Sonya: Hi Vineeto,
Thanks for the reply.
Hi Sonya,
You are very welcome.
Vineeto: First of all, you will perhaps be relieved to learn that every single feeling being deep down feels that there is something wrong with ‘being’ here, with being ‘me’.
Sonya: This is what Kuba said to me yesterday so it is relieving that someone else has also found that to be the case. I see that just knowing this doesn’t change anything for me but living my daily like enjoying and appreciating being here is the way forward.
Yes, this is definitely a good route to choose. The way this works is to comprehend that this moment is the only moment you can actually experience being alive – what happened yesterday or an hour ago is a memory, and what will happen tomorrow or an hour from now is based on planning and/or conjecture or both. Therefore, if you are not happy now you are wasting the only moment you can actually experience – the perfect incentive to change that. 
You can read Richard’s article on This Moment of Being Alive (link) for detailed instructions and ask me if anything is not clear to you.
Sonya: I have read some parts of Richard’s journal a while ago and I did give up on it since I struggled to get a grasp on what he was saying and I also ended up falling asleep trying to comprehend the writings . I think I was content with where I was before so I didn’t have much motivation to read more of Richard’s writings. However, I find myself wanting to do better and be better now so I am definitely interested in reading.
I can understand that. Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ had to read Richard’s writing slowly and several times the same topic before she could grasp something of what was conveyed. When ‘she’ had a PCE the meaning of his writing became much clearer because she could comprehend a lot more experientially.
Richard: ‘I’ am fear and fear is ‘me’ and ‘I’ am aggression and aggression is ‘me’ and ‘I’ am nurture and nurture is ‘me’ and ‘I’ am desire and desire is ‘me’.
Sonya: This confuses me. Is this saying that the instinctual passions such as the fear, aggression, nurture is what ‘I’ am as identity? Like the building blocks that creates what I am? Is that why I feel like there is something ‘wrong’ with me? Because I am always acting via the instinctual passions?
Essentially yes. The identity, ‘you’, is comprised of several components – at the core are the instinctual survival passions which humans have in common with animals.
Richard: The term ‘Human Condition’ is a universally-accepted philosophical expression referring to the situation all human beings find themselves in when they emerge as babies on this verdant and azure planet which begat the human race and whereat humankind flourishes. This well-known phrase refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures down through the ages. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone; all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their affective-psychic nature and a ‘light side’.
Then there is a second layer of the social identity, which encompasses all the ethics (right and wrong) and morals (good and bad), which humans have established and passed on in order to keep the wily instinctual passions in check to a certain degree. So you are being both the instinctual passions (emotions) and the societal feelings (the ethical and moral beliefs, principals, etc) … and are acting accordingly.
Richard: The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged since time immemorial and it requires constant vigilance lest sorrow, with its ever-attendant malice, gains the upper hand. An admixture of social mores and cultural folkways seek to control the wayward self which lurks deep within the human breast; and some semblance of peace – an ad hoc and uneasy truce – prevails for the main. Wherever virtuous morality and principled ethicality fails to curb this ‘savage beast’ some form of law and order is maintained – albeit, ultimately at the point of a gun – by state-sanctioned policing. (Richard, Abditorium, The Human Condition).
As such, ‘you’, the identity, are those instinctual passions – in other words, you don’t have those passions but they are the very substance ‘you’ are made of (except when you have a PCE where this very identity goes temporarily in abeyance including the instinctual passions and feelings). Those survival passions are like a whirlpool and the very movement of those feelings and passions is what keeps the identity in existence.
When you comprehend this deeply, you can choose to either be anger and sadness or be the happy and harmless feelings, the moment you notice any diminishment in feeling good.
Richard: This is why I stress the importance of remembering one of your PCE’s
Sonya: Unfortunately I cannot remember a PCE.
In a quiet moment you can search in your memory, not the emotional or intellectual memory but either an intuitive a sensate or a sensory memory, and see if you find an outstanding experience, where everything was all right, was just as it should be and was so magnificent and extraordinary, as if not from this world, so peaceful and gay, that you experienced it as always wanting to live this way. Most likely they happened in childhood – perhaps you can unearth a memory. They are not stored in the normal emotional memory hence a bit difficult to rediscover.
I do suspect you have a very vague memory of one or more PCEs because you said that you “feel there is something fundamentally wrong with me”, and in the next paragraph below you say that “I like the use of the word ‘persona’. This is exactly how I feel. Like I am keeping up a persona.” To feel there is something “wrong with me” there must be a benchmark to what would be right with you in comparison, something actual.
Richard: “is the persistent feeling of being an identity inhabiting the body: an affective ‘entity’ as in a deep, abiding and profound feeling of being an occupant, a tenant, a squatter or a phantom hiding behind a façade, a mask, a persona” …
Sonya: So from the quotes you provided of Richard’s writings I understand it as the reason why I feel there is something fundamentally wrong with me is because who ‘I’ am as an identity isn’t actual, I exist as a mix of instinctual passions, roles, rank, etc. I like the use of the word ‘persona’. This is exactly how I feel. Like I am keeping up a persona. (link)
This is an excellent observation, and whatever you are trying to do to make it ‘right’ on the emotional level or even the intellectual level will have no lasting effect.
As I said yesterday, what you can do with the help of the actualism method is to diminish the strength and influence of ‘me’, the persona, in your daily life by enjoying and appreciating being here and thus reduce the identity-enhancing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and increase the identity-diminishing felicitous feelings, i.e. enjoyment and appreciation.
By being honest with yourself and sincere in your endeavour you can re-awaken your dormant naiveté (being like a child but with adult sensibilities) and keep ‘thinning’ your identity to the point that it becomes more and more insubstantial.
Cheers Vineeto
, and it’s not some fancy idea you’ve imported, it’s your own preference. Cool.
I noticed this when my period came as a complete surprise. Usually the couple days before my period I get irritated easily and I tend to snap when Kuba “playfully?” 
interacts with me.
But this time when it came without any prior “meanness” from me, it was a welcome surprise! I genuinely thought to myself “oh but I didn’t snap!” This also carried on throughout the week of my period which I usually will be relatively moody. So yeah, pretty cool!
it’s been absolutely lovely! But I started to notice a little feeling of separation between myself and the men that I found myself interacting with. There was a wariness or wall I put up automatically. It was a recurring thing that happened whenever we went out for dinner or just walking on the side of the road and it brought up a feeling of separation that I picked up on.
. I think I was content with where I was before so I didn’t have much motivation to read more of Richard’s writings. However, I find myself wanting to do better amd be better now so I am definitely interested in reading.
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