What happens if you right now while reading this, rememorate the most purest and mind blowing PCE you’ve had, while contemplating and reflecting on the pure and pristine nature of the universe, how benevolence and benignity is “baked in” as it were, how did to be percipient and aware of that is to start swimming towards the direction of largesse, of bounty and abundance, how the meaning of life is so far beyond normal that all what is normal is mere table scraps by comparison to an overflowing feast, how wondrous and pure it all is and how even “wondrous” seems to not do it justice when it advances past a certain level!
So I wasn’t completely clear in the previous post, the connection was blocked but is no longer 
(since yesterday). Additionally since writing the above posts it’s like this cap was removed which was previously blocking this ‘weird and wondrous’ nature of infinitude, where nothing ‘human’ remains or as you write where ‘normal’ is merely table scraps.
Now I am happily allowing this wondrous quality of the universe whereas before I was actively blocking it, I was not even willing to admit that it exists.
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And a few moments ago I got right up to this point and then retreated, it does get mind boggling. But this is precisely why any remnant of ‘normal’ can be such an obstruction, for the target is so beyond normal…
A particularly fantastic piece!
Marvelling At How Well-Equipped
Human Beings Are
I particularly liked the bit about how, as each person alive was generated by one particular sperm outcompeting millions of others, such as to beget that particular person and not any other, it thusly means each person alive is the creme-de-la-creme and thus indeed has as their birthright and destiny to become actually free from the human condition!
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Nice! I found this bit especially interesting :
Nevertheless, it is handy to know—and to be well aware—that the tendency in the early days of actualism practice to revert to ‘feeling neutral’, rather than ‘feeling good’, is because of it being blind-nature’s default set-point).
This is something I have observed in myself for a long time but never realised that it is a feature of how the affective faculty is ‘set up’. It makes sense that the organism should return more or less to neutral so that from there the various passions can do their job in motivating behaviour this way or that way.
It almost goes without saying, of course, that when feeling-being ‘Richard’ first devised and put into practice the eminently successful way of enjoying and appreciating being alive, via first being as happy and as harmless (as free of malice and sorrow) as is humanly possible by setting a baseline experiencing of ‘feeling good’ each moment again, come what may, for the remainder of ‘his’ life—a way nowadays known as ‘The Actualism Method’ as the result of a tongue-in-cheek jesting on a (purportedly) no-method spiritualist forum—‘he’ was totally unaware of any such “adaptation set-point” by whatever name, which has feeling neutral as its baseline experiencing, and just blithely went ahead and gladsomely established ‘feeling good’ as the minimal set-point as it felt good (hedonically) to feel good (affectively) for the rest of ‘his’ life.
So essentially Richard is saying that although the default set up is return to neutral, it is not set in stone. ‘Richard’ the identity was never aware of such a default set point and instead naively went ahead and committed to feeling good as his baseline anyways. This is like another example of not falling for the belief that ‘you can’t change human nature’.
So to summarise blind nature has as it’s default set up that an organism returns to neutral, this is presumably so that from this neutral position various emotions can do their job of motivating behaviour depending on the situation at hand.
This actually makes a lot of sense to me, for example if an organism was to be in a prolonged state of intense fear, this would dis-regulate the affective mechanism in such a way that the organism cannot respond appropriately to its environment.
But in relation to Actualism, unless one actively sets up and commits to having feeling good as one’s baseline then one will forever return to feeling neutral (as has certainly been the case for me), as this is the natural/default tendency of the affective faculty. The good news is that this default set point can be changed just as well as the rest of ‘human nature’.
So furthermore is it that all those people in the studies of the ‘set point’ remained around the same baseline for most of their lives simply because they never committed to having feeling good as their baseline instead? They did the ‘normal’ thing of living the ‘ups and downs of life’ whilst remaining around their neutral set point.
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OR is it this way instead 
Is it that as long as ‘I’ am in existence, ‘my’ default draw will be to return to neutral (and from there to engage in various dramas). And this is precisely why one has to actively commit to feeling good each moment again and why it is attentiveness which maintains virtual freedom.
So essentially ‘I’ as an instinctual being will blindly gravitate back to this set point unless attentiveness consistently returns ‘me’ to the object of actualism.
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The second one makes more complete sense, it can explain why Devika was able to regress from an out from control virtual freedom. Even at that point without the commitment to feeling good each moment again it is possible to relapse back to normal and from there to getting caught up in the good and bad feelings instead.
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“…they will inevitably return to the same neutral set-point after a significantly emotional life event.”
That’s basically what happened for me during/after my breakup.
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Right and it’s so observable that the same thing happens in the other direction, when finally I succeed at some scheme and I am basking in the good feelings before being returned right back to normal haha. And the interesting thing, which again makes complete sense is that from this baseline the scene is set to pursue yet another drama.
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It’s boring to feel neutral! So of course we chase some high or find something to be upset about.
Another thing I’m thinking about is that ‘neutral’ is the safest place to be socially, as feeling good inevitably draws the ire of those in the bad feelings crowd, and feeling bad similarly pushes people away.
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Yeah this neutral place seems like quite a dead end! I’m starting to recognise it as such. It seems I have become a master of the neutral haha. Like all that I have done up until now has been to greatly minimise both the good and the bad and then sit in this somewhat comfortable plateau of neutral. It’s ok I guess but it doesn’t really go anywhere with regards to the goals of actualism.
What I am considering now is how to be able to consistently get out of that neutral gear and onto the felicitous. On some days when I find myself feeling good to begin with it’s quite easy to ride that momentum, when feeing good diminishes I can trace back and get right back on the horse.
But other times I seem to be stuck in that neutral gear with no discernible memory of the felicitous, like there is nothing I can use to gain traction and move forward.
I was wondering about what Geoffrey mentioned somewhere, about rememorating the flavour of pure intent. Also what Richard writes in that passage about activating delight to get out of stuckness.
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Hmm it just occurred to me that the very act of tracing back to the last time I felt felicitous and innocuous is rememorating the flavour of pure intent.
That makes so much sense now, why it works! By tracing back I am inevitably bringing the flavour of that feeling good into my experiencing now, I am finding out that it is possible to live it, because I am tasting it now. This is why it is seen to be silly to feel bad instead, it’s all experiential business.
And what’s more, the very act of even attempting to do this is already switching on my antennae for the correct frequency.
This flavour is of something ultimately precious, that is why it is always silly to have it usurped, a minute ago I was basking in it, and it all starts with ‘when did I feel good last’.
Looks like I could have saved myself a few years by just following the damn advice 
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I think the most important ingredient is always going to come back to that decision to be happy/harmless come-what may, everything else is almost just backward-looking observations of how that plays out.
I came across this Vineeto quote via @hunterad’s fantastic chatbot that I found very clear:
VINEETO: Getting back to feeling good is not ‘a result of the investigation’ but is a result of one’s intent to be as happy and harmless as humanly possible – ‘happiness has to be chosen by focussing on felicity’, as No. 37 wrote. The result of investigating your beliefs and feelings is a continued and increasingly uninterrupted happiness and harmlessness for the simple reason that less and less events will trigger any non-felicitous feelings.
(emphases mine)
So investigation is essentially an accessory to more effectively feeling good, but feeling good come-what-may is “the result of” the intent to feel happy and harmless come-what-may. I now see this as the most important ingredient in actualism, because if one is committed to feeling happy and harmless and climbs the chain of good - great - excellent, PCEs, EEs, and intimacy experiences are inevitable, from which more motivation can be drawn, familiarity with pure intent grows, and one is off and running.
Feeling happy & harmless (aka mimicking the PCE) is the actualism method, so that choice is the choice to practice the method, which is the beginnings of the choice to become free. Any further it goes, one ‘circles the drain’ of freedom, so continuing to make that choice is to continue to allow freedom to operate more and more until pop
Edit: the choice to be happy & harmless come-what-may becomes the choice to allow ever-more pure intent to operate once the connection to pure intent becomes apparent
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Have I missed this previously or is this another new piece of writing? The bit at the bottom by Vineeto suggests that Richard got the article ready right before heading off to hospital.
It’s an interesting read for sure, especially considering that it was written in 1995 (when he was already actually free).
http://an.actualfreedom.com.au/various/a-statement-of-events.htm
Yes it seems to be an article that I had seen in the past. It also seems to be worded in the way it is in order to appeal to the Veteran’s Board.
This is under ‘latest writing : 7.6.2024’ on the AFT now.
Hi, Kuba. Who is “his” referring to in “both lasting until his death”. I can’t understand who died…
Wait I can’t believe what I’m reading. I have never heard these stories from Richard, never heard this account before.
There is a lot that seems at odds with the updated versions of the stories (though I had heard about a possible nervous breakdown through third parties).
The fact he isn’t sure the monk thing actually happened, the fact he looked into Buddhism (he had always said he knew nothing of things about enlightenment etc), that his children wouldn’t speak to him for 8 years due to the disorder,
I had heard about this statement though, which if I’m not mistaken was originally published without permission by the person who broke in to the boat (or something like that) and stole personal information - the woman from India or someone related?
Why was it was so imperative for Richard to publish this particular article when he knew he was dying or at least in serious medical trouble?
Is it because it has more personal info than he has been willing to reveal before? For example, I had never known that his last name starts with K.
Perhaps he didn’t want his pension questioned.
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Hey Miguel, this is referring to Richard who died on the 6th of June. There is more info about this in a separate thread if you look up the recent threads.
I also found some of this text weird but then I can see Vineeto has now provided some clarification at the bottom :
For those wondering that he used feeling-being words such as “anxiety”, “abject fear” and others, consider that he was writing to Veteran Board bureaucrats and psychiatrists and had to describe his experience in their terms. And a physical/mental anxiety is still an anxiety, a mentally experienced ghastliness is still daunting, even as a purely physical/mental experience.
For comparison here are the words he used in 1999 to describe the experience, with the benefit of hindsight after the mental agitation had stopped.
I do still wonder what the purpose was for getting this specific article out in time, perhaps it was to set the record straight on things that he was not able to address previously.
It seems like he wanted to leave no information out which concerned matters that after his death could no longer be clarified by himself.
This seems to me as another example of actual caring, as in not wanting for the legacy of actual freedom to be tarnished by some unexplained information that could pop up in the future, and thus preventing others from becoming free themselves.
It does seem like with Richard it was caring and integrity all the way through. But then again I am doing a lot of conjecture here 
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