Kuba: The fact remains that no amount of sophistication or refinement will land one at naiveté. It’s not like one of my games either where if I grind away at some monsters for a few hours I will earn that next weapon set and then breeze through the rest of the game – which this is the kind of MO I have observed here, as if naiveté could be located that way.
I have done all this myself as one of the “other people on this forum already, who were under the (temporary) illusion/ delusion that they were something they were not”. This trap is particularly alluring it seems for personas pre-disposed to intellectualising their way through life. This kind of persona will sweep all the “uncomfortable emotional stuff” under the rug and then use the powers of their intellect to apparently solve it all away, as if breezing through a checklist. But proceeding in this manner, the ‘naivete located’ is concocted, it is a fake.
Hi Kuba,
Even though I only had the trap of Altered States of Consciousness in mind, as for instance described here, this illusion can nevertheless happen to anyone and as you rightly say, particularly to people who have a tendency to “sweep all the “uncomfortable emotional stuff” under the rug”. Hence Richard said about the actualism method, if done correctly –
Richard: Also, it is a very tricky way of both getting men fully into their feelings for the first time in their life and getting women to examine their feelings one by one instead of being run by a basketful of them all at once. One starts to feel ‘alive’. Being ‘alive’ is to be paying attention – exclusive attention – to this moment in time and this place in space. (This Moment of Being Alive).
It certainly worked for ‘Vineeto’.
Kuba: I think I might be at risk of being placed into a diagram here, but I will say that all the “uncomfortable emotional stuff” cannot be conveniently walked around, and for the kind of persona pre-disposed to intellectualising I would say that the remedy is to dare to aim for intimacy, not with objects but with fellow human beings. I have found this in myself (as that kind of persona) that this challenge to aim for intimacy was initially like trying to mix oil with water, but eventually it made one thing clear, that this “uncomfortable emotional stuff” would have to be resolved head on.
I appreciate your observation – when one aspires intimacy in a living-together arrangement, a lot of “uncomfortable emotional stuff” has to come out in the open and needs to be dealt with, if men and women want to succeed in living together in peace and harmony.
Kuba: Although I will put a qualifier on this, that it was aiming for intimacy with the person I live with (rather than a passing exchange at a coffee shop etc) which was where the tyre met the road, to borrow a phrase. And the intimacy I am referring to here is not some high level near actual intimacy, I am talking of – can ‘I’ as a feeling being, find a way to get consistently close to another, which means that the mine-field of the “uncomfortable emotional stuff” will have to be patiently and sincerely addressed. (link)
You expressed it expertly and from your ongoing experience.
Richard: I started from a basic premise that if man and woman could not live together with nary a bicker – let alone a quarrel – then the universe was indeed a sick joke. (Richard’s Journal, Introduction, Page 5).
What better way to turn one’s life around and do something down-to-earth and pragmatic for peace-on-earth and one’s own felicity and innocuity at the same time.
Cheers Vineeto