Hi Vineeto,
TBH I am quite comfortable leaving the discussion here since you lost interest, but I figured I’d write one final clarifying post just to untangle the knots in the brain, if only for the record (and for a bit of fun).
It seems we’ve ended up talking at cross-purposes lately, and I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the confusion came from assuming things about my intent rather than simply asking me questions for clarity.
For instance, regarding the “established happiness as no. 1 priority” quote that gave you knots: you actually quoted that exact phrase yourself in your previous post (pulling it from my post in the Harmlessness thread), which is why I was referring ‘above’ to it.
More importantly, when you quoted me saying “So yes, that’s a stellar example putting personal happiness over harmlessness” and concluded I was keeping ‘happiness’ as a substitute for pursuing my own desires, you missed the very next sentences where I wrote: “However, was I really happy? Not at all! [..] So mostly there was neither happiness nor harmlessness”. I was explicitly agreeing with you! I was using my past panic-and-love-driven approach with Ms. Morel as a stark example of what not to do, pointing out how it failed completely, rather than defending it as my current practice.
This ties into the whole ‘sequencing’ misunderstanding, which I actually find pretty funny. I was the one who originally emphasized in that post that happiness and harmlessness are inseparable sides of the same coin and cannot be sequenced. When I used the phrase “put .. before” (link), I didn’t mean a chronological hierarchy (“I’ll be happy now and harmless later”). I simply meant it as a situational focus. Putting a situational focus “before” something else and “appealing” (link) to it is no different. Claudiu basically repackaged what I said as a correction LOL!
You also quoted my remark that making a commitment “doesn’t happen overnight” and assumed I was using this belief to stall and postpone actualism into some distant future. But I wasn’t projecting an excuse into the future; I was simply describing the past few weeks of sincere awareness that literally just culminated in a life-changing breakthrough. I wasn’t kicking the can down the road; I was explaining the empirical timeline of how the aeroplane finally got off the ground.
On a lighter note, I have to admit I was struck by an acutely unfair instance (a bit of a display of hypocrisy, if not sanctimony) whereby I was reproached, like a naughty boy, for referring to my last date as the “WomanFromNov”. All the while I was simply being considerate of her anonymity and, moreover, following the very conventions practiced by Richard (referring to people he talked to as “Respondent 34” or “The-Lady-Who-Had-The-Five-Month-PCE”) and, yes, even yourself, who referred to Srinath as “Man From Sydney” (link) for many years! Yet when I follow suit, I’m accused of depersonalizing her, treating her “like a faceless woman known only by the time of her appearance”. You asked “Will the next one be called WomanFrom… March or May?”. Umm, maybe!
But all these crossed wires aside, because you explicitly decided to “stop [me] right here” in your previous reply, you ended up completely missing the second half of my post where I detailed the actual empirical success I’ve been having.
I should say this too (speaking personally only! YMMV): Richard’s words can be a hindrance. I found that the established terminology becomes an obstacle if I get too caught up in the map.
Meanwhile, I accessed what I call the ‘marginalized scared child’ (beneath all adult sophisticated layers, including the sexual ones), stayed with ‘him’ and accidentally accessed the forgotten naive part of ‘me’ (the one prior to having experienced all hurt), and have been living that since this morning … I am rather surprised at myself for having utterly spontaneous (i.e., unplanned) interactions with people (old guys included; everyone’s fascinating in the moment) so much that it makes the distinction between introvert-and-extrovert an utter nonsense.
This is the benefit of (temporarily) discarding the actualist terminology, and paying attention to the affective faculty directly. The empirical results on my end are speaking for themselves, so I don’t need to debate definitions when I’m experiencing the actual benefits on the ground.