Jon: Thank you,
you clearly took a lot of time and I appreciate that. I will look over all that you said. I do think you are misunderstanding me. Linking my use of the phrase ‘noted’ to vipassana practices is funny to me. I will, though, keep that in mind just in case you are on to something.
Hi Jon,
Thank you for your appreciation and explanatory feedback. Now that you say “linking my use of the phrase ‘noted’ to vipassana practices is funny to me” it could well be a misunderstanding on my part. Vipassana and this noting technique were very common amongst people interested in actualism and since you had asked Richard a question about what “the pragmatic dharma crowd speaks of” I understood you were quite familiar with it as well. Have you ever practiced Vipassana or Mahasi-style ‘noting’ some years ago, or was your wording “noted” merely part of the modern vocabulary that passed me by?
Jon: And when I wrote those other things you quoted, my mind was actually referencing something you said on this forum: It was about intentionally adopting an actualist identity. But, though I don’t remember you specifying, I read it to mean it as a positive helpful thing, which I think is worth the distinction, because, a lot of actualist identities are negative unhelpful things. Trying to change others or trying to establish a position in some imaginary hierarchy, for instances. Those are both negative and unhelpful.
Ah, it’s good to be are aware that an ‘actualist identity’ can be “both negative and unhelpful”.
Jon: Certainly you didn’t mean those things but maybe you never said or wrote the specific things I am remembering, which were about feeling good about yourself for trying to be happy and harmless. More in the vein of patting yourself on the back for doing something, the best thing even, that one can do while still a feeling-being, about the human condition.
I found the instance you may be referring to –
Vineeto to Roy: It’s natural given the human impulse to congregate with like-minded people, and this in itself is nothing wrong. As long as you are an identity, to be an actualist is the most felicitous and most harmless identity you can be. The only trap to look out for is loyalty.
I remember an incident where ‘Vineeto’ had inadvertently developed a loyalty for ‘actualists’ – I put actualists in scare-quotes because a practising actualist is learning to more and more stand on their own feet. Sometime around 2000 one correspondent to the mailing list registered a domain name “www.actualfreedom.com” for trolling purposes and ‘Vineeto’ became worried that this would sully the Actual Freedom Trust website and confuse readers. Richard had no concerns and pointed out to ‘her’ that 1) there was no danger of confusion because the AFT domain name had an “.au” at the end of its domain name, and 2) indicated that ‘Vineeto’ was succumbing to the typical fears associated with belonging to a group, whilst also saying that as long as you are an identity to be an ‘actualist’ is quite a happy and harmless identity to choose. Nevertheless, ‘Vineeto’ kept an eye out after that, not to fall into the trap of belonging or worrying. [Emphasis added]. (Actualvineeto, Roy2, 18 Jun 2025).
However, it turned out there is more to watch out for when one identifies as an actualist, as Felix discovered –
Felix: It seems my Achilles heel or a habit has been to want to “override” the whole process by aiming to feel good in an ambitious way, whilst trying to push down or control the seemingly malevolent/ perverse feeling being that is scuppering my efforts. Quite cunning eh.
Vineeto: Well, you found yourself out – one cunning trick disarmed now that you know about it. You’ll discover more – it’s the nature of ‘me’ to hide behind the most noble causes, and especially pretend-actualist causes, I noticed. But whenever you ask yourself if this or that strategy is really on your, the actual body’s side, you’ll find that it is not, even if the cover story pretends to be. Anything that is sudorific, anything that creates stress or anxiety can never be on your side. (Actualvineeto, Felix, 24 Dec 2024).
In other words, ‘I’, the identity, will use any trick in the book, including labelling ‘me’ an ‘actualist’, to turn this into a tool with which to either put oneself down or have a tribal fight of loyalty of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. This happens when one turns being an actualist into a moral or ethical dictate/ principle of belonging, or being/becoming a laudable persona.
Felix came to this conclusion for himself –
Felix: Cutting out a lot of the actualist identity stuff has helped – it’s made me a beginner again but that’s also a blessing as real change is happening. (17 Jan 2025)
As such, when one puts sincerity first, it will be easier to discover such manoeuvring and get back to being happy and harmless in practice, rather than “valuing happy and harmlessness as a virtue to be proud of”. (link)
A feeling being is bound to acquire one or several identities as an automatic survival strategy, but to put stock into it being “a virtue to be proud of” from the start is bound to lead you astray before you even begin. Hence my quoting what Richard said to you about pride in 2013.
Here is what Geoffrey had to say about an acquired ‘actualist identity’ –
>Richard: I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. (Richard’s Journal, Appendix 3, p. 282).**
Geoffrey:** “Who is that ‘me’, if not humanity?
‘I’ am humanity. And as such, ‘my’ destiny can be achieved.
“Pleasant and wholesome” could become a refuge, a hiding place, for an individual ‘I’, a special ‘I’, fortified in dissociation from the dark soil of humanity by its acquired ‘actualist identity’.
If one is to be humanity, then nothing of humanity shall be foreign to one.
“The psyche is a frightful place” indeed.
What is it that Richard admires about ‘me’? Daring, and audacity. (link)
Jon: At any rate, I look forward to reading what you have coached me to read. It will be new to me for I tend to regard the actualism method as a real simple thing and no study is really required. Allow yourself to be happy and harmless now. Everything else are like the reasons to do it, the common barriers one encounters and tips to overcome them. But when I don’t desire to be happy, I also don’t desire to study why I should be happy. And when I do desire to be happy then I just allow it. And sometimes those states fluctuate back and forth quite rapidly.
Look, the actualism method is simple in practice but everyone has already been conditioned on top of being instinctually primed, and therefore at first they understand what they read according to the materialistic or spiritual paradigm, or both. As such, you need to do what feeling being ‘Vineeto’ reported when reading Richard’s words and putting them into practice (and that is the ‘complicated’ part) –
Richard: … what feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ reported after the first few weeks of listening to me/ reading my words.
Speaking in regards to the effects any and all attempts to fit this totally new paradigm into ‘her’ existing mindset were having, ‘she’ explained the process as being … (1.) as if ‘her’ brain was being turned upside-down … and how (2.) ‘she’ was having to relearn how to think all over again. (Richard, List D, Alan, 29 Feb 2016).
Don’t miss that step else you will misunderstand a lot of what Richard reports. ‘Vineeto’ found that reading, and re-reading, Richard’s words again and again, helped ‘her’ to “relearn how to think all over again”.
Jon: All of this I am writing merely to thank you for the coaching or the guidance. And to let you know I’ll be taking it to heart even if I don’t reply. And now, after re-reading and making some edits to aid the reader, I’ll read some of Richard’s journal before bed, which is not something I typically do. So I can thank you for that motivation.
Much obliged, (link)
I appreciate that, Jon, and you are very welcome.
Cheers Vineeto