisdom of the real world”, every question, every sentence is constructed specifically in order to elicit a response in line with their passionate narrative.

What I am wondering is how on earth to deal with these situations :laughing: I can see that whichever way I respond they will simply engulf it back into the narrative, unless I give them specifically what they are fishing for - to fully endorse and validate their passionate response. So either way they will get what they ask for which is ‘to be right’, the mind of the accuser in this case is already made up.

And actually that I do not have an issue with, the thing that still gets to me and which is why I am writing this, is that at core I am still affected simply because I am feeling her out. As soon as the call starts and I feel the sorrowful and malicious vibe I have already lost, from here any action I take is starting from a crippled place, now I am bound to operate within the boundaries that she has set out, I am unable to operate cleanly and sensibly because by the mere action of feeling her sorrow and malice I am now trapped in the very same drama.

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909

When I think about Richard’s correspondence on the AFT it really is a solid indication that his claim of actual freedom was genuine, because in those thousands of words of identities trying to use every trick in the book to draw out an emotional response there was nothing at all haha.

There is just no way an identity would not eventually slip up.

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910

Just re-reading the Q&A from Australia today and something clicked for me, which is my own misunderstanding of the application of the method, I wonder if this might be useful to others too.

Richard advises that :

‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now?.. Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel good is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling good.

So in this scenario feeling good is the baseline one operates from, when one deviates from this baseline one applies the above steps and one is then back on track. Over time when this is habituated then the baseline can be upped.

Where I have misunderstood the advice is that I mostly operate from a baseline of feeling ok/neutral, When a trigger comes up and I am now knocked a step down into feeling bad, by applying the recommended steps I will not fly into feeling good, I will simply return to the baseline which was active before the trigger. Following those steps is not a magical recipe for a flight into feeling good, rather it is what I do to return to where I was before the trigger happened.

The ‘secret’ is in habituating whatever baseline one is at and then slowly creeping it towards progressively more felicitous and innocuous. This makes a lot of sense to me now, why the method worked so seamlessly for Richard, because he had already committed to that baseline of feeling good, so then the steps will work exactly as described.

Where I have been confused is I would be operating from a baseline of ok/neutral → get knocked into feeling bad → then expect the prescribed steps to land me in feeling good.

So I could re-write the above advice as below :

‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling ok. If ‘I’ am not feeling ok then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt ok and now?.. Once the specific moment of ceasing to feel ok is pin-pointed, and the silliness of having such an incident as that (no matter what it is) take away one’s enjoyment and appreciation of this only moment of being alive is seen for what it is – usually some habitual reactive response – one is once more feeling ok.

Once feeling ok is habituated to a point where it takes little to no effort to remain there indefinitely then the next increment becomes available, but all this will depend hugely on where one is coming from when they start, I came from miserable as a baseline.

I suspect this might be quite a common misunderstanding actually.

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911

I think this is where a lot of the various resistance to feeling good comes from also. Because one is not near that baseline yet, so to go from being a generally unhappy person as a baseline, to contemplate the jump into feeling good as a moment to moment MO will be too much of a shift to be feasible. It will have no solid groundwork on which to build upon.

Once whichever baseline is habituated then there is this window that opens up, it’s within reach now to allow oneself to creep to the next step of the ladder.

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912

Interesting.

Respect for the elderly, foremost one’s parents, is a very ancient thing. Julian Jayne’s much shunned book traces the origin of God et al back to this pre-modern conscious devotion to one’s forbears.

(Origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind, 1976 Julian Jaynes)

It would be fascinating to have been a fly on the wall of the interaction between the couriers and her mother.

What possibly could it have been?

Did they beat her up? Not smile? Sorta get impatient with her doddering ways whilst being paid barely enough to make rent?

My recent NPS ex had a photo of her mother on the side table or similar everywhere. I find it disgusting to see parents demand reverence from their children. How pathetic that the mother wasn’t the one on the phone. Has a lifetime of experience given her nothing with which to deal with a (supposedly) impolite courier?

One can aim for at least the dignity to deal with couriers without having ones own children complaining to the company.

#lifegoals

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913

Focusing on the little things…

Today I was thinking about how there isn’t much ‘low hanging fruit’ left for me to address. Things are very stable these days but I know there is more to go in terms of a virtual freedom.

This is where I have been stagnant for a while now, because things have not been bad enough to force me (via suffering) to change now, so i’ve been hanging out on that ‘ok’ plateau.

I do remember at the beginning it was like ‘swim or sink’, I was either going to continue suffering or I was going to push forward and change myself.

What I realised today was that the task is still the same, except now it is not these overwhelming emotional structures that I am dealing with but rather it’s the little things that consistently chip away at my enjoyment and appreciation.

It’s not a case of ‘what is making me miserable’ it’s more like ‘what is making me remain only at feeling ok’. In a way this is good, because ‘ok’ is as bad as things get.
But the next thing is, can I contemplate being virtually free of sorrow and malice? I can see there is not much between me and this goal, it’s like bits of shrapnel left flying about at this point.

I think because these little things do not have the capacity to disturb my equilibrium I have been ignoring them altogether. Not realising that the damage is caused because I end up wasting this moment of being alive doing something other than actively enjoying and appreciating being here.

On some level it seems ‘too good to be true’ to have enjoying and appreciating each moment again as an actual goal. It seems I have been content with setting the bar much lower instead. That as long as I was not actively resenting being here I was winning, like that was the end of the road.

Looking at what’s ahead though the word megalomania screams at me, as in am I really going to expect that much from being alive?

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914

It is becoming increasingly clear that what reality is, is an ancient memory that is echoing inside the minds of human beings today, the identity arises out of the sum total of this conditioning.

I am getting more and more clarity on this, it’s like I am outlining this big picture bit by bit and it is all starting to come into sharper focus. I am having these experiences where the above is seen very clearly, the contrast between what is factually the case and the illusory nature of reality.
Then reality is seen as this archaic memory playing on repeat, this memory has absolutely no relevance to what is actually the case now, it is like a hang-over from ancient times.
The other thing is that this memory was never of the actual, it is all feeling and belief.

I can see that ‘I’ am simply the core aspect that arises out of all this calenture, ‘I’ am not separate from it, ‘I’ am literally made of that illusory stuff pooling together. Therefore ‘my’ emotions are real and yet at the same time they are as illusory as ‘I’ am. ‘I’ can never be free from ‘my’ emotions as we are made from the same illusory stuff.
But something quite miraculous can happen though, when ‘I’ am seen for the illusion that ‘I’ am, then emotion disappears also, both the subject and the object disappear, there is no-one left inside to have the emotions happen to them. So it is all quite simple after all, the ending of illusion is the ending of the human condition.

I wonder how this relates to self immolation, because ‘me’ being as illusory as ‘I’ am, cannot actually cause anything to change, it is this body that gets rid of the illusion that is ‘me’. What I suspect is that the complete seeing through of the illusion coincides with ‘me’ altruistically sacrificing ‘myself’, they are the 2 different lenses for explaining the same event, one is of what is actually taking place and the other is of what happens on the level of identity.

This is actually kinda cool to contemplate, that this whole thing is being chipped away at in 2 dimensions, even though only 1 is actual. There is this actual body and mind slowly coming out of calenture and there is the ‘agent’ on the ‘inside’ busy doing all ‘he’ can to end the human condition.

915

I have been reflecting a bit on Richards writing about what he later released he saw at 19; that no one was in control of the world.

One of the curious, yet predicable characteristics of middle age is an interest in politics. When all else fails, or is otherwise irrelevant, the idea of what is happening with those “in charge” becomes interesting.

The more I look, the more I read the paper (at lunch) the more Richard’s insight echoes in my mind. None of the so called “leaders” are really in control.

It is as you say, an ancient memory on repeat. The same perverse, childish, grasping for some evidence of the immortality which is implied in such an ancient memory.

916

Yes exactly! that whole belief in authority etc none of this is actually taking place, it’s so wonderful to see this, that it is only because of belief that we collectively act ‘as if’.

I have been watching ‘below deck’ with Sonya and it’s basically reality TV about people working on cruise ships in a very high pressure environment with lots of power plays, strong hierarchy etc.
And I had that same seeing at one point, where those very real emotions they are all experiencing are part and parcel of something that simply does not exist, they are just playing along and suffering the consequences.

917

I am mildly tempted to create the model of the planet that was a part of my musings when we were discussing the anthropomorphic climate change topic. Just to watch the squirming of the latest global religion in the face of a rank amateur debunk the latest fear fuelled frenzy for immortality.

Acting “as if” the completely unaccountable priests of science are in charge, and a force majeure of all liability; to actually have evidence is in play. All contracts with facts are not only null and void, but the ancient god of fear has ensured that no such contract was ever signed.

The best trick the devil pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist. As it were.

918

I managed to endure the first third of the Tucker Carlson/ Putin interview; watching two grown men essentially playing with stories to justify their power given to them by the deranged masses.

Whilst thousands die, mind you. Both sit and get what they both most dearly treasure; the idea of themselves as someone in power.

919

Now the question is how to expose ‘myself’ in a way that self-immolation is assured. It seems like the way towards a virtual freedom provides some kind of assistance here, with beliefs crumbling it becomes more and more obvious that actual freedom is possible and that it is what I want. With so little left of ‘me’ what is there to hold onto anyway? It does very much seem like ‘bridging the gap’.

If ‘I’ can temporarily be seen for the illusion that ‘I’ am and disappear along with the ‘real world’ then it’s clear that actual freedom is possible, I no longer believe that it is not possible.
Furthermore seeing that none of ‘my’ life actually takes place there is nothing that can go wrong, ‘my’ death is not a big deal at all.
This reminds me of what Richard mentions to Vinneto that ‘it is the easiest thing in the world and the hardest thing in the world’ again this is looking from the 2 different lenses. In actuality ‘my’ death is a non-event altogether and in reality ‘my’ death is as big as it gets, for ‘me’.

I know it is not a ‘1 ingredient missing’ type of situation, it’s more that what I am already doing needs to build on itself from all angles.
There were a few times when it seemed so simple to take that step but there is this weird thing that held me back. I could see that this body is already here, the seeing was akin to what Richard writes that ‘one has arrived before one starts’ and this was what made ‘me’ pull back.

It seemed too simple, that it could be over now (to the extent that ‘I’ never was in the first place), and somehow ‘I’ wanted to keep the story going. When ‘I’ disappear then this body knows it was here all along, and it’s the enormity of this that ‘I’ resisted, also the simplicity of it.

‘My’ death is a funny event to contemplate because going into oblivion, ‘I’ never existed in the first place. So this isn’t death as ‘I’ normally understand it, this is utter annihilation, this is a death multiple levels further than ‘me’ discarding the body and going into some afterlife, ‘I’ would not even survive as a concept , looking back there would be nothing there to begin with.

The above is enormous and at the same time utterly safe. But is it that I don’t want to allow the universe to be already perfect? Somehow I am attached to this rotten aspect, with ‘me’ gone there is northing else to be done, nothing wrong to be fixed. ‘I’ have been so invested ‘my’ whole life in the drama and to allow perfection means that it was all over nothing, it was only ever pointless, ‘I’ was only ever pointless.

I wonder if there is some kind of pride there, that ‘I’ was on a mission to fix what was wrong, and now I discover that it was ‘me’ that was wrong, not the universe, oopsie :laughing:

920

But unless you have eliminated power within yourself then what alternative do you have to offer really?

921

This is an interesting direction to look, because right now I always feel that there is some problem out there for which I must find a solution for, a nice sneaky way for me to remain, apparently necessary.

BUT what if I was to allow that ‘my’ solutions are only necessary because the problems are also created by ‘myself’, ‘I’ am just spinning around and around in this way. There is still a reluctance to allow this, to allow that life is indeed perfect all the way through. All that ‘I’ have built ‘myself’ up to be, ‘my’ story of overcoming this and that, of accomplishing this and that, it would be for nothing. Wouldn’t that take utter sincerity to admit :grimacing:

922

I went for a ride down to Fremantle and took some street photography. Thinking a bit about how easy it is for people to think I am a professional photographer because I have a fancy camera!

People may get weirded out if I was on my phone, but a shiny Olympus? I must be a pro.

The ultimate trick is that it is me “in control”.

It becomes obvious enough, especially now that through events and effort I am somewhat free of the relationship game (finally!), that the political one is there. Wealth, power, politics. The last frontier of a self asserting it’s belief in its ultimate agency.

In a way each of the actualist reports of becoming free had an element of this fundamental thing that eludes normal scrutiny; that I ever had any control beyond that choice to cease to ‘be’.

Albert Camus famously wrote that there is only one true question in philosophy; whether to commit suicide or not!

923

And as much as I resist this, it is indeed the case, how else would it be possible to have a PCE and for all those problems to miraculously cease existing? Are the facts ascertained during a PCE correct or is it ‘my’ feelings and beliefs which are correct?
I can very much observe this happening too, an event takes place and ‘I’ instinctually feel ‘danger’, something feels ‘wrong’ and needs to be rectified. The question is whether this is a fact or merely a feeling? And if it is a feeling then what if ‘I’ am simply wrong time and time again.

The second part of the resistance to perfection comes from no longer being a ‘somebody’ of importance. There is this feeling that no longer being special within the group is a dangerous thing, that I must hold some kind of a social capital, this one I have been stuck with for a while also.

But it is the PCE which shows the facts, in the PCE it is seen that this entire game of the ‘rat race’ is not required, that there is safety already here without it. So again this is a case of a solution only being needed because ‘I’ persist with creating the problems.

This makes me feel like what Vineeto mentions in one of the DVD’s - “Richard you are talking me out of a job”. For what is left for ‘me’ to do in this case? Either ‘I’ continue justifying ‘my’ existence by creating problems and finding solutions or ‘I’ accept that self-immolation is the only sensible alternative.

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