Make peace with Being

Actualism
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Hi everyone, it came to me this morning that one of the reasons of not being able to enjoy and appreciate this moment (simply feel good about being alive… nothing too fancy) may have to do with some beef I have with just being.

it’s like i have some kind of aversion to experiencing myself (emotionally) so that even directing attention to myself intuitively causes some tension, like hey, you’re not supposed to be here, you’re ruining the actual world for me.

The general narrative in acualism is that being/self is rotten to the core, it’s the villain and we should get rid of it. for me this notion might have lead to feeling uncomfortable as a self, it creates inner conflict at being.

examples:

from PCE page of Simple Actualism:
“Our normal experience of the world is through the grime tinted glasses of [Being]”

from the topic ‘I’ on glossary of the Actual Freedom Trust website:

‘I’ am rotten to the core – the combination of animal instinctual passions and an ability to think and reflect make the human animal not only malicious but cunningly malicious. This lethal combination allows the human species not only to wage wars, inflict genocide, rape, murder, torture and pillage to a scale unprecedented in any other animal species but allows for the psychic warfare and power battles, blatant denial, fantasy escapes, corruption, deception and deceit that is endemic in all human interactions.

so I thought to myself this morning, wait a minute - maybe being is not so bad, why not make peace with it.
it is being that is doing all this thing called actualism, who is trying its best to set this body free (and at the same time holding back and preventing it :slight_smile: )

so i wrote a few words to myself:
i am the villain, true, but i am also the hero of myself - when the moment comes I will allow myself to set myself free. me! the villain. so why all the beef ?! I should give myself a break. pet myself, say to myself: you’re a good being - you’re doing your best. dare I say - love yourself a little, you’re not so bad. you’re here because you don’t know anything else, don’t know how to not be. i have confidence in you - I’m sure you’ll do the right thing… eventually.

almog.

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And yet Richard also said “For me to be able to be here at all was a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’ . I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was … and still is. These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite quality of life – who would have it any other way?” ( A Conversation With A Spiritual Teacher (actualfreedom.com.au) )

As well as reminding us to be friends to ourselves, as well as telling me in person to have ‘myself’ be allied with my goal of becoming free. After all, it is ‘me’ and only ‘me’ who can do the actualism method.

I identify with what you’re spelling out here, the actualist tendency to berate themselves & others just for ‘being.’ Obviously not helpful, and ironically that activity itself is an indication of the ‘rotten’ nature of the self.

I think a key thing is that those words, ‘rotten,’ ‘malicious,’ etc we are used to codifying as ‘bad’ as in ‘I am bad,’ but from the perspective of actuality they lose that intonation. So the observation still holds that ‘I’ am rotten, malicious, etc., but simply as an observation - there is no need for additional editorializations of ‘ohhhh, I’m so terrible, I’m going to go feel terrible about being terrible now…’

A bit of a circular game because it’s ‘me’ generating the initial core misery/malice, and then continuing it with more misery and malice. It’s sort of just not being too bothered by the presence of that misery & malice, while continuing to remove it at every turn.

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