Kub933's Journal

Hi Vineeto,

I will go in bits because there is a lot in your message which clicks.

I really like how you wrote this - “intimacy is not assertive but inclusive, enticing, friendly, benevolent”. And with authority ‘I’ am doing exactly that - asserting ‘myself’. Asserting ‘myself’ immediately cuts the possibility of intimacy at the root, this is exactly the ‘edge’ I was talking about.

This clicked in such an obvious way, I think it’s because of what you wrote about intimacy not being assertive. In that when I allow intimacy with another then I cannot help but take them into consideration, whereas when I assert myself there is an absence of caring and consideration. But I never saw this before, that by asserting myself I am getting in the way of intimacy and therefore peace and harmony. It can be such a small step too that I missed it in the past, where I assert myself and turn the situation into my way vs their way, now it’s a battle and peace and harmony is nowhere to be found.

I never thought to question assertiveness, in fact I even remember as a kid in school being taught how it is so very important…

Also to tie it into Richard’s quote about preference, if I am asserting myself it means that I have already made it serious, which means it is no longer a self-less inclination, it is now a self-centred urge. This is exactly how I have observed conversations turn into arguments too.

I can’t believe I’ve never seen this, that the very action of asserting myself is rotten. It makes sense now, there is a seriousness and a forcefulness to it, it has aggression at it’s root.

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This has been a very pertinent discussion.

I can very much relate to this. In fact, recently when I tried to allow the unfolding of intimacy that Richard described, there was an immediate block. The block first took the form of (yet again) resentment. But this time the resentment was that I had to be a someone in relation to my partner at all. I am angry that I have to be a man in order to relate with her as a woman. The feeling is that ‘I’ am bound to be this way. When I ask myself what if I wasn’t a man, then I feel the anger rise up a little more. It feels like then I cannot be intimate at all, because my partner is expressing herself through her conditioning as a woman. If I don’t meet her this way, then I am being callous (such is the feeling). So the way that I experience it right now isn’t that I would lose power and authority, but rather that I will be alone. Which aloneness seems to be the condition deep within. But I have on occasion also experienced the fear of this loss of power/authority. If I were not to maintain this identity (man), then I would become inept, impotent, and be a pushover. Notwithstanding all of this, what I really want is to be genuine, open, and straightforward. Perhaps there is a dare here. That despite what those feelings are, I proceed with my intent to be naive.

Of course underneath the cognitive acrobatics of being a man is the power source itself (the libido). One of the characteristics that sticks out about this is the disregard of the other. A complete opposite of appreciation. It’s expression is a fueling of fantasy and illusion. It promises an instinctual fulfillment that will never come. It can be readily discernible as the epitome of ‘Blind Nature’. This about sums it up:

Peter: Nature, or more accurately blind nature, wants only reproduction – the survival of the species – and it doesn’t give a damn for my happiness. The physical enjoyment of sex and the euphoric orgasmic climax is a by-product of the reproductive process itself. As a male animal I am programmed with a sexual instinct which drives me to impregnate as many women as possible. Crudely put (for it is indeed crude): find woman, fuck woman, move on; find woman, fuck woman, move on… [link]

I’ve been wondering if libido itself is perhaps possessing the ‘arousal’ that this physical body is capable of and thus giving the impression that one would not be able to have sex without its drive :thinking: .

Just yesterday I had an inkling that despite what this conditioning may say or what the libido drives one towards, that my partner also desires the same intimacy that I am also desiring. She recalls being able to be at ease as a child and expressing fun in an uninhibited way that she is no longer able to do. Which ease she wants to be able to express with me. And I became aware of the gulf created between us with the conditioning of man and woman. So if she also desires this, then what really do I have to be afraid of? Despite that though, I am seeing once again the unilateral nature of this endeavor. Again there is a daring aspect. And that is exciting! :slightly_smiling_face:

Ha this is very funny as I was talking with my partner about exactly this yesterday. Time to put my money where my mouth is :face_with_peeking_eye:.

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Kuba:

Richard: “As for your query regarding how the intimacy experience (IE) differs from an excellence experience (EE): qualitatively they are much the same, or similar, insofar as with both experiences there is a near-absence of agency – the beer rather than the doer is the operant – whereupon *naïveté has come to the fore *, such as to effect the marked diminishment of separation, and the main distinction is that the IE is more people-oriented, while the EE tends to be environmental in its scope. (…)
For instance, the degree of intimacy experienced with minera, flora and fauna upon strolling through some botanical gardens with either near-PCE occurring – as in, with rocks, trees and birds, for example – is to the same gradation as when in a social setting such as a typical sitting room situation (as in, with ashtrays, flowers and humans, for instance) yet it is the ‘fellow human being’ element which exemplifies the already astounding diminishment of separation which ensues upon the blessed onset of this *near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. [Emphasis by Kuba]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 Jan 2016)

Kuba: It’s interesting because I remember a while back Claudiu wrote something which I related to experientially, it was essentially that he is able to go across that whole range of the wide and wondrous path from good, great, excellent and that perhaps something else was needed.
And it is interesting because I personally have plenty of experience in what Claudiu wrote, however to tie in Richard’s above quote – I only have plenty of experience where it concerns a progression to an excellence experience.

Hi Kuba,

It’s interesting that you should say that “I only have plenty of experience where it concerns a progression to an excellence experience”. It seems that your focus has primarily been chasing extraordinary experiences, wonderful in themselves, but have not contemplating to up-level your default state of happiness to the next level as Richard explained –

Richard: And, of course, once one does get the knack of this, one up-levels ‘feeling good’, as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy and harmless’ … and after that to ‘feeling excellent’. (This Moment of Being Alive).

And he explains it in detail in the last article he wrote –

Richard: Furthermore, blind nature has provided what the Positive Psychology Network, and the ilk, refer to variously as an “affective adaptation set-point”, or a “hedonic adaptation set-point”, or a “treadmill adaptation set-point” to designate the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of well-being despite major positive or negative events or life changes. The process of affective adaptation is often conceived as a treadmill since no matter how hard a person tries, in their life-long pursuit of happiness, they will inevitably return to the same neutral set-point after a significantly emotional life event. (Marvelling How Well-Equipped Human Beings Are).

Thus when you start with feeling good as your starting default set-point, already better than the more common feeling-neutral state of most people, you can still up-level it to a default set-point of feeling great, feeling excellent and then, with allowing the hidden-away-during-puberty childhood naïveté, you can make being out-from-control your default feeling state.

Kuba: And in fact that was always my primary focus, of course intimacy with others was explored here and there but never as a sole focus. So that when I present this same thing to myself as a question of “do I have plenty of experience travelling the gradations of intimacy all the way to an intimacy experience”? Then the answer is a big fat no.
So it seems there is plenty to discover here still. And the benefit of the focus on the “fellow human being” element is that ‘I’ am not doing it merely for ‘myself’. (link)

Well, what exciting and delicious adventure you are embarking upon now that intimacy has come into focus. Here again you can explore the levelling up in grades of intimacy as detailed elsewhere (link). There is a whole new ‘world’ of sensuousness and naïve intimacy to discover. Here is my favourite of Richard’s stories to give you a taste of what is possible. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Intimacy).

Cheers Vineeto

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Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
I will go in bits because there is a lot in your message which clicks.
I really like how you wrote this – “intimacy is not assertive but inclusive, enticing, friendly, benevolent”.
And with authority ‘I’ am doing exactly that – asserting ‘myself’. Asserting ‘myself’ immediately cuts the possibility of intimacy at the root, this is exactly the ‘edge’ I was talking about.

Richard: Unless one can live with just one other person, in peace and harmony twenty four hours of the day, nothing is ever going to work on any other scale’. (Richard, AF List, No. 25b, 19 Jul 2003).

This clicked in such an obvious way, I think it’s because of what you wrote about intimacy not being assertive. In that when I allow intimacy with another then I cannot help but take them into consideration, whereas when I assert myself there is an absence of caring and consideration. But I never saw this before, that by asserting myself I am getting in the way of intimacy and therefore peace and harmony. It can be such a small step too that I missed it in the past, where I assert myself and turn the situation into my way vs their way, now it’s a battle and peace and harmony is nowhere to be found.

Hi Kuba,

It’s cute because you yourself gave me the clue –

Kuba: In that there is the ‘me’ that ‘I’ assert ‘myself’ to be in relation to ‘others’ – this I can see is an immediate obstacle in the way of intimacy.
I can see that in my life I invested into becoming a ‘someone in relation to others’, this is ‘my’ apparent individuality. So initially when allowing intimacy it seems as if I am giving up my very individuality, yet when I look at just what this ‘individuality’ consists of, it is based in separation. (link)

Remember, whenever you are confronted with two (affective) non-reconcilable alternatives – in this case being assertive or powerless as a male identity – there is always a third alternative which you usually only discover when you are back to feeling good. This particular third alternative now allows you to discover more of imitating actuality – consideration, caring, closeness, naiveté (first experienced as vulnerability) and, of course, sensuousness.

As such it is not “my way vs their way” but the way which enables intimacy for both of you.

Kuba: I never thought to question assertiveness, in fact I even remember as a kid in school being taught how it is so very important…
Also to tie it into Richard’s quote about preference, if I am asserting myself it means that I have already made it serious, which means it is no longer a self-less inclination, it is now a self-centred urge. This is exactly how I have observed conversations turn into arguments too.

Yes, you will be surprised how much effect it has on your whole outlook in life when you deliberately and consistently replace any self-centred urge which occurs with what is to happen as just being a preference. This quote from Richard might give you encouragement –

Richard: An anecdote might best illustrate what I mean: many years ago my then-companion Devika would oft-times say to me that I should stand up for myself and not let peoples (such as you describe) push me around … indeed, it was one of the reasons she created a psychic force-field in her psyche (which is, of course, the human psyche) so as to protect what she saw, experientially, back then as innocence personified.
(She was wont to exclaim, on occasion, how ‘Richard brings something marvellous – something absolutely wonderful – into the world and yet everyone deposits ordure on it’ … albeit not expressed quite so politely as that).
What she did not realise – except during a PCE of course – is that innocence itself (the genuine article and not the so-called innocence of children) requires no affective vibe/ psychic current protection whatsoever and, therefore, in vain would I explain to her that, in everyday situations such as you report (where the whole point of the exercise is to walk out the door with the goodies which those in a position of power and control can either dispense or withhold), I had no interest whatsoever in futilely striving to win a puny ego-battle with some officious power-tripper but, instead, walk away with the said goodies each time. (Richard, List D, No. 32, 7 Jul 2013).
Richard: … the counsel I consistently offered to Devika – vis-à-vis her insistence on ‘standing up for oneself’ to all and sundry – came from feeling-being ‘Richard’ (i.e., from ‘his’ success) and not from this flesh-and-blood body typing these words. (Richard, List D, Srid2, 14 Jan 2016).

Kuba: I can’t believe I’ve never seen this, that the very action of asserting myself is rotten.

It was obviously the perfect time to see it, now that you are ready to put it into action.

Kuba: It makes sense now, there is a seriousness and a forcefulness to it, it has aggression at its root. (link)

Indeed and a ‘man’ has to be aggressive or so you are taught. You discovered the way to channel the affective energy of aggression into affective felicitous and innocuous action.

It’s all so marvellous.

Cheers Vineeto

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Kuba: I can see that in my life I invested into becoming a ‘someone in relation to others’, this is ‘my’ apparent individuality. So initially when allowing intimacy it seems as if I am giving up my very individuality, yet when I look at just what this ‘individuality’ consists of, it is based in separation. (link)

Chrono: I can very much relate to this. In fact, recently when I tried to allow the unfolding of intimacy that Richard described, there was an immediate block. The block first took the form of (yet again) resentment. But this time the resentment was that I had to be a someone in relation to my partner at all. I am angry that I have to be a man in order to relate with her as a woman. The feeling is that ‘I’ am bound to be this way. When I ask myself what if I wasn’t a man, then I feel the anger rise up a little more. It feels like then I cannot be intimate at all, because my partner is expressing herself through her conditioning as a woman. If I don’t meet her this way, then I am being callous (such is the feeling). So the way that I experience it right now isn’t that I would lose power and authority, but rather that I will be alone. Which aloneness seems to be the condition deep within. But I have on occasion also experienced the fear of this loss of power/ authority. If I were not to maintain this identity (man), then I would become inept, impotent, and be a pushover. Notwithstanding all of this, what I really want is to be genuine, open, and straightforward. Perhaps there is a dare here. That despite what those feelings are, I proceed with my intent to be naive.

Hi Chrono,

It’s fascinating how you describe the emotional process – first a block, then resentment, then anger to have to be a man, then angry about being trapped, then a sort of resignation, then fear of being alone (=loneliness). It is well observed and described but it leads nowhere until you contemplate what you “really want” – to be “genuine, open, and straightforward”. I remember feeling being ‘Vineeto’ having this meme running in the background – Illegitimi non carborandum (don’t let the buggers get you down). There is indeed a “dare here”, the dare to care, and the growing confidence that it is possible.

Chrono: Of course underneath the cognitive acrobatics of being a man is the power source itself (the libido). One of the characteristics that sticks out about this is the disregard of the other. A complete opposite of appreciation. It’s expression is a fueling of fantasy and illusion. It promises an instinctual fulfillment that will never come. It can be readily discernible as the epitome of ‘Blind Nature’. This about sums it up:

Peter: Nature, or more accurately blind nature, wants only reproduction – the survival of the species – and it doesn’t give a damn for my happiness. The physical enjoyment of sex and the euphoric orgasmic climax is a by-product of the reproductive process itself. As a male animal I am programmed with a sexual instinct which drives me to impregnate as many women as possible. Crudely put (for it is indeed crude): find woman, fuck woman, move on; find woman, fuck woman, move on… [link]

I’ve been wondering if libido itself is perhaps possessing the ‘arousal’ that this physical body is capable of and thus giving the impression that one would not be able to have sex without its drive.

You classified blind nature’s libido well – “a complete opposite of appreciation”. It confirms what I wrote to Kuba yesterday –

Richard (to № 04): “(…) it is pertinent to note that libido (Latin, meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’, and referring to the instinctual sex drive, urge or impulse to procreate and perpetuate the species) is not, and never has been nor ever will be, the driver of the longing for intimacy, the yearning for an end to separation, the vital interest in loss of self … nor even the means whereby altruism trumps selfism”. (Richard, List D, No. 4a, 23 Jun 2013).

You can experiment yourself experientially when you, with awareness, start backing off the instinctual urge of libido and replace it with a preference to sexual intimacy, thereby diminishing the self-centredness of the libidinous impulse with a more self-less inclination for closeness and sensuousness. Then you might get to a point where “sex takes care of itself and full attention can be paid to intimacy”. (see Richard, List D, No. 20, 9 Dec 2009).

Chrono: Just yesterday I had an inkling that despite what this conditioning may say or what the libido drives one towards, that my partner also desires the same intimacy that I am also desiring. She recalls being able to be at ease as a child and expressing fun in an uninhibited way that she is no longer able to do. Which ease she wants to be able to express with me. And I became aware of the gulf created between us with the conditioning of man and woman. So if she also desires this, then what really do I have to be afraid of? Despite that though, I am seeing once again the unilateral nature of this endeavour. Again there is a daring aspect. And that is exciting!

What a wonderful opportunity that your partner “also desires the same intimacy”. ‘Vineeto’ experienced the same desire, ‘she’ just didn’t know how to bring it about until ‘she’ discovered naiveté. And Richard reports that women in general are more interested in intimacy than men –

Richard: As libido is null and void for me then being sexually active or not is purely a matter of preference. What this means in effect is that sexual congress, because of its utter proximity, has more to do with intimacy than anything else.
Now, here is where it becomes quite an intriguing matter because, and as a generalisation only, women tend to place more emphasis on intimacy than men. Indeed, many a woman has bewailed the dearth of men prepared to make the big commitment required for such connubial accord.
Yet they are deathly afraid of intimacy – the fear of intimacy is a subject most women have talked to me about – for it means loss of self. And therein lies the rub: the survival instincts can kick in big-time, especially during sexual congress, and the very opposite of the longed-for intimacy takes place (as in pulling-back, turning-away, closing-off, shutting-down, and so on). (Richard, List D, No. 14a, 9 Nov 2009)

You are correct “seeing once again the unilateral nature of this endeavour” and yet there is opportunity of exploring it together as well. Either way, a more and more self-less and less self-centric way of being sensuous is not to be missed –

Richard: To cut to the chase: as I have been gratuitously informed by more than just one female that my physical touch – even a caressive stroking of their bared back for example – is tangibly a non-possessive and actually caring touch (i.e., a literally selfless touching) please be assured that nothing of value will be lost upon the extinction of the masculinist capacity to be “affectionately touching” the female of the species. (Richard, List D, Martin, #2).

Richard described his own experience this way –

Richard: … just then, as he [Peter] remembered how to find me, his hand came through that flimsiest of films (which completely enclosed and isolated his bubble of actuality from the real-world reality) and actually stroked the left-side of my face with the most perfect touch; it was a caress of absolute perfection such as could only occur when this particular feeling ‘being’, tenderly feeling the utmost caring possible per favour being the near-innocence of naiveté personified, was thus granted privileged access to slip part of their host body through a compliantly temporaneous rent in their veil. (Announcement1, Tooltip after #magic).

He described the caress of absolute perfection further on in the same tooltip –

Richard: As this had been my experience twice before – once on the previous night, when another feeling ‘being’ had inadvertently slipped bodily through[1] a similarly compliant temporaneous rent in their bubble of actuality, and on a first occasion many years previously when my second wife (de jure) briefly had this privileged access …
[1] … being complete, as it was, with the most perfect bodily touching (a physical caressing of absolute perfection) … (Announcement1, Tooltip after #magic).

Vineeto to Kuba: Whereas you could nourish and foster a naïve excitement of a beneficial discovery operating – think of how young children are eager to learn about the world they find themselves in (until their enthusiasm gets more and more stifled and oppressed. This is the kind of naiveté albeit with adult sensibilities which is the next exploration, and don’t be discouraged when you feel a bit shy or foolish – it’s part of the package …

Chrono: Ha this is very funny as I was talking with my partner about exactly this yesterday. Time to put my money where my mouth is. (link)

I wish you exquisite enjoyment and success in your new exciting adventure.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

Thank you for your replies, there is so much here I don’t know where to start! :smile:

Well maybe with the objection I just had whilst reading the quote about Richard’s innocence and how others would “deposit ordure on it”. I have certainly observed this with the writings of all the actually free people, in that they cannot ‘bite’. I remember even some discussions on here between Srinath and Claudiu, and although there was perhaps aspects of peasant mentality which were displayed in Srinath’s writings there was still no possibility for him to ever ‘bite’. Which of course this is incredible because it means that peace is guaranteed.

But something does not sit well with ‘me’ here, in that ‘I’ clearly still have some investment into ‘standing up for myself’, in that it is not just about walking away with the goodies but it is about winning the ego-battle.

And it seems it is because I cannot allow the other to continue on with their modus operandi. That yes I understand that I can walk away with the goodies and yet in the process of walking away with the goodies I don’t want to re-affirm the modus operandi of the other as being correct, sensible etc.

I will give an example, the other day I was driving out of the area near my house which has a 20mph speed limit, I got to a junction and I looked to see a car quite a distance ahead and so made the judgement to pull out. Now had the car been going at anywhere near 20mph I would have had sufficient space to come out, and yet because they were clearly going way past the limit the car ended up being rather close to me and beeping at me. So this was just a complete reversal of accountability, in that the speeding driver is beeping at someone for a problem that only exists because they are themselves going way past the speed limit.

So my response in this situation was to slow down to exactly 20mph so the speeding driver would be forced to follow me at the correct speed. So it is like trying to change the other, but then on the other hand how can I allow someone to be rewarded for acting in such a way?

Hmm yes I have to admit that this is the case, even yesterday I was already thinking about this PCE I had 9 months ago where I glimpsed actual Sonya and how utterly extraordinary it was - and I have only just begun looking at intimacy! :laughing:

I can see that it would be quite different if there was not a neutral to go back to. Whereas right now it’s like oscillating between neutral and extraordinary experiences. Like I am running from something… I am running from that in-between where ongoing feeling good can take place. It’s weird actually I don’t quite know what it is. Even as soon as feeling good happens there is this inclination to take it into something extraordinary as opposed to just letting the feeling good sit there, feeling good :smile:.

I remember talking with Felix about this kind of oscillating, and it’s weird it’s almost like being addicted to that up and down motion. Perhaps because if ‘I’ just allow feeling good to happen then ‘I’ have nothing else to do.

I just observed it now, there is feeling good which happens and there is this almost fanatic need to ‘go somewhere with it’, like it has to be the launching pad to the next extraordinary experience, as opposed to just luxuriating in this feeling good for it’s own sake.

Ha so what seems to be the way to go, for now at least - is to just have feeling good without moving in either direction, this in itself is interesting to allow, not what I would normally do…

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Vineeto: It’s interesting that you should say that “I only have plenty of experience where it concerns a progression to an excellence experience”. It seems that your focus has primarily been chasing extraordinary experiences, wonderful in themselves, but have not contemplating to up-level your default state of happiness to the next level as Richard explained …

Kuba: Hmm yes I have to admit that this is the case, even yesterday I was already thinking about this PCE I had 9 months ago where I glimpsed actual Sonya and how utterly extraordinary it was – and I have only just begun looking at intimacy!
I can see that it would be quite different if there was not a neutral to go back to. Whereas right now it’s like oscillating between neutral and extraordinary experiences. Like I am running from something… I am running from that in-between where ongoing feeling good can take place. It’s weird, actually I don’t quite know what it is. Even as soon as feeling good happens there is this inclination to take it into something extraordinary as opposed to just letting the feeling good sit there, feeling good.
I remember talking with Felix about this kind of oscillating, and it’s weird, it’s almost like being addicted to that up and down motion. Perhaps because if ‘I’ just allow feeling good to happen then ‘I’ have nothing else to do.

Hi Kuba,

You have just revealed why you never want to arrive at your destination. Your concern is that there would be nothing to do but enjoying and appreciating simply being alive – no excitement, no thrill, no ups and downs. Do the variation of oscillating feelings present themselves as the true meaning of life to you?

Kuba: I just observed it now, there is feeling good which happens and there is this almost fanatic need to ‘go somewhere with it’, like it has to be the launching pad to the next extraordinary experience, as opposed to just luxuriating in this feeling good for its own sake.
Ha so what seems to be the way to go, for now at least – is to just have feeling good without moving in either direction, this in itself is interesting to allow, not what I would normally do… (link)

Again, this is where the quote from Richard I presented in my last message gives a clue in which ‘direction’ to move –

Richard: A general rule of thumb is: if it is a preference it is a self-less inclination; if it is an urge it is a self-centred desire. (Richard, AF List, 25d, 14 Jan 2004)

So far you seem to prefer obeying the commands of the self-centred-inspired urge for excitement. Is it a lack of continuous attentiveness or are you perhaps fooling yourself that becoming actually free from the human condition is your number one priority?

Whatever your predisposition, as an intelligent human being you can make a determined choice to give up the addiction to being ‘me’ with lots of elation, agitation, intensity … and the inevitable suffering when the ‘high’ subsides.

James: The addiction to being ‘me’ is stronger because it always wins out.
Richard: If ‘I’ am to be honest ‘I’ will have to acknowledge that the addiction to being ‘me’ has only always won out so far because so far ‘I’ have always sought escape from being ‘me’ via a path that ‘I’ know will not deliver the goods. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Addiction).

Cheers Vineeto

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Kuba: Hi Vineeto,
Thank you for your replies, there is so much here I don’t know where to start!
Well maybe with the objection I just had whilst reading the quote about Richard’s innocence and how others would “deposit ordure on it”. I have certainly observed this with the writings of all the actually free people, in that they cannot ‘bite’. I remember even some discussions on here between Srinath and Claudiu, and although there was perhaps aspects of peasant mentality which were displayed in Srinath’s writings there was still no possibility for him to ever ‘bite’. Which of course this is incredible because it means that peace is guaranteed.
But something does not sit well with ‘me’ here, in that ‘I’ clearly still have some investment into ‘standing up for myself’, in that it is not just about walking away with the goodies but it is about winning the ego-battle.
And it seems it is because I cannot allow the other to continue on with their modus operandi. That yes I understand that I can walk away with the goodies and yet in the process of walking away with the goodies I don’t want to re-affirm the modus operandi of the other as being correct, sensible etc.
I will give an example, the other day I was driving out of the area near my house which has a 20mph speed limit, I got to a junction and I looked to see a car quite a distance ahead and so made the judgement to pull out. Now had the car been going at anywhere near 20mph I would have had sufficient space to come out, and yet because they were clearly going way past the limit the car ended up being rather close to me and beeping at me. So this was just a complete reversal of accountability, in that the speeding driver is beeping at someone for a problem that only exists because they are themselves going way past the speed limit.
So my response in this situation was to slow down to exactly 20mph so the speeding driver would be forced to follow me at the correct speed. So it is like trying to change the other, but then on the other hand how can I allow someone to be rewarded for acting in such a way? (link 2 Oct 2025 20.59)

Hi Kuba,

You are presenting lots of reasons for your righteous indignancy but it is nevertheless an affective righteous anger. No wonder you hesitate putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t matter’ basis – righteous anger when slighted is such a self-enhancing feeling. (Btw, the real-world solution of pacifism is not the solution either).

Here is what you have written to Chrono, only two hours before the above message (2 Oct 2025 18.50) –

Kuba: Reading your post I had a similar experience this morning, that a place exists where everything is in its rightful place, which is amazing to say the least. But then how ‘I’ experience ‘myself’ is never like that, no matter how hard ‘I’ try ‘I’ can never be right. And I am wondering now is it precisely because ‘I’ am forever out of time. ‘I’ am all those things which are not actual, not happening now and so ‘I’ can never experience life in that manner – where everything is in its rightful place.
But the interesting thing is that the normal way to approach this feeling is to try to correct things, perhaps by pursuing a moral excellence, but when that “flicker” happens there is nothing at all that had to change, other than ‘me’ going into abeyance. So it is that everything is already in its rightful place now, the universe does not have to change 1 bit.
So it is like Richard wrote in that the last bit will always elude correcting, ‘I’ cannot be made right, ‘my’ very ‘being’ is forever out of time. Which I have previously seen this as a curse – in that ‘I’ can’t fix ‘myself’, not to the degree of what the PCE demonstrates. But actually it’s a blessing, in that what the PCE shows, of everything being correct, this is already always the case and it is ‘me’ that simply has to disappear. (link)

What happened to that experience “that everything is already in its rightful place now” and all the other experiences you reported which inform you of the same perfect actuality. It seems that in your steeple-chasing modus operandi for extra-ordinary experiences you omitted to establish a golden clew to pure intent, which could inform and aid you when you are affectively feeling, and justifying, indignation about other people’s wrongs and thus forgetting about your commitment to being happy and harmless, if it was ever there in the first place.

Here is how Richard responded to a similar situation –

Respondent: When I feel righteously angry I consciously want to go back to ‘feeling good’, but since I feel justified in my anger, it feels good to be angry, making it difficult to get back to ‘feeling good’.
Richard: One of the major issues the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago attended to very early in the piece was the indignation – ‘anger excited by a sense of wrong, or by injustice, wickedness, or misconduct; righteous anger’ (Oxford Dictionary) – which had dogged him from almost as early as ‘he’ could remember (‘he’ was often moved to indignancy because of injustice/ unfairness whilst still in grade school for instance) as righteousness, being oh-so-readily justifiable, is such an insidious feeling.
Respondent: To me, corrupt has always meant, by definition, being evil. But how do I see this anger as corrupt when I accept that there is no good and evil?
Richard: Just for starters: try seeing how the (readily justifiable) righteous anger, with all its feel-good virtuosity, precludes one from enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive – the only moment one is ever alive – through being as happy and as harmless as is humanly possible via felicitously/ innocuously feeling good (rather than virtuously feeling good) … instead of seeing righteousness as corrupt (and therefore, by a definition, evil) which depravity is further complicated by choosing to accept there is no good and evil even though the real-world, the world that maybe 6.0 billion peoples live in, is rife with it.
Respondent: Most things that are corrupt can be seen as survival strategies, which means they could be seen as neither good or evil.
Richard: Indeed they could … yet it is undeniable that maybe 6.0 billion peoples nurse malice and sorrow – and thus the antidotal pacifiers love and compassion – in their bosom.
Respondent: How can I make myself see corruption when I don’t see things as good or evil?
Richard: Perhaps if I were to put it this way? Now that you have neatly solved the existential dilemma which has bothered theologians/ metaphysicians for centuries (simply by redefining good and evil out of existence) … where are you at?
Here is a clue:
• [Respondent]: ‘… I feel righteously angry (…). (Richard, AF List, No. 79, 9 Feb 2005).

Richard: As a matter of related interest … one of the most persistent forms of anger is indignation (or righteous anger/ justifiable anger): it can be eradicated rather simply by the realisation that its raison d’être – a guardian against injustice, unjustness, unfairness, inequality (partiality, discrimination, and so on) – is as much a human invention as those concepts it defends … justice, justness, fairness, equality (impartiality, indiscrimination, and so on). (Richard, AF List, No. 66, 27 Apr 2005a).

Richard: … the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ would be better described as a ‘feeling-fed cognitive dissonance’ as it is not just a mental blockage which causes people to be unable to grasp innovative things that are to their own advantage and to fight so hard to retain the existing belief systems which are inimical to their welfare.
It is the strangest of incongruities in regards to human pertinacity that peoples will invent reasons and struggle to maintain a state of affairs that is detrimental to their own advancement … even those conditions which enslave them. (Richard, AF List, No. 30, 22 Oct 2003).

Perhaps you can now begin to understand more comprehensively why your identity so strenuously objects to agreeing to ‘your’ demise despite frequent experiential knowledge of the purity and perfection of the actual world.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

I can see what you are pointing to, this tendency/predisposition which I am demonstrating is something I have observed in a far more extreme way in my mum. There is a quote you posted the other day which summarises this tendency :

Respondent: Earnest inquiry is to inquire into one’s own bias. As they say in Scotland, the rest is just Crrraap!
Richard: Do you ever countenance an end to ‘earnest enquiry’ … or do you intend to procrastinate for ever and a day?
Respondent: LOL – what is it that seeks an ending?
Richard: The ‘earnest enquiry’ does … else why so busy earnestly enquiring in the first place?

A genuine enquiry seeks an ending, to not only seek but to find, and then to live. But my enquiries are done for the thrill of the seeking instead which means there is always going to be another enquiry. And it is useful that I have observed this so extremely in my mum because I can tell that such a thing is likely the case in me. Actually whenever I have spoken with my mum this has been by far the no1 objection and it has remained solidly in place for years now. I am just not quite sure how to approach this, so far I can sincerely say that I can see some outline of this, but it is so fundamental to me it’s like I am just staring at a wall here, I wouldn’t even know how to go about changing something so fundamental and so persistent, also something so cunning because it’s like I am kidding myself that a genuine enquiry is taking place but really it is just going after the “thrill of the search”.

But the other thing which I can observe in my mum is that “the search” is indeed motivated by an urge, in that it is driven, it is not a self-less inclination. So it is the feelings which are driving “the search”. Which brings me to this :

I am not sure, what I know is that whenever a PCE happens there is the immediate recognition that this is exactly what I want, that nothing comes close. But then there is this other messy bit where I don’t know if I can distinguish whether I am simply “searching for the sake of it” or whether I am motivated to actually find out and to live the answer. There is also what Richard wrote - something like a pride and dignity to go all the way, but then again if this is being subverted by this “thrill of the search” then nothing will happen. So it seems I am at a bit of an impasse, in that of course nothing will happen if I don’t want it to.

Perhaps I see one potential direction to look, which you allude to here :

So indeed this is the form this “thrill of the search” takes - “lots of elation, agitation, intensity … and the inevitable suffering when the ‘high’ subsides”.

So essentially could I come to see that this “thrill of the search” is actually an insidious aspect of ‘me’, that it has been hurting me, just as I can see it has been hurting my mum.

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Richard: The question to ask oneself is: why does one require any nervous stimuli at all? Why does one endlessly seek excitement? It is an adventure and a delight to simply be alive, when one is free from the ‘I’ that has taken control of one’s body; the hunt for the “thrills and spills” that is so endemic in the real world is over. It is ‘I’ who is easily bored, incessantly pursuing excitement. As ‘I’ am not actually here, one needs to feel that ‘I’ am real … that one is “alive”. The body can be persuaded to produce quite an array of chemicals; a veritable cocktail is available to the insidious entity that has taken up psychological and psychic residence within. Whereas I am already alive for I am actual. I am never bored, because being here now as-I-am is an escapade in itself.

This explains ‘my’ addiction quite well, the addiction to excitement is because it makes ‘me’ feel ‘alive’, the “thrill of the search” provides the buzz ‘I’ am looking for in order to feel that ‘I’ exist.

I can see this, that it is because ‘I’ do not actually exist that ‘I’ need some “synthetic assistance” let’s say, and the powerful buzz of excitement is like the best hit for ‘me’. It is like a direct and raw wave of affect to make ‘me’ feel that ‘I’ am real, and this is very addictive, how on earth to overcome such an addiction.

Well they say the first step is admitting that one is addicted so there is that. But then there is the gratification that the ‘hit’ provides and the fact that ‘I’ enjoy it. It seems it must be about seeing what this addiction is doing as a totality.

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Richard: The question to ask oneself is: why does one require any nervous stimuli at all? Why does one endlessly seek excitement? It is an adventure and a delight to simply be alive, when one is free from the ‘I’ that has taken control of one’s body; the hunt for the “thrills and spills” that is so endemic in the real world is over. It is ‘I’ who is easily bored, incessantly pursuing excitement. As ‘I’ am not actually here, one needs to feel that ‘I’ am real … that one is “alive”. The body can be persuaded to produce quite an array of chemicals; a veritable cocktail is available to the insidious entity that has taken up psychological and psychic residence within. Whereas I am already alive for I am actual. I am never bored, because being here now as-I-am is an escapade in itself. (Richard’s Journal, Article 25, pg 181)

Kuba: This explains ‘my’ addiction quite well, the addiction to excitement is because it makes ‘me’ feel ‘alive’, the “thrill of the search” provides the buzz ‘I’ am looking for in order to feel that ‘I’ exist.
I can see this, that it is because ‘I’ do not actually exist that ‘I’ need some “synthetic assistance” let’s say, and the powerful buzz of excitement is like the best hit for ‘me’. It is like a direct and raw wave of affect to make ‘me’ feel that ‘I’ am real, and this is very addictive, how on earth to overcome such an addiction.
Well they say the first step is admitting that one is addicted so there is that. But then there is the gratification that the ‘hit’ provides and the fact that ‘I’ enjoy it. It seems it must be about seeing what this addiction is doing as a totality. (link)

Hi Kuba,

As an addiction is an acquired habit, often indulged in for many years, to shed this addiction takes a bit more than “seeing what this addiction is doing as a totality” to be done with it once and for all. I suggest patient and diligent application of the actualism method and each time you are tempted by the affective thrills, recognize the pattern and sensibly decline. Given the addictive nature of feelings it requires more an ongoing attention to your feelings and declining consequent behaviour rather than a one-off cognitive turn-about.

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi kuba,

I spend 1-2 hours per day in the exact situation you described with the speeding driver!

I am currently waiting for the “last minute “ (literally) to nominate appearing in court to defend a speeding fine, which was the opportunistic gift of a traffic cop policing a back street.

In other words; there is exactly zero factual justice in the world of self. Edit; this last statement doesn’t follow very well, but I don’t want to waste pixels on explanations, which are more than needed and less than required.

One can be angelic in one’s conduct, and I wager my entire years pay their will be someone finding a way to “catch you out “ if it means they get to feel even the vaguest endorsement of their own righteousness. They will kill you on a technicality of law, whilst the spirit of the law is trampled firmly into the squalor of a vague yet pervasive putrid self preservation.

Heck, they will kill you on the mere and fleeting feeling of you being an inconvenience of the most forgettable order! Never mind any “law”. Looking into the eyes of the cop whilst I told him the truth, which his own laser gun verified, told me all I already knew; he wouldn’t flinch if I was dead in that moment if it meant he could knock off an hour early.

To flesh out my previous point; morality is but a tool wielded by selfism to remain a self. No more, and no less than immorality.

In fairness to my fellow human being, the cop who looked like Ricky Gervais but has a last name ending in “ski”, I would myself have not even the slightest feeling of pity if I saw half the drivers I encounter daily disappear in the river.

It’s quite an eye opening thing to see that I am no different, ultimately, than the worst of humanity.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your message and explaining yourself further. I guess the question is (for me for sure but perhaps for you too) where does this all lead?

Actually it was you who reminded me a while ago of what Srinath said - that any resentment towards the human condition only locks ‘me’ further in place. In that I can see the hypocrisy of it all and yet without the third alternative I just end up with the indignation, the resentment etc. and it doesn’t go anywhere.

Looking at my indignation I can certainly see that it just goes around in circles, until I decide that it is silly and get back to feeling good. But to get back to Richard’s quote :

Richard: As a matter of related interest … one of the most persistent forms of anger is indignation (or righteous anger/ justifiable anger): it can be eradicated rather simply by the realisation that its raison d’être – a guardian against injustice, unjustness, unfairness, inequality (partiality, discrimination, and so on) – is as much a human invention as those concepts it defends … justice, justness, fairness, equality (impartiality, indiscrimination, and so on). (Richard, AF List, No. 66, 27 Apr 2005a ).

Equality I have already seen through, in that it simply does not make sense, to have equality one has to eliminate individuality. Fellow human beings have to be made into “one of many” in order to be judged according to equality. Justice I can also see some chinks in the armour, in that each individual is calculating justice according to what ‘their’ own belief in what right or wrong is, this can (and does) lead to situations where many justified people are dishing out punishments based on their own biased calculations, and as you said even the law/government is by no means free of such bias.

Fairness is a tricky one, there was something that Vineeto wrote a while back that these concepts can be tricky because they have their counterparts in actuality - I have probably butchered this so please don’t take as word for word :sweat_smile:
But indeed there is something like that, in that when being and acting in a benevolent manner there is something like fairness, in that each human being is experienced to be a person in their own right. In that the wellbeing of one person can never be more/less important than the wellbeing of the other.

And yet there are many people being and acting in a manner that is completely incongruent with the above. As another driving example :laughing:… I was parked up getting petrol last night and there was some parking bays next to the petrol pumps for people using the shop etc. These parking bays are arranged in a parallel manner - / / / /. Of course this is done as it is a sensible arrangement. Now a lady pulled up who clearly wasn’t in any kind of emergency etc and she parked horizontally across them, taking up about 3 out of 4 available bays and making it difficult for people to manoeuvre around the petrol pumps also. Now this time I did not take any action or feed into the indignation but I just couldn’t help but think how utterly silly and self-centred this is.

Actually I should add that this is a very dear topic to me because as Sonya will tell anyone, my pet peeve is “shit systems” haha. For example when I drive into my local city centre which has so many closures and diversions that one ends up being led around in circles until inevitably driving into some bus lane in an attempt to get out and ending up with a ticket. I certainly appreciate efficiency and forethought as it makes things better for everybody but this certainly crosses into a self-centred urge rather than a preference. With the city centre example I can certainly understand why the system might be “shit”, as there is no ultimate authority designing things to be in order, rather it is just a bunch of human beings doing the best they currently can. But with the petrol pump example I just cannot understand how one could be so blind.

Hi Vineeto,

Thank you for your suggestion, it seems actually the first thing I need to arrive at is the unequivocal decision that I want to be done with those thrills, I can’t say that this is the case and the last thing I want to be doing is kidding myself some more.

Actually what I have been doing so far is allowing myself to experience those thrills fully and contrasting the experience of those with enjoyment and appreciation which is blithe and benign. And those are 2 completely different experiences, those thrills, the experience of them can actually be quite unpalatable and yet there is some kind of a hook there which I am still drawn to. It is really like the quote of Richard’s you provided, the difference between a self-centred urge and a self-less inclination.

I can very much tell that this is not going to be resolved by a cognitive turn around like you said, it’s more like experientially coming to the decision of what I want to do with my life at this point.

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Ok so got some movement on this front :grin:, at least the indignation part for sure. I realised that what is needed is not merely looking at various concepts such as justice or fairness but an altogether different paradigm, the clue being in the word benevolence. Basically it is about stepping out of that old way altogether, of right and wrong, punishment and justice, score-keeping, expectations etc.
With benevolence there is no calculation to decide if one is deserving of beneficence, there is only beneficence, rooted in fellowship regard, and this is just a far better way of living, actually it’s very charming.

There is some movement on the thrills part too although it is not resolved. My mum the other day told me of some old stories when I was young and I got some new rollerblades. I actually skipped school the following day and rode right up to the school entrance during lunchtime to show off. Now she mentioned this story as part of a point she was making that she has always nurtured my individuality. However I see now that what she was actually nurturing was licentiousness. And indeed I have come to associate license with freedom, and freedom to be ‘me’ as ‘I’ am is nothing at all like what the words actual freedom refer to. So it is like I am untangling this slowly, of this weird association where ‘I’ have been habitually giving free reign to self-centred urges and thinking that this means freedom. But the ‘freedom’ of licentiousness is more like anarchy, and this is where the hook is, ‘I’ get to operate without bounds and there is this thrill associated with it.

Actually I should probably clarify that my actual behaviour certainly does not verge into anything like anarchy or antisocial behaviour, but that is what the energy of those thrills is all about.

It’s funny because yesterday I wrote that I need to decide what I want to do with my life, but the truth of it is that I already know, actually it’s not even an option that it could go any other way than towards the ending of the human condition. But this modus operandi of giving reign to self-centred urges, this is a major stumbling block in that it is impossible to be happy and harmless whilst it remains. In fact to link it back to benevolence, this is like trying to mix oil and water, to give reign to self-centred urges and to be benevolent is literally 2 different directions.

Yesterday as I was working a hen do this really clicked on a deep level, the group had such a great time that they were naively jumping about and squealing by the end of it all. And it was so lovely to observe this, but all throughout this particular job I was well aware of how ‘my’ self-centred urges would only dirty this and so they played no part. When I got back in my car I could really see that these are 2 different directions to travel now, that if I want to enable more of what I saw during that job then ‘my’ self-centred urges will have to be left behind.

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So back onto this one, it’s weird because I would never consciously say this is the case and yet it looks like this is how I have been operating, somewhat unaware that this is the case. In fact this has been there in the background for a while, and I have justified it away to myself in various ways. But the feeling always was that it would be somehow ‘wrong’ to exist in a place where there are no “oscillating feelings” as the compass by which to operate. It’s like those “oscillating feelings” are the backbone of what is true, right and correct, they are the fundamental frames of reference for ‘my’ life and it often seemed like it would not be ‘right’ to operate without them. That I could go into a situation and not have those feelings as the arbiter.

Very weird! I can see this within myself, there is the enjoyment and appreciation which is blithe and benign and then there are the oscillating feelings, and indeed the oscillating feelings seem to hold something like a claim to providing the meaning of life, that without them something would be missing/not right. But actually it seems that it is more that I need to locate a new frame of reference, not that meaning is lacking without those oscillating feelings but that it is a different paradigm altogether.

Now what I can see both with the “oscillating feelings” as well as the indignation, that the new paradigm in question is the one guided by pure intent, this is what I have been slowly arriving at.

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Kuba: Ok so got some movement on this front, at least the indignation part for sure. I realised that what is needed is not merely looking at various concepts such as justice or fairness but an altogether different paradigm, the clue being in the word benevolence. Basically it is about stepping out of that old way altogether, of right and wrong, punishment and justice, score-keeping, expectations etc.
With benevolence there is no calculation to decide if one is deserving of beneficence, there is only beneficence, rooted in fellowship regard, and this is just a far better way of living, actually it’s very charming.

Hi Kuba,

Indeed. There is an actual benevolence as well as equity and parity, magnanimity and generosity – nothing is missing when any of the rigid real-world principles and virtuous/ sinful concepts are being abandoned (as long as you live by the legal laws and social protocols of the country you are residing in). Besides –

Richard: There is only one person in this whole wide world that one can change … myself. This is the most important point to understand thoroughly, otherwise one endlessly tries to change the other … and as there are billions of ‘others’ it would be a life-time task with still no success at the end. If one grasps that the way to peace-on-earth is by changing oneself – and oneself only – then all of one’s interactions with others will undergo a radical transformation. (This Moment of Being Alive).

Isn’t it a wonderful and innocuous aim to become free from animosity and anguish –

Richard: When the psychological ego and psychic soul willingly relinquish their sovereignty and take their leave, the senses can act in the optimum. Just as when a normal person becomes blind and all their other senses are heightened, so too does the abdication result in a phenomenal increase in the pleasurable and luxurious sensitivity of being a corporeal body in this very physical world. The resultant benevolence produces easy good-will, kindness and altruism, for one is living in a friendly world … made all the more amiable because of the innate munificence and magnanimity of the purity of the perfection of the infinitude of the universe as is evidenced only at this moment in time. (Richard’s Journal, Article Thirty-Four).

Kuba: There is some movement on the thrills part too although it is not resolved. My mum the other day told me of some old stories when I was young and I got some new rollerblades. I actually skipped school the following day and rode right up to the school entrance during lunchtime to show off. Now she mentioned this story as part of a point she was making that she has always nurtured my individuality. However I see now that what she was actually nurturing was licentiousness. And indeed I have come to associate license with freedom, and freedom to be ‘me’ as ‘I’ am is nothing at all like what the words actual freedom refer to. So it is like I am untangling this slowly, of this weird association where ‘I’ have been habitually giving free reign to self-centred urges and thinking that this means freedom. But the ‘freedom’ of licentiousness is more like anarchy, and this is where the hook is, ‘I’ get to operate without bounds and there is this thrill associated with it.
Actually I should probably clarify that my actual behaviour certainly does not verge into anything like anarchy or antisocial behaviour, but that is what the energy of those thrills is all about.

Even though you don’t act it out, this is a good insight to never confuse freedom with licentiousness. Anarchy is born of resentment against the restrictions of one’s social identity (and as such merely the other side of the coin), whereas benevolence and magnanimity inherent to the perfection and purity of the infinite universe, experienced as pure intent, allows one to safely dismantle all the rules and concepts of the social identity, one by one.

Kuba: It’s funny because yesterday I wrote that I need to decide what I want to do with my life, but the truth of it is that I already know, actually it’s not even an option that it could go any other way than towards the ending of the human condition. But this modus operandi of giving reign to self-centred urges, this is a major stumbling block in that it is impossible to be happy and harmless whilst it remains. In fact, to link it back to benevolence, this is like trying to mix oil and water, to give reign to self-centred urges and to be benevolent is literally 2 different directions.
Yesterday as I was working a hen do this really clicked on a deep level, the group had such a great time that they were naively jumping about and squealing by the end of it all. And it was so lovely to observe this, but all throughout this particular job I was well aware of how ‘my’ self-centred urges would only dirty this and so they played no part. When I got back in my car I could really see that these are 2 different directions to travel now, that if I want to enable more of what I saw during that job then ‘my’ self-centred urges will have to be left behind. (link)

Excellent – now with this unambiguous clarity you can act, i.e. set out to whittle away at the addiction for excitement, thrill and buzz with an ongoing affective attentiveness, whenever and wherever the temptation arises –

Richard: And thus was it that ‘attentiveness’ became actualism’s designator for a particular tool for facilitating the actualism method – as distinct from and contrasted to ‘mindfulness’ being the buddhistic method, in and of itself, even unto secularised versions – so as to further distinguish the fact of the actualism method being so totally different to anything else (or, put another way, that the buddhistic ‘mindfulness’ method is another ball-game entirely).
(Please note: once it becomes second-nature – a non-verbal attitude to life; a wordless approach to living – an intuitive awareness, as in an affective monitoring of mood and temperament, dispenses with that initial diligence and perseverance). [emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Andrew, 28 Feb 2016).

It is such an exciting adventure in itself to be a pioneer in pursuing something so new to human consciousness – what other thrill do you need!

Cheers Vineeto

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Hi Vineeto,

Thank you for your reply, I will just add the below for now because it just clicked. You wrote the other day that pacifism is not the answer either. I just had an interaction with a customer where this clicked. Actually pacifism is quite a sham really because nothing fundamental changes when one is a pacifist, the underlying sorrow and malice remains and it is only glossed over with this performative layer over the top.

So in order to be harmless I cannot get hurt in the first place. When I attempt to be a pacifist I am already hurt and so malice is already brewing and justice will be sought sooner or later. So harmlessness actually requires that one is not hurt in the first place. Happiness and harmlessness cannot be separated out, that is rather fascinating! It is only when I cannot get hurt that I cannot inflict hurt.

This kind of clarifies how actual innocence can be so… consistent haha. In that without the capacity for pathos one cannot inflict hurt either, it is not possible.

Of course ‘I’ cannot be actually innocent but I was fascinated to see that the order of events was - ‘I’ was hurt → there was an inclination to inflict hurt → pacifism was adopted. So the way to proceed (without changing the other) has to be about attending to ‘my’ initial hurt, or more ‘my’ capacity to ‘be’ hurt in the first place.

It kind of reminds me of that reading you recommended between Srinath and Richard, that the way for therapists to be able to better deal with their patients is for the therapist to resolve their issues in the first place! As it is the therapists own issues which are stirred up when empathy with the patient is allowed.

The other fascinating thing is that it makes sense now why with increasing felicity and innocuity there is a possibility for something like an acutely empathic caring. When sorrowful and malicious ‘I’ could not possibly get that close as shit would definitely hit the fan :laughing:

Wow so this really ties it all together, Claudiu wrote that when he visited Geoffrey he found that he could talk with Geoffrey about absolutely anything, and of course this is possible because there is no hurt that could possibly ever be stirred up. Happiness, harmlessness, intimacy and caring, these are not separate items at all - it is 1 package of actual innocence. This is what ‘I’ can imitate by ‘being’ felicity and innocuity.

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So I was doing some painting round the house today, initially there was some learning that had to take place, with even some frustration here and there but slowly I find that the painting is taking care of itself and all of a sudden with the music playing in the background a shift takes place, ‘I’ am still here but the ‘controller’ has gone into abeyance. It is a delicious shift, where this moment lives ‘me’ as opposed to ‘me’ living in the present.

The question in front of ‘me’ now is whether ‘I’ wish to live like this all the time. For sure it is possible, if it can happen for the couple of delicious hours then it can happen all the time.
Ha so it seems like after some searching this possibility of stepping out from control (proper this time :laughing:) is presenting itself.

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