Oh a good example here is Geoffrey mentioning that he never did the HAIETMOBA thing. But isn’t this a core aspect of the method? Isn’t this what Richard used etc? Geoffrey was going to do it HAIETMOBA or not.
And this makes more sense why all the people who have written and communicated about their success with actualism had a different ‘flavour’ to their writings. They are accounts of how these particular human beings went about the task of becoming free of the human condition. The problem is the account becoming divine, which is back to front. Then you can have the scholars of actualism agonising over some way to unify those accounts into 1 system, and still they are missing the main thing.
The funny thing is that when I am having success with the method I have no interest at all in any recipes, because I am too busy doing the thing. Sometimes I might miss all those ‘essential steps’ and I am still enjoying and appreciating, the recipe is not the same as actually doing the thing.
OK well maybe if you can elaborate then I can actually understand and reply?
I intend to. But I thought I’d just suggest a stop to it before it went any further.
I just wanted to share a bit of experience here. Maybe it should be a new topic “Obstacles to Happiness”, but I think it fits with Rick’s reflections on “nothing really matters in an ultimate sense” and also with Claudiu’s response to Rick.
A few years ago when I was trying to feel consistently good and couldn’t get the hang of it, I came up with a question that gave me a key to the lock.
What conditions am I imposing on my own well-being? What conditions must life meet before I’ll agree to be happy?
Moment by moment, the answers came thick and fast. They were absurd. It showed me what kind of person I am.
“I am the kind of person who will not feel good until other people stop being irrational, unreasonable or unfair.”
“I am the kind of person who will not feel good unless everyone likes or respects me at all times and shows it.”
“I am the kind of person who will not feel good unless I’m always No.1 in her eyes.”
“I am the kind of person who will not feel good unless it’s always 15-25 degrees Celsius.”
I phrased things this way on purpose to highlight how ridiculous I am, because it’s actually true! I am. This is what eight billion people are doing most of the day. Variations of this.
“I won’t agree to be happy until [something impossible happens and something inevitable stops happening]”.
I know it’s not so easy to be glib and light-hearted about some things though. Maybe “I am the kind of person who will not feel good while people continue to get sick and die, especially if I’m one of them.”
Fine. Some things still feel worthy of suffering even if we know it’s irrational and it doesn’t help. If I draw a line somewhere, anywhere, I know can’t (yet) be unconditionally happy. In that case, I’ve agreed not to be, and I know it.
I think it’s useful to be explicit about it. See how it stacks up against the meaning of life in an ultimate sense. Otherwise I’m stuck struggling against myself at a feeling level, which is a drag and doesn’t work. Unless I drop the unreasonable conditions, I’ll never be happy because I won’t agree to it!
Even with more serious stuff, it’s still a choice. If there are some conditions I choose to hang onto, that’s up to me too. I’ll suffer on account of them until I don’t.
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I discovered this the other night. I was watching a well presented video on weight training which cited scientific papers on the subject.
There is only one scientifically supported way of gaining muscle mass; 6 to 35 reps to failure!
Now that is a large number spread; one would traditionally think that it should be more specific, however the research says no; anything between 6-35 reps with a weight that will cause failure to lift more in that range will result in muscle growth.
So, I did it. 35 reps it turned out with 6 kg of lateral raises. (After a warm up set with 4kg to 20 reps).
2 sets later, 35 reps of 6kg to failure, and the next day it had obviously worked! There was an obvious increase in muscle size.
This flys in the face of decades of effort. Lifting much heavier weight, doing far more sets, and otherwise following the advice that pushing heavy weights to “near failure” was enough.
Nope. It’s failure.
@jamesjjoo I wonder if you can add something here? You mentioned that you have been enjoying and appreciating each moment again recently.
I know you wrote that the new drug played a part in the shift, was there anything else that played a role?
If yes then was it a ‘specific thing’ as per the above posts, some adjustment to the way you apply the method or was it that you simply committed to enjoying and appreciating?
My point being, there is evidence, and there is tradition and belief.
This wasn’t the first time I had good results from lifting weights, but it was the first time such a small amount of correctly performed lifting was so plainly obvious.
Back to the topic though.
Well, not quite, but almost back to the topic; what beliefs are a part of the actualism mindset which do not produce the results?
Let’s be very honest here; actualism has a lot of premises. Lots of things which are held to be facts. I wonder what is a solid “basis for happiness”?
What is actually the “science” of what works?
Surely, there is something (like the OPs presentation) which is universal.
Like the science of growing muscle.
Hey @Paul thats an awesome post! And it makes so much sense, how can I expect to be unconditionally happy and harmless if I continue to place conditions on it haha.
But that is the fact of the matter, as in right now I have placed a condition which (for whatever reason) I hold as more important than happiness and harmlessness, so be it! I get what I want, which is to suffer 
But the takeaway here is that it is impossible to continue applying the method and not to get changed by it. If ‘I’ am the bar which has been set to whatever level then either happiness and harmlessness is blocked or the bar is removed.
This is a very sincere way of looking at it, I like it! The insincere way is to expect happiness and harmlessness whilst at the same time being unwilling to change myself, it is me who has set the condition after all, my values are the bar.
It seems from this insincere position I am then more likely to split myself and try to intellectualise a solution, then it’s off to the various recipes which never work because I don’t want them to work, I have already decided to suffer.
So I don’t get to have my cake and eat it after all. I don’t get to remain completely the same and still get to be happy and harmless. This is very useful for me because I have been trying specifically to accomplish this feat lol.
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I think the answer you are looking for is not going to be found in either belief or science, it’s the experiential aspect which is key. Looking for peer-reviewed articles on the basis of happiness would be just as far removed from this experiential aspect as is belief in a god granting happiness.
@Andrew so going back to lifting, there is a Olympic weightlifting coach named John Broz who put it in this way :
If someone locked you in a cell and told you that you have a month to increase your squat by 100kg or your family is kaput. Would you be following the latest scientific advice on the best ways to increase strength. Something along the lines of 5 sets of 5 reps and 2/3 times a week or would you be squatting heavy all day every day.
Richard seems like he was John Broz’s lifter but actual freedom was the goal.
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A wonderful first post!
Hey @Kub933, thanks. I’m glad it struck a chord.
One of the things I found nice about this is it takes a lot of the seriousness out of my feelings once I see the absudity of my own conditions that keep them in place. It’s a nice way to be able to have a good laugh at yourself while still being totally sincere about it. Seeing the big picture while being in the midst of it, seeing my own contribution to it.
Like, there are a million situations that fit into the category of “I am the kind of person who won’t feel good until other people stop being irrational, unreasonable or unfair”. I can get really hung up on the specifics of a situation, but it’s going to keep on happening. There’ll be at least few thousand fresh instances of the same basic pattern this year. Am I going to make my well-being dependent on that not happening? Might as well slit my wrists now!
Not that specific situations don’t deserve attention sometimes, but it’s good to see it as a instance of a generic pattern.
Right now I’m dealing with a very concentrated form of this. I’m caring for a relative with dementia. If I got bogged down in the specifics of every unreasonable word or argument, I’d soon be as crazy as they are, but worse. I wouldn’t forget everything that’s been said five minutes later. Being the intelligent one in the situation, I’d stew on it and wrestle with my feelings. “Shouldn’t feel bad. Yeah, but she said… and I…” 
What’s human intelligence for if it can’t see through repetitive patterns and keeps falling for the same thing again and again? It’s much easier to figure out my contribution to it than it is to deal with a million separate but similar instances, wrestling with the feelings in each specific instance as if they’re new and important. Recognising that “I am the kind of person who won’t feel good until people with dementia stop being unreasonable and forgetful” gets right to the heart of it. Better have a good laugh at myself instead.
It’s only an exaggerated form of a universal occurrence. People aren’t always reasonable. We/they won’t ever be. If I make my well-being dependent on them being so, I’m signing away my well-being right there. The same principle extends indefinitely outward in all directions.
Can’t ever expect to be happy if I won’t agree to it because “I am the kind of person who…”
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Awesome, so much good content here that I would have to comment on every little bit! This simple (and sincere) seeing of what is silly/sensible is what I am missing often, I think I have made things waaaaay too complex
Will definitely take some time to re-read your two posts.
OK so I wasn’t gonna write more but this is too good! What I found just now is that if I can put it to myself in the way that you mentioned @Paul, I get this birds-eye view of myself. Normally when I am stuck in some pattern I am looking from inside, it is ‘me’ looking at ‘myself’ and just going around in circles, like you mentioned, getting bogged down on every little detail and using emotion to fight emotion.
Whereas this way of looking I am looking at the facts, it is not ‘my’ emotional interpretation of the situation, it is like ‘oh yeah I am really the kind of person who gets sour cos my friends cancelled their plans on me’, it is a fact, I cannot deny it.
And seeing the facts in this way it is indeed kind of humorous, to acknowledge that really I am like this. It reminds of me what Srinath mentioned a while ago that good investigation is like finding myself unexpectedly laughing at a joke. The facts are seen, I cannot deny that I am being silly and the weight drops, this is sincerity.
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What I really like about this is that it puts the focus exactly where it properly ought to be: what “kind of person” am ‘I’?
That’s all any resistance to being happy and harmless ultimately comes down to. Not wanting to change the “kind of person” that I am. ‘I’ hold who ‘I’ am more dearly than enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive.
This phrasing makes that crystal clear!
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I remember a while ago we had a zoom chat with Geoffrey and one of the other guys was explaining some drama that he had going on and that the method was not working in resolving it.
I remember Geoffrey suggesting this very approach, essentially asking them - look at what you are doing, is it not silly wasting your opportunity to feel good now by doing X?
I remember thinking, this seems too obvious/simple to work, like c’mon Geoffrey surely you have more tricks up your sleeve!
But this is exactly it, this is all that is needed.
It’s not about ever finding a solve for whatever drama, it is about seeing that getting involved with it in the first place is silly and the reason it is silly is because I am wasting an opportunity to feel good now.
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It’s quite amusing that this thread is titled ‘the basis for happiness’ and although the direction of the discussion has shifted from the initial posts I think we have actually arrived at the genuine basis for happiness.
Which is the fact that nothing is actually worth loosing enjoyment and appreciation over. And the key is to sincerely see this each moment again. This is somewhat similar to @rick’s post about nothing mattering in the long run because all ends but more naive/direct?
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Yes, and the conditions I actively impose on my well-being from moment to moment are an accessible but influential layer of ‘me’, so it’s a direct way to effect those changes.
It’s sometimes hard to let go of a feeling, but it’s quite easy to let go of the conditions I place on life that sustain those feelings once I see how impossible or absurd they are. “I can’t/won’t be happy unless/until…” It’s not going to work. I see I’m signing myself up for failure. It’s me who’s doing that. If I see that, I can let go of the conditions (if I want to), and the feelings follow.
It’s not like I’m trying to become someone else, struggling to live up to a new image of myself, or forcing myself to feel a different way about life. It’s a clear seeing of what I’m bringing to the situation that makes it literally impossible to feel good in a huge range of circumstances. It’s an easy way to “see the silliness” of that. I’m not forced to act on that if I don’t want to. But I can, it’s a choice. The ball is in my court.
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