One of the things which is slowly getting clearer is that feeling good is the primary thing i can do for them.
Ultimately, becoming free, yes. But right now, feeling good, and taking action seem equally important.
I am thinking in far less definite “lines in the sand”. I guess the same as “refusing to believe life was meant to be a veil of tears”, is not the same as “believing life is meant to be a happy experience”
Not so much about trying to build or retain “desirable ones”, but refusing to allow the obviously “undesirable ones” creating more havoc.
In a way, working with the obvious, not the theoretical. At such a point that i also have had very clear insights into being a “rotten rosy pearl parasite” RRPP™. Then, working with that insight.
It’s simple, Andrew. It just means not getting ruffled emotionally, but not via dissociation. It means it’s “not ok” when it’s not ok, but “not ok” is not accompanied by emotions.
As for “we are always identifying”, sure. That’s where the dismantling via investigation part comes into play.
As a simple example, civil war in Syria is “not ok”, but getting disturbed, agitated and angered by it is intruding my peace for nothing. The recognition of that fact brings emotional acceptance.
3 Likes
Could you explain it?
1 Like
Yea - if ‘I’ am hating ‘myself’, then ‘I’ split myself into two pieces, one part (that somehow isn’t “really” me) that is the hateful part, and one part (that is the “true” me) that is hating the other part. This way I can preserve a pretension that ‘I’ am not fully rotten to the core – because look how moral I am being, condemning this vile thing over there that I’m definitely not!
Of course, if you don’t think that ‘other’ part is you, you can’t change it, it’s out of your control – all you can do is try to suppress it.
But if you accept this, that the vile part is ‘you’ as well, then you are being sincere, “all-of-one-growth”, and then you , as that vile part, can agree to change.
3 Likes
Instead of starting new topics, or just posting in my journal, I thought I would revive this one.
In searching out the “intimate part of myself” it’s interesting to note that this interest only came after seeing just about everything my recent ex and I did and said was ‘self’ serving. I was laughing at it.
Very interesting.
Before that night, around a week ago, I was convinced of my own basic righteousness. That I was better than her, and just about everyone else too.
The definition of a parasite is that it will destroy the host.
From the online Oxford;
“an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other’s expense.”
While a symbiotic relationship can exist as well, in the case of our gut flora.
As a side note, in total cell count, “alien” species out number human cells in our bodies.
So is all of ‘me’ a parasite? What about that “intimate aspect of oneself”, is that also a parasite?
It seems that is progressive. That the initial ‘self’ is otherwise the same as any other mammal. Something happens in humans though. Something parasitic. Very early on in developing an identity, the ‘self’ becomes something which fits the definition of parasite. Before that, it can’t be differentiated from any other animal ‘self’.
So the intimate part of my ‘self’ then is a very early sense of ‘being’. Before ‘i’ became parasitic.
And indeed I did become parasitic. Worrying about my attractiveness came very early on. Obviously this has no benefit to the body as there is nothing a child can do to alter its genetic inheritance.
I always found it bizarre that I could hate the way I looked. That the very body producing ‘me’ could be hated. This body hosted something which hated it.
So it’s a progressive thing. Indeed Richard specifically says a mature adult is a lost, lonely and very cunning entity.
I used to live in a place by the beach with lots of trees. I would sit and watch the parrots (parakeets, cockatoos, gallahs) all squabble and have all sorts of parrot dramas. At a certain point though, they would all calm down and roost. I called it “animal repose”.
They seemed all upset, but then would all end up perched next to each other. There was no wars, I never saw them hanging each other, or any murders. They would do the same thing every day.
Even though it can’t be said that children are “tabula Rasa”, without innate drives, it also can’t be said they are working against themselves.
They cry for milk, to be held, to be cleaned. They look after their body. They have no hatred of themselves. They will smile at strangers on busses.
Any game of peek-a-boo is welcome, and anything that is within reach is fair game from grasping and sucking on.
At some point, this innocent self care, is perverted.
Either way, there must be a place in my feelings where this innocent self care still survives.
In less words;
There has to be something likeable about ‘me’.
I don’t think I have ever located some deep part of the ‘self’ which is intrinsically likeable, innocent, not rotten etc
When naive ‘I’ am liking and likeable but that is because ‘I’ am opening ‘myself’ up to the wonder of the world all around, so it is like ‘I’ am being blessed by the magnificence of it all. Without the blessing of pure intent ‘I’ have no way out of perversity.
So my vote is going to ‘I’ am indeed rotten to the very core 
But there is something ‘I’ can do… Sincerity, naiveté and pure intent set ‘me’ on a path of being liking and likeable.
Sure, I don’t think I can resurrect a baby Andrew self, but it’s the peek-a-boo aspect, the play, the near perfect alignment of crying when needs of this body are at stake.
I deleted the rest of my thinking on the topic.
I’m gonna spam my ‘pure intent depiction’ here once more 
Depictions of Pure intent
This is my understanding of it all and I think the key is that the purity of the actual ‘trickles’ down. So as much as ‘I’ am forever rotten, ‘I’ always have access in some degree to that blessing, to a way out of perversity. But that something originates outside of ‘me’, it is not intrinsic to ‘being’.
1 Like
Spam away. I will check it out now.
I am already in agreement with the premise.
So in your depiction, naivete is on the extremities, rather than some core quality.
Almost outside of ‘me’.
So it goes; normal reality (rotten to the core) > feeling good> naivete.
So you would locate the “intimate aspect of yourself” on the edge of self, rather than towards to core?
Interesting indeed.
It reverses the intuitive interpretation I was going for.
Ok, this makes sense so far.
One, as a ‘self’, innately internalised everything we would call rotten. It is itself rotten because of this function?. Not sure. We can’t know that until two actually free people have a baby and raise it. But as of now; as we mature, we are becoming more rotten, until normal reality is all there is.
Pure intent is otherwise creating a layer around this core. Which, as children, we have less accumulated rottenness, while the ‘innate self’ is still essentially the cause, because without the function of accumulating “rotten” nothing would stick.
All we can know is that we have an innate self which we can’t find anything that isn’t rotten about it by the time we go looking for it as adults.
That also makes sense; An apple, once rotten, doesn’t have a fresh apple at it’s core.
Well this particular presentation was more to point to how naïveté gets one closer to purity not necessarily whether it is more in the centre of being or towards the extremities. The whole diagram is mostly centred around accessing purity in increasing increments hence the location of naivete.
In terms of ‘where’ naïveté is located - whether in the centre or not. It seems naïveté is more a state which the ‘being’ finds itself in rather than one of the layers of the onion. It’s not that just underneath the passions ‘I’ find naïveté but rather the ‘being’ which is the passions themselves can become naive. In doing so it is ‘opening up’ to the purity of the actual, becoming somewhat ‘washed out’, allowing the wonder of it all to become apparent, and here is that blessing which offers a way out of perversity.
This is purely an experiential description of it, it is how I experience it in myself. Would be cool to hear how others see this.
1 Like
The other thing I was thinking about as I was driving home is how I have personally resisted this so much! I still do.
I cannot accept that I am forever rotten, I don’t want to accept that the way out is to allow a purity which has nothing to do with ‘me’.
I can’t admit that the universe already has it all sussed out and yet all the change which has ever happened was when I finally admitted that ‘I’ couldn’t do it alone, that ‘I’ was the spanner in the works.
It’s like that last bit of pride that says ‘I’ve got it, I don’t need the universe or it’s purity’.
Because if I admit that then I have to admit that it was all over nothing, that only ‘I’ was holding ‘myself’ in place because ‘I’ was resisting this actual universe, resisting that it could be already perfect. To admit this ‘I’ would become truly meaningless, no longer needed for anything… wonder what would happen then 
1 Like
Right. Well this year is my 10th anniversary of not allowing anything outside of me to call the shots.
However, I am closer.
I was just pondering that nothing in my life has changed without crisis.
It is crisis which is the catalyst of change.
“Necessity is the mother of invention”
For evolution to work there is always crisis.
If actualism is to have a broader appeal, it’s cosmology must answer the question of the “origin of evil”.
Killer whales toy maliciously with their prey. Cats too. Obviously, humans are the infamous masters of inflicting unnecessary harm.
But why?
Perhaps nothing changes without crisis. Nothing evolves without a catalyst.
If Julian Jayne’s is correct, we have only been conscious of our suffering for 5000ish years.
Not even a drop in the bucket. Still, it’s indifferent to reduce it to insignificance when we consider the scale of the suffering, even what is happening as we type is more than rotten. It’s evil.
Time for bed.
I think this is where it’s worth remembering that happy/harmless/naive is a third category of feeling along with the negative and the positive… a category of feeling where the negative & positive aren’t operating as strongly.
One attribute of children is that they aren’t as crystalized in their state of being moment-to-moment, similar to your parrots they’ll change their state of being rapidly. This means at any moment they’re that much more likely to trip upon the naive feelings, adjacent to the actual world itself. Where an adult is too busy doing important adult things (and feeling important adult feelings) to allow their ‘being’ to ‘wander’ (that would be the height of irresponsibility, after all! Dare I say - naive?)
3 Likes