Others ~ Selected Correspondence

Love, Divine Love and Intimacy

If (or when) I have children would it be ‘inappropriate’ according to actualism to say ‘I love you’ back to my child when he/she says ‘I love you daddy?’ That question is from my wife. This is an important question because it certainly could be HARMFUL to a child to never here ‘I love you’ from their parents.

This is one I have struggled with personally as well. I have 2 kids – one turning 6 in about 2 weeks and another who is 2½ years old.

I understand the sort of initial gut wrenching that happens when you begin to consider never ever saying ‘I Love You’ to your precious child – especially because that’s what you always thought you were ‘supposed’ to do. For me, there were also feelings of wanting to be loved by my own parents tied into the internal debate as well.

Basically, I just weaned myself off the need to say ‘I love you’ – my wife misses it sometimes, but she has mostly adapted to where she is used to saying it to me, though I don’t respond the same way. We have discussed all this, so she understands, of course.

I never established the expectation in my kids with me saying ‘I love you’ and them saying ‘I love you, daddy’ in return – so I don’t think they miss it. They are just as ‘close’ to me as they are to my wife.

Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion experientially that it doesn’t make a difference whether I say ‘I love you’ or not to the kids, they don’t know any different anyway – yet. I am curious to find out what they will think of it once they are old enough to figure out that Mom always says the ‘I love you’s’ but Dad never does, but I’m sure by that time I will have ample chance to explain it to them :o)

The bottom line to keep in mind is that it doesn’t matter as much what you say, it’s what you DO that counts. I would prefer a daddy who actually CARES genuinely about my well-being and doesn’t say the ‘I love yous’ to one who says ‘I love you’ and neglects my well-being. No 37 to No 66

There is a very precise description of the method contained on the Actual Freedom website at the following address.  It hardly seems necessary to go into the specifics to a greater extent or to re-invent the wheel. But suffice it to say that the essence of the method is to thoroughly examine and investigate everything that gets in the way of being happy and harmless. This includes every affective experience, emotion, feeling, and belief.

Just to give an example: in the morning I was on the way to work and my partner, in saying ‘goodbye’ to me, stated ‘I love you’ and lightly caressed my hand. In response to this lightly spoken endearment, I experienced a feeling of sadness mingled with regret. The feeling hit me between the eyes, so to speak, and I was interested to look into that feeling and see what I could find out about it, as it would reveal much about ‘me’. One of the things that I came up with was the realization that love in any form is always accompanied by sorrow and sadness, as for instance when love is lost. I think I also experienced a momentary feeling of pity for my partner whose expressions of ‘love’ to me are usually not reciprocated, perhaps in they are in tender expressions of caring but certainly not in word, as I never speak the ‘love’ word anymore. I think there was an irrational belief operating in me at the time that went something like this: ‘What kind of partner are you after all – you should be telling your partner that you love her’. One could easily substitute any number of words in the place of ‘partner’ such as ‘son’, ‘daughter’, ‘friend’, ‘co-worker’, etc. The irrational belief that I ‘should’ be expressing love to these people caused me to feel momentary sadness, regret, and guilt.

I have, since I started using the Actualism method, been most interested in examining my attachments to others. I use the word ‘attachment’ as being somewhat synonymous with ‘relationship’ as it is commonly used. By this I mean an emotional connection of some sort or other. It is always an emotional issue of some sort or other that binds me to another person or group of people. It of course starts in the dependent relationship of the mother and infant, is nurtured during the long period of childhood, and may grow into more stable ‘attachments’ in adolescence and adulthood. I think that one of the effects of practicing the Actualism method has been a great loosening and weakening of emotional attachments of any kind for me. I experience at times feelings of dread and angst that I am not ‘normal’ in the sense of wanting to attach myself to other people emotionally.

I seem to have no drive to form friendships in the conventional sense or to identify with other people on the usual levels. I have found it most interesting and fruitful to examine my emotional attachments to others, which all involve clinging, fear, loneliness, desire, dependency, and domination in one way or another. In short, by examining my attachments to others, I feel I have hit upon something very intrinsic to the Human Condition: those emotional ties that bind me to humanity. Loosening and eventually eliminating those ties completely is my aim but it is a most daunting course. Because in so-doing I am turning my back on those things that once gave me comfort, and am liable to experience pangs of anxious apartness, even the dread occasioned by losing large parts of my identity.

Just a quick note: when I say in the sentence above that I am ‘turning my back on those things that once gave me comfort’ I am referring not so much to deliberate repression or suppression of an experience, but as with this as well a process of finding out experientially what binds me to the Human Condition. For instance, I have found that it is not necessary for me to have ‘friends’ in the usual sense in order to be happy and harmless – quite the opposite – I have found that maintaining this system of alliances and affiliations most definitely gives sustenance to and fuels ‘me’. Gary to No 46

The other play of consciousness that I am interested in here is that of pure imagination. The situation where I sit and think of a person or people I don’t know in a place that I have not been and a scenario that I have not been in before. Is there a break from instinct in this entirely fantasy world? No way!

• If the fantasy is sexual it is desire driven.
• If the fantasy is about superiority it is driven by aggression.
• Fantasies about victim-hood – fear driven.

Certainly it is not cut and dried and a fantasy can be powered up by more than one instinct at a time. Now, can this pure fantasy world run on just the social identity layer of a human construct? Or to put it another way – can belief be involved and affective within a human psyche, independent of the instincts? (Ha! cute, I just tried to think of a belief to use as a test case in point here and couldn’t find one ... guess I’ll have to use my imagination ... doh!, can’t find that either – this is getting difficult!). Example – if one has a belief that one is a loving person, that belief comes from a value judgement that says that love is ‘good’ and is supported by the social programming, one is rewarded for apparent loving behaviour by society – such a person would also look around and compare their ‘lovingness’ to gauge its degree and amount with other ‘loving’ people.

This love also creates ‘good’ disturbance in the mind and resultant good feelings in the psyche (and some biochemical ‘goodies’ for the body – very tricky!) Is there a connection here with the instincts or is all this happening in a ‘world’ of belief, emotion and feelings only? I must include here that all of a social identity’s beliefs about itself are not ‘peaches and cream’. It has beliefs that are undermining also – beliefs that are ‘bad’ for the ‘self image’. Here there is a clue to the puzzle – if, within the ‘world’ of belief, beliefs that are ‘bad’ for the social identity are given as much ‘reality’ as ‘good’ beliefs then there is something else at play here and effecting the game. It is the entity at its roots – it cares not for the content of its seeming reality, it cares only that this seeming reality should continue – that IT MUST SURVIVE, no matter what. This is survival instinct. So it looks to me that the instinct > emotion > belief > feeling construct is a whole package and they are all linked in some way all the time and they don’t come one without the other. Mark

What I have gleaned from my recent experience of this aspect of our journey regarding the altruism or self sacrifice that is necessary to take the final step (I find the parallel to love and compassion a bit spooky, but understandable) is that I have reached a point where I have severed the ties (beliefs) with the psychic ‘human’ web to such a degree that I am now left with some rather raw instincts to examine into oblivion.

Will you kindly explain what you mean by ‘I find the parallel to love and compassion a bit spooky, but understandable’.

Yes, my reference in this case to love and compassion should have been ‘Love and Compassion’. From my viewpoint at this point in the journey that I must be aware of any ‘good’ behaviour and its origins, for I do experience a growing feeling of altruism and ... it is the type of feeling that one in the spiritual paradigm ‘tries’ to ‘generate’ and ‘nurture’ through ‘feelings’ of love and compassion. So, here I am arriving at a place (genuine goodwill towards fellow humans as opposed to a managed, ‘being loving’ discipline) for which I was searching for 20 yrs or more on the spiritual path of love and compassion and arriving here by giving up all feelings of love and compassion. So, spooky in that I arrive by going 180 degrees in the opposite direction to what is collectively perceived to be the best way to get there. Understandable in that as ‘self’ disappears purity is that which is left, evident in a PCE. Mark to Alan

Yes, as far as I can see, an Actual Intimacy is far superior to the sense of separation that causes one to pick and choose among people to fill various roles such as ‘friend’, ‘best friend’, ‘lover’, ‘ally’, etc. These distinctions are arbitrary and stem from the artificial and fictitious self, with his/her need to belong, to be ‘in love’, and have special friends and allies to help assuage the very sense of being lonely, frightened, and cut off from the magnificence of the actual world. This Actual Intimacy causes me to be connected to everyone and everything. As with you, I am less inclined to seek friendship with others, although there is a corresponding fear sometimes that I am getting ‘too detached’, ‘too isolative’, too ‘on my own’. Gary to Vineeto

I have the sense not to advertise the extremely interesting field of Actual Freedom. I have put out tentative ‘feelers’ to one or two, but judging from the reactions I encountered, I decided not to proceed any further. I do not enjoy debating with or trying to influence other people. I have told my partner more about it than anyone else. Recently the issue of ‘love’ came up in our relationship. My partner expressed the fear that I would lose interest in her and pass on, presumably to someone else, if this method eventuated with my demise. She expressed the fear of losing our relationship. I have had these very fears myself. However, I have often questioned when either she or I say ‘I love you’. Just what exactly does that mean? She agreed that I have been changing and have been a lot happy and more at ease since starting in this. I assured her that I enjoy her company greatly and that I have no intention of leaving her or losing interest in her. I, somewhat reticently, suggested she might read a section of your correspondence on the website about love, which she did, and she said there were quite a few things that she related to personally. I do not feel that I am ‘in love’ although I care a great deal about my partner and want us to have a good relationship. Gary to Vineeto

Love has been all these things from my own experience and that is why I always question it. In my family, we never said ‘I love you’, and it is just as well because love is undependable. In fact, it is a fiction. It is only dependency in disguise, jealousy, possessiveness, etc. So I don’t tell my partner that I love her and I do not get the feeling that she expects it of me. Things are much better that way. I have no hold on her and would not wish to do so. Since this issue of ‘love’ came up between us, I can honestly say that it doesn’t seem to be an issue any longer. Since getting involved with actualism, many so-called issues are that way: they come up, are investigated into, and then are laid to rest. There is no sense of them lingering behind the scenes. At other times in my life, I seemed to deal with issues by going over them over and over again like a broken record. Now I feel that some basic issues are getting resolved (perhaps ‘resolved’ is a poor choice of words – I wonder if there is a better one, maybe ‘dissolved’) and then laid to rest. I wonder if you have noticed this too? I don’t know if I am describing it well.

Human love is pretty much a self-evident lie to me. Divine Love, on the other hand, is something few dare to question. The idea that there is a loving god or a loving force that permeates the universe is an idea that is so entrenched in our thinking and takes so much nerve to begin to question and reject. I still see my thinking going along those lines, kind of automatically, and when that happens, I am alert and on guard to see where this is taking me. The idea that there is a loving god or such a thing as God’s Love to make this veil of sorrow bearable is an idea that has a firm hold on humanity. To dare to question this and reject the notion that there is a Czar of the heavens, is very heady stuff indeed. There is still for me, I think, that cautious sense of ‘Oops, I’m in trouble now’ by rejecting God and all that other spiritual baloney. And really in a way, ‘I’ am in deep do-do. In fact, ‘I’ am doomed. Gary to Vineeto

I don’t know what to say to my partner now when she tells me ‘I love you’. My most recent response is a kind of uncomfortable silence. I then sometimes respond with such endearments as ‘I care for you’, ‘I want to be with you’ (which is true). I do not feel what is called ‘love’, which, as you point out, is an emotion-laden and hormonally-saturated substitute for actual intimacy. Love is certainly not all it is cracked up to be. It seems lately too that all around me I perceive the enormous investment that human beings have made in the ideal of Love. It is written into all our most cherished ballads, stories, movies, songs. It is there as the ultimate pinnacle to which human beings can attain, either in its’ secular setting in male-female and (not to alienate gay/lesbian friends) male-male and female-female relationships, in short, in terms of coupling sexually and emotionally with another human being. Love, the antidote for sorrow, has such a powerful hold on humanity.

To question it is one thing, and I am sure that most people do that to some extent. But to reject it totally is almost to proclaim oneself to be apart from humanity. Then again we get into the outcast thing again. But to get back to what is happening in my partnership relationship, I am aware at times of stirrings of insecurity, the feeling of needing reassurance, of seeking comfort, or desiring nurturance, etc., and I look at these things and see instead of ‘Love’ the claim and demand for what the very self is made of – affirmation and validation of its’ existence, in other words, that there is a ‘me’ present that needs these supplies and either coyly or quite brazenly goes about pulling or teasing these things from her.

My question at this point is this: if one has a paradigm of a relationship based on desire, nurturance, and need to couple (whether it be with a man or a woman), and one discovers that one can free oneself from this genetically encoded behaviour, what happens to the relationship? Is there any relationship? Is there something intrinsic about coupling with the human species that makes its’ imperative so strong? If one achieves an Actual Freedom, or even if one is living in a Virtual Freedom, would there be any need or desire for a couple relationship? In what would it consist? Do you follow my question?

My partner and I have only just scratched the surface in questioning what our relationship is about, and I must admit to a feeling that it is economically advantageous to share living quarters with another person, as well as having the companionship and company. We are not passionately in love. I am not passionately anything at this point. It is rewarding to mutually explore life and together enjoy the wonder of this natural world. We are both like-minded to a certain extent. I sometimes feel that the only thing that holds us together is the very thing that I want to get rid of: namely, the animal instincts. So there is this push-pull conflict to a certain extent with this issue as there is with others. I well know from a very long period of being on my own with no mate that it is not only possible to live alone but to be quite happy doing so.

But I still feel that if my mate came to me and told me she has decided I must go, that I would feel sad and perhaps somewhat broken up inside. So I have not freed myself from the attachment to the relationship and I am not sure, to be quite honest, that I want to. Is what I am saying making any sense?

Yes, I think that when many reach a certain age, usually in their 30s and 40s and they find that their intimate relationships have been shipwrecked, the religious or spiritual quest becomes all the more attractive as a way of reaffirming their identity. I think it was this way for me. The love of the Master (in my case the Christian Jesus) replaced the missing love of the wife who was long gone, the father’s love, the family, etc. It seemed so stimulating to think that I was loved by Jesus and even known by him personally, that I had a direct line to the love of God, to put it plainly. It was so self-evidently self-aggrandizing, I can see that now, but I could not see it then. But yes, there is the underlying feeling of separation that fuels this search for Love. Now, I must say, I do not feel that way. I know there is a wonderful actual world there, and even if I am not intensely experiencing it at the moment, ‘I’ am getting in the way and only need let go of the controls and get out of the way to have the actual world rise to my sight. Gary to Vineeto

I found myself recently ‘slipping’ and telling my partner ‘I love you’. It was during one of those ‘nice and cosy’ periods, like you describe (below). It really felt like it just slipped out and that I didn’t really mean it. It also seemed like it is just a reflexive habit, you know, when one is in such moods to give utterance to such endearments. And there really is no difference between saying ‘I love you’ and saying ‘I care for you’ or ‘I want to be with you’. All these sentiments pretty much add up to the same thing. When I first read this post, I was having trouble grasping just what you meant by ‘consciously allow the feeling to happen in order to fully understand and explore it experientially’. I think I have been kind of regarding Love as a no-no and quashing the feelings when they come up rather than simply allowing them and exploring them when they do. I think I’ll give that a try.

Recently my partner (who works in a medical office) and I heard a terrible story: a local man was in the hospital being treated for a heart attack. His treatment was finished and his wife left home to go to the hospital, pick him up and fetch him back home. En route to the hospital, she was killed in a traffic accident. Only a week later, the man, pining away over the loss of his wife, refused to take his heart medications, in effect committing suicide in his grief over the loss of his wife, and died of a massive heart attack, leaving a 16 year old and a 9 year old child to fend for themselves without either parent. When I heard this story, to me, it represented another example of the downside of love and attachment – it all seems so senseless – but I know that humans get so attached to their mate that when the mate dies they literally fall to pieces. It seemed so thoughtless to sacrifice one’s life for someone because of grief and suffering and so thoughtless to leave two children alone without parents to try to pick up the pieces and try to make sense of it for the rest of their lives. To my way of thinking, love as a remedy for suffering always fails to fulfill what it so handsomely promises.

Yes! When one is feeling ‘love’ or any of those other deep and tender feelings, it is like a screen between you and what is actually there. And it so often turns to hate and maliciousness in it’s stead. Look, for instance, at the close connection between love and violence, as evidenced by so-called ‘crimes of passion’. Love is also akin to what is called ‘devotion’ – a kind of long-suffering deep affection that binds people together by bonds of loyalty. I think some of my deep ambivalences about ‘Love’ come from observing my own parents growing up and seeing the suffering that was involved in their relationship, suffering that was ennobled by calling it love and devotion. And then there is love of one’s family, which is another matter and deserves perhaps separate consideration.

Later, love changed into the subtler version of feeling ‘connected’ to Peter, of having, through him, some kind of identity in my life. I caught myself wanting to use him as an outline for my own existence, as an anchor to define me as ‘person-in-relation’, a ‘self’.

Examining it closer I discovered that this need for an anchor derives from the female instinctual need for protection. Only when I feel ‘connected’ to a person can I keep up the illusion that I can rely on this person for ‘bad times’.

As a male member of the species, I think I see the corresponding need to be a protector – you know – guard the castle against attack, bring home the bacon, and protect my ‘little woman’. It was quite an upset when my partner started making more money than I a couple of years ago – we had quite a few good laughs about how I had been ‘dethroned’ from my position of former imagined dominance. Now, however, I am back ‘on top’ again and not enjoying it at all!

However, whenever I managed not to fall into the trap of love – what a delight then to discover the actual person, thrilling, alive, meeting for the first time and not knowing what either of us is going to say or do next! Love was then replaced by this delicious state of crisp and exquisite awareness, where I am utterly by myself, there is no relationship between us whatsoever, and the next moment is unpredictable and without continuity to any past or future. Remembering again and again the joy of those wonder-filled moments always gave me the necessary intent and courage to keep removing any feelings that the ‘self’ kept producing.’ A bit of Vineeto

Maybe I’ve been a bit too hasty in my rejection of love. I have actually felt sorry for my mate that she is with me and have thought perhaps she would be better off with someone who will give her what she wants, but I know that this kind of self-pity is not the right approach either. I think I am, if anything, more responsive as a mate and as a person to her without the thin veneer of love. Recently, as a test of this, I asked her if she felt there had been any changes in me recently. I asked her to be quite frank and not hold anything back, to give it to me straight out. She rather readily told me that she felt I have been much more ‘good natured’ of late, much more at ease with other people, although it disturbs her that I have seemingly fallen out of love with her (my words).

Hearing myself described as ‘good natured’ was music to my ears, and a confirmation that the actualism road I am on is paying off. I have been aware of this too. I think in the past I have always been a bit afraid of people. I have always been a bit suspicious of others and ‘on guard’. Now I am much more likely to take people as they are and not fear that they are out to hurt ‘me’.

I still get caught up in malicious mind-games with my partner, berating her verbally, for instance. And she can dish it out as well as take it too. Just so that I don’t paint too rosy a picture of how things actually are, she recently told me that she thinks I am cruel because of the things I say. I don’t like to see ‘myself’ that way but it is true. I still have a mean streak that comes out in our relationship. So, I’ve got a lot of work to do, for sure. Gary to Vineeto

Actual intimacy is the quality in which I want to relate to people in my life. Everyone. Not just a select few. Usually when using the word ‘intimacy’ people refer to the special sense of coziness or closeness they reserve for their relation to their spouse or sexual and romantic partner. But I am seeing that one can be ‘intimate’ with everyone one relates to. And this is the quality that I have experienced in PCEs that I have had – there is that magical quality of naiveté and curiosity with others that makes relating to others – people on the street, casual strangers, etc. – so free and easy. As I investigated into the primitive animal instinct of fear, I don’t think I ever realized how frightened I have been of other people all my life. In all my contacts with others – personally and professionally – there has always been a strong undercurrent of fear, experienced as wariness, suspicion, distrust, aloofness, etc. I have always kept my guard up in situations. Now I can bring full attentiveness to investigating this sense of needing to keep my guard up, with the accompanying social identity that needs to be protected, and the underlying primitive instinct of fear that causes these reactions. I can experiment with letting my guard down deliberately and joyfully in situations that used to trigger alarm and defensiveness. This is an exciting adventure and it is a considerable satisfaction to find that Actual Intimacy is possible with everyone, not just one’s sexual or romantic partner. Gary to Vineeto

I had a lively back-and-forth with some people about love and compassion recently. It provided an opportunity for me to investigate my own beliefs and feelings about love and compassion, as well as to determine how other people think about it. What I found was that I became rather exasperated or frustrated that either I couldn’t express what I was trying to say or that people didn’t want to hear what I was trying to say. This feeling of exasperation was a red flag to me that I was dealing with my own beliefs and feelings.

There is absolutely no reason why one ought to become frustrated or irritated about what someone else is saying unless it challenges or threatens some belief that they hold dear. And I think this is what was happening to me in the course of this correspondence.

I was trying to influence others, and when their opposition to what I was saying became even more determined (naturally so), I felt misunderstood and frustrated. I then commenced to ask myself why I was trying to influence others, questioned myself on my stake in the discussion, and investigated into my own deeper fears, conflicts, and doubts about love and compassion. Because I was deliberately questioning the emotion of love, and I was getting determined opposition from others, it really highlighted for me just how highly love is sought, coveted and valued by human beings. Love and compassion (and their allied emotions: pity, sympathy, empathy, etc) are really regarded to be the pinnacle, indeed the summit of all earthly dreams and hopes. To reject love is to be dead, according to what I heard these other people to be saying. Since I have begun to investigate into these tender instincts, I have been able to see what a hold they have on Humanity, indeed what a hold they have on ‘me’. ‘I’ need love in order to confirm my existence. Without love, ‘I’ am nothing – I might as well be dead.

Love, if I was following the thread of these conversations, is the do-all and end-all of earthly existence. Without it, life has no meaning, no reason. So, even though I was taking one side in the discussions, the discussions themselves were reflecting back to me the deep questions and doubts that I myself have on the topic in question. It reminded me of the work situation that I was in and the allegation against me that I had ‘no compassion’. I found this somewhat disturbing, but probably only because I myself regard ‘compassion’ as essential to ‘me’, and that without it, I must be a total outcast. So I think the discussion with others about the quality of love and compassion was helpful to me in the following ways: it helped me to uncover some deeper feelings and beliefs that were lurking behind my outright denial of love and compassion; it further helped me to see that I was trying to use influence to persuade others of the ‘rightness’ of my arguments, which I would only do if they represented beliefs to me and not actualities.

Yes, I find this to be a very good point. I don’t think I realized before experientially just how ardent humans are about the power of love. For one to say they are without love is to exclude themselves totally from the Human Condition. It arouses the most determined opposition from those who are the defenders of this exalted state. I found my recent dialogue, which started to devolve into a slugging match, to be an interesting ‘mirror’ in which to see ‘me’ reflected. And I think that that is essentially what you are saying here.

So, there is a fear of leaving love and compassion behind, because ‘I’ believe, indeed ‘I’ am founded and sustained by love. It is not a matter of denying or refuting love, because to deny or refute is just confirmation that it exists. No, the important thing seems to be seeing clearly that love stems from separation. Not just seeing this intellectually, but seeing it with that quality of apperception that leads to radical change.

Excellent point. In my ‘self’-investigations, more and more I find I am able to investigate into the tender passions. This is a fascinating area of investigation. I had been doing a lot of investigation into fear, anger, doubt, etc. I agree with you that investigations into the ‘negative’ invidious passions is a relatively easy matter compared to the investigation of the ‘positive’ tender passions. I am seeing more and more the truth of this statement. It was my experience recently, in the context of resigning my job and, given that I was feeling lonely, desperate and in turmoil, that I craved love and validation from my partner. It was interesting to note that feelings of despair were followed by attempts to cling and depend on my partner for her continued love and assurance. I seemed to be veering back and forth between experiencing the depths of despair followed by desperate clinging to her. Whereas in the past I would have probably tried to stifle or suppress this movement back and forth, or become condemnatory to myself for acting ‘childish’, I found it most interesting to observe myself in action. At times I found it almost impossible not to give vent to these feelings, so strong they were. But at other times I found that I could observe myself, neither repressing nor expressing the feelings. Also, if one observes oneself carefully, in the midst of these ‘love storms’, one can really see the genesis of ‘crimes of passion’, the violence that results from love spurned. It’s powerful stuff. Gary to Peter

Love and compassion (and their allied emotions: pity, sympathy, empathy, etc) are really regarded to be the pinnacle, indeed the summit of all earthly dreams and hopes. To reject love is to be dead, according to what I heard these other people to be saying.

Yes, to me it is fact that love has failed to bring about peace between human beings. It does, however, bring about a kind of ‘pseudo-peace’ which is actually no peace at all. I am reminded of Scott Peck’s work with group development, when the group goes into an initial phase of ‘pseudo-community’: the people in the group have a cozy, amiable feeling of being connected and liking one another’s company, a feeling which on the surface passes for community but is shattered further down the line when the inevitable conflicts and in-fighting occur in the group. This is a dynamic one can easily observe in spiritual groups, when the members bask in the cozy ‘We are all one’ feeling. Which makes it all the more painful when these groups develop the characteristic power struggles and malicious in-fighting that all groups of humans are prone to. I easily recall the depth of the pain that Quakers went through, coupled with the denial of their part in the problems, when the Quaker group was torn apart by conflicts between the members.

My own adaptation to the problems at the time was a kind of stunned denial and detachment from what was going on, as I was still very much a religious person. It marked, however, the start of my retreat and eventual abandonment of religion/spirituality.

Another thing I wanted to say is that while it is a fact that love has failed to bring about peace between human beings, that does not mean that actualism has in its stead. I think the only thing we can say is that there is one person who has completely self-immolated, and several others who, through their practice of actualism, are experiencing incremental improvements or even a virtual freedom from the human instinctual package. But the time when actualism may bring peace about between human beings is a long, long ways in the future, and as Richard has said, I am not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Indeed. My discussions about love and compassion with others were quite valuable to me as they revealed to me how much love and compassion are a part of ‘me’. Indeed, I came away from these discussions with a much greater appreciation of the instinctual basis of love and compassion as the tender side of the instincts. The discussions were difficult for me to the extent that they made me deeply question the role love and compassion play in my life. For instance, I wondered if perhaps I had been so deeply traumatized by the loss of ‘loved ones’ earlier in life that it twisted all my subsequent relationships and has made me deny and reject love from my life. Further deep reflection on this question has led to the rejection of this view, as I do feel love, although I usually identify it as a feeling of wanting to nurture another human being, or feeling sympathy or pity for another. It is just that I am questioning the supposed nobility of these feelings.

Love always, in my experience, goes hand-in-hand with fear, rejection, envy, jealousy, dependency, controlling-ness, anger, hatred, etc, etc. Richard referred to the fact that one cannot experience a particular emotion without eliciting it’s opposite. So, the emotion of love always exists in relationship with hatred, anger, and so on. People refuse to grasp this essential fact because they have been seduced by the lure of a love that is spiritual and supposedly so lofty and unconditional, and unlike earthly love. Pointing out the obvious downside of love and compassion elicits from many people talk of the ideal, spiritual form of love that has been taught to them in their particular brand of religion or spirituality. They are deluded and don’t want to give up their delusion. They would rather dream of unearthly bliss in a heavenly afterlife than experience the purity and perfection of being here now and living in peace and harmony with other human beings. Gary to Peter

I remember when I approached actualism Richards talk of ‘self-immolation’, extirpation, elimination, sacrificial offerings and such scared me out of my wits. It reminded me of the Nazi’s talk of the Final Solution and I would picture flaming bodies and torched cities.

Gradually, I came to understand what was being talked about and the words began to lose some of their emotional charge. In actualism, self-immolation occurs as an actual brain event in which something turns over in the base of the brain and the entire psyche, with its’ affective and imaginative faculty, is deleted. Not physically of course, the physiological structures still remain but perhaps the neuronal pathways are in some way obliterated. I am speculating here. Gary to Peter

Death has lost most of its terrifying aspect to me. I would not say that there is absolutely no fear of death, but if there is, it is scarcely conscious. One can, I think, relate one’s own fear of dying to the fear of losing ‘loved ones’, people who one is close to. For instance, at times I realize I am quite attached to my partner and I would be utterly bereft were she to die and leave me ‘alone’. Then I realize that I am emotionally dependent on her, through the ties of love or sympathy, and that I don’t want her to die and that I could not bear to see her get ill or suffer. This then seems like an important realization for I am looking at what I am in relation to the people around me, and looking at what they mean to me. It is a rather sobering sort of reflection.

There is that connection, I don’t know what to call it, ‘bond’ I suppose is a good word, that one forms to people throughout life – one’s parents, one’s children, one’s husband or wife. I think for me I fear their demise more than I fear my own. Picturing my own demise has little effect on me but sometimes I am filled with fear for the demise of these ‘loved ones’. In this connection, I am reminded of the important question that Richard posed in his Journal to himself of ‘What am I in relation to the people around me’ and how he kept this question burning in his consciousness for a long time. That question has repeatedly occurred to me over the course of looking at these emotional dependencies, these emotional ties of love or sympathy, even ties of antipathy or hatred, to family or ‘loved ones’.

Could you perhaps explore with me what it has been like for you to examine your ties to people in your life through running this question? Do you find yourself forming ties to others? How can I use this question ‘What am I in relation...’ to further important understandings of ‘me’ so that ‘me’ can be ended? I think at this point I am going to end. I really would like to pursue this issue of one’s relationship with other people in one’s life. It may be interesting the kinds of fears that crop up as one begins the process of dismantling one’s identity. The fear, indeed the dread, of leaving everything and everyone, all the comfortable and familiar things that inhabit one’s ‘normal’ world is an interesting subject in its own right. Gary to Peter

This last sentence is, I think, about the most concise explanation of the down-side of nurturance, ‘love’, and emotional intimacy that I have heard in a good long time. Of course, if one savours feeling hurt, feeling neglected, feeling wounded, and all these other experiences, one will want to nurse emotional intimacy and emotional closeness for all the ‘love’ they can get. Love is the Grand Prize of humanity. When earthly love fails to deliver the goods, people wax rhapsodic about Ideal Love, and often get philosophical about it all. The simple fact that there is a terrible downside to this Prize does not seem to deter people one blink from altering their course. Gary to Peter

No, I think you err in this. Your assimilation of AF is inadequate, as you have obviously not grasped that there are major, glaring differences between the state know as Actual Intimacy, and the affective experience of Love. This is not a mere substitution of one for the other. This once again shows that you have not taken in what AF is about.

I don’t know what you mean by VFE or AAF. Perhaps you mean by this Virtual Freedom or Actual Freedom. The ‘glaring differences’ that I was referring to were this:

Actual Intimacy: clear vision, unobstructed by any affective, passionate feeling, imposing no control, no obligation; a simple delight in being in the presence of another person, with no claim made as to exclusiveness of that person/object in relation to one’s ‘self’; a state devoid of feelings or ‘needs’ for the nurturance, love, support, etc of the other person; a boundless, unlimited clarity of mind and ability to see whoever one is with for what they are, a fellow human being, as oneself, yet not in reference to any artificially created ‘identity’.

Love: a sickly sweet, sentimental state, purely emotional, which involves momentary suspension of reason and intelligence; a clinging, possessive state in which one desperately needs the ‘love’ of the person/object sought; an expansive but delusional state of temporary union/fusion with other similarly afflicted ‘selves’; a temporary form of insanity; a powerful emotional state characterized by the tender passions of desire and nurturance; a state primarily known by the emergence of similar yet diametrically opposed passions such as jealousy, lust, possessiveness, rage, powerful desire, etc. Gary to No 23

You are certainly welcome to ‘stick (your) nose in’ and I am glad you did, as it gave me opportunity to further examine the issue of which we talk.

You wrote:

I think I also experienced a momentary feeling of pity for my partner whose expressions of ‘love’ to me are usually not reciprocated, perhaps in they are in tender expressions of caring but certainly not in word, as I never speak the ‘love’ word anymore. I think there was an irrational belief operating in me at the time that went something like this: ‘What kind of partner are you after all’ you should be telling your partner that you love her’.

One could easily substitute any number of words in the place of ‘partner’ such as ‘son’, ‘daughter’, ‘friend’, ‘coworker’, etc. The irrational belief that I ‘should’ be expressing love to these people caused me to feel momentary sadness, regret, and guilt.

Neither am I, if you mean shared determination and application of the relentless and unceasing ‘self’ inquiry and ‘self’ examination. My partner had a passing interest in Actualism, but it never appealed to her, and she dropped it like a hot potato. But the mere fact of her non-interest for Actualism was an interesting opportunity for me to look at whether I was adopting Actualism as a belief system, as I had been warned, or as the practical means of ridding oneself of malice and sorrow that it is.

If it were a belief system, then there would be a desire to convert others to this belief system, like religions do. In the beginning, I detected that there was indeed a desire on my part to convert or change her, a desire which, once intelligently examined, evaporated. I do not expect her to have any interest in the course that I am on, nor in the writings of other Actualists, such as on this list.

I would think any partnership between two human beings would not last long if there were not a ‘certain degree of caring’ present. Yet the word ‘caring’ for me has not the insalubrious connotations that the word ‘love’ has ... even though the words are partly interchangeable and synonyms of one another. Chiefly, the sense of the word ‘caring’ that am thinking of is the sense of feeling concern or interest in another. Love, on the other hand, as Vineeto pointed out, always seems to be associated with emotional demands and expectations that one places on others.

Unlike yourself, I cannot say with any degree of certainty that it gives my partner any pleasure to hear the words ‘I love you’ out of my mouth. I have never asked her about it. My dropping of the word ‘love’ as a term of endearment came at a time when I opened up to experiencing the corresponding passions associated with the word.

It has also been this way with other words such as hope and trust, for example. I have gradually found that these words have disappeared from my parlance the more interested I became in examining precisely what I meant when I used these words. For instance, if I meant to say to someone in a letter ‘I hope everything is well with you’, just exactly what was going on? There seemed to be simultaneously a desire to have things be a certain way with this other person, the expectation that they would be that way, and also fear, doubt, and insecurity that they might not be. While the words ‘I hope’ is a common turn of expression, I felt myself to be stymied and chained to the universe of feelings and emotions that they sought to express. In order to free myself from the underlying passions they expressed, dropping the word from conversation seemed a sensible step in the right direction, but by no means the only step. It has been that way with the word ‘love’.

At the present time, it would appear to me to be a cruelty to stir up a passion in another human being that you did not share yourself. Why would you want to do such a thing? It would be one thing if you yourself partook in the sweet and tender emotions conveyed in expressing love to her, but it would be most hypocritical to my way of thinking if you were not a participant in the same emotions. For me personally, it is not so much the words that are expressed that are the important thing here as the underlying instinctual passions that they convey. One can have access to these passions whether or not one is using the word.

No, I think it is almost the other way around, if I understand your question. The important thing is examining and experiencing the passions and instincts that are conveyed by the word ‘love’. By experiencing these passions, one is certainly not working on a conceptual understanding, but loosening the hold that the particular emotion has on one. This is a matter of experiencing the feelings, not intellectualizing them or conceptualizing them. I may not speak the words ‘I love you’ to experience the emotions that the words convey, such as pity, sympathy, warm affection, devotion, sexual desire and attraction, etc. For me personally, dropping the word ‘love’ from my close relationships did not spell the end of the passion of love and attraction, it simply for me became an act of caring for my fellow human beings not to ensnare and entwine them, bind them to me in what the poets describe as ‘love’s embrace’.

Yet this ‘pleasure’ that you speak of, is it not associated with enormous pain and sorrow? I need only look at my own life to see the depth of the passions subsumed under that one word ‘love’ along with the incredible heartbreak, despair, and abject sorrow, as for instance when love has been lost. I do not see it as a pleasure that I am withholding from another, but a tie that binds. If I wish to bind another to me, then I tell them I love them as well as demand their sympathy, support, and encourage their dependency.

I think in Actualism we are realizing that one cannot have the tender emotions without the savage emotions. They go hand in hand. In discussing love, people are apt to deny that affection and love have corresponding down-sides, and it is particularly fashionable to dress up Love in a heavenly or divine guise, and so speak of a Love that transcends its common, everyday expression in human affairs.

Yet one cannot pick up the newspaper nor watch the TV news without seeing first hand the mayhem that the instinctual passions are impelling, as humankind continues to be locked in a death-struggle.

Well, enough for now. Thanks for writing. Gary to No 38

I find that, at work, it ‘pays’ to be a self. It pays to love and be loved. What I mean is that everyone seems to be the most lenient and beneficent when we are all the most ‘nurturing’ toward one another.

There is a certain kind of ‘group resonance’ in that. And I have the feeling that in order to really pursue this goal of Actual Freedom, I’d be necessary to become irritating to my co-workers – simply because I wouldn’t be going with the loving and super-friendly program that everyone prefers.

In some sense it certainly does ‘pay’ to be and behave as a self.

There is definitely a group dynamic where you are expected to participate like everyone else and there are ‘punishments’ for those that do not. Your co-workers very well may become irritated by your refusal to play the ‘self’ game, but also consider that will likely be balanced by a more genuine benevolence on your part. Remember, that it is not your ‘job’ to correct them or to change them or to point out the error of their ways. Doing so will probably just make matters worse.

I guess a more basic question would be: is it possible to live in the ordinary world (hold a job, be married, raise children, etc.) while pursuing Actual Freedom? And to respond, simply, that it is an individual matter – that it all depends upon me – is a little too vague for application. In what way does it depend upon me? I’m hoping for a more direct answer.

In my case, since being an actualist, I have had several promotions in my current job – now having a great deal of independence and value within the company – with the best paycheque ever. I’m not attributing that solely to actualism – only to demonstrate that not only is it possible to pursue actualism and hold a job – but that it is possible that you will excel at that job.

I have also been married during this pursuit of actualism, though my wife and I are currently ‘separated.’ This I can directly attribute to my practice of actualism since I do everything I can to avoid the games of being a ‘self.’ My current wife is simply not interested in the ‘non-emotionalism’ of actualism – she still thrives on the fight of feeling.

I look after 2 children. Raising children as an actualist has been a pleasant surprise. In the beginning, I was worried about the possible effects of not telling them that I love them and all that goes with that. I have found that I can still let them know that I care about them not only in word, but in deed – and so far it has had a huge payoff. I don’t fight with my kids like my wife does – and we have a lot of fun together. They get the cuddling and consistency they thrive on from me. Overall, I am very pleased at being a much better parent that I might have been otherwise.

My basic concern is that I am going to break up what stability exists in my social relationships in order to become ‘happy and harmless’!

In some cases that may be the case. But in my experience, you can learn to minimize the fallout and begin to notice the benefits and steer towards those. One of the things that I find important to remember is that you have to deal with the circumstances you find yourself in. If that means that occasionally you have to ‘play the game’ in order to avoid serious consequences, then so be it.

What I’m thinking of here is Richard’s comments about lying. There is no reason one would typically need to lie – but there is also no need to have a principle that states ‘never lie.’ So, in those rare instances where it is obvious that someone would be tremendously hurt by the truth, then you always have the option of staying quiet or if necessary – lying. The point is that what you are doing is motivated by genuine benevolence rather than self-interest.

Same goes for the workplace. If things just go better by ‘playing along’ on a rare occasion, then why not?

Actualism is not at all about principles – so you are breaking no principle by doing so if required.

I am looking forward to a reply.

This is all my personal experience, so yours will likely vary. The question I ask myself when I encounter an unwillingness to continue is ‘Do I really want to continue living this way?’ Invariably I find the answer is that I MUST go on – otherwise I will not be able to look at myself in the mirror. No 37 to No 91, 18.12.2005

I certainly relate to not wanting to repeat the same patterns over again in my present relationship with my partner. I went through a distinct period, after I finally gave up alcohol and drugs, 15 years ago, of remaining solitary – in other words, not getting involved significantly with anyone, and this period went on for a few years. I had a great fear of becoming ‘too dependent’ on another person which naturally led to the fear of abandonment you mentioned. When I did get involved again, I went through some of the familiar patterns again with the difference that they did not seem to be as wildly emotional for me. I went through the familiar stage of forming of a ‘love’ relationship, offering tender assurances to the other person, and eventually proclaiming to the other that ‘I love you’. It seems almost universal that these stages take place in human intimate relationships. I was greatly reluctant to offer the assurance of ‘love’ and I would often question my partner as to what she meant when she assured me that she loved me.

It was not until I became involved with actualism that I began to understand what it means to question myself rigorously about the feelings, emotions, and passions that come into play in my relationships with others. With the intent to become free from the disabling patterns and feelings that accompany ordinary human relationships, I could turn my attention to understanding what this business of relating is all about and understand why my previous unions with other human beings had failed miserably. In actualism, something entirely new is on offer: freedom from the entire emotional/instinctual package with which human beings are genetically endowed. This is so radically different from other approaches to dealing with relationships that it scarcely needs mentioning. But perhaps it needs repeating because unless or until the instinctual passions are eliminated in toto one is always at danger of repeating the same patterns that led to misery in the first place. Not only do I see this happening in my present relationship with my partner, but I also experience the thrill of being free from those self-same patterns and the realization that it need not be so.

This is an important point because you are pointing to an integral link between the tender passions and the so-called savage passions. In actualism, it is understood that the genetically endowed tender instincts are needed to offset, ameliorate or protect from the savage instincts. One cannot have one side of the instinctual equation without having the other side. The feeling of love is always accompanied by fear, dependency, possessiveness, jealousy, etc, at least in my experience. If one idealizes the feeling of love, as many do, one will be unable to see that the feeling of love not only is spawned by fear and aggression but causes these experiences in turn. It seems to work both ways. The entity or identity is insecure and fearful and seeks to attach itself to another as a means of survival. The entity needs this constant source of love and affirmation in order to survive, and without it, withers and fades away. Most people I have talked to about love idealize the feeling of love, and are unwilling to see that the feeling of love automatically evokes its opposite.

Another thing that I have been ruminating about in connection with the topic of love is the long period of dependency of the human infant and child. The mammals, in particular out of the animal kingdom, nurture and protect the offspring for a long, long time. With the human, this long period of physical, and then leading to psychological and psychic incubation seems to be required in order to thoroughly inculcate the growing child with a social and cultural identity. One can easily spend a lifetime being conditioned by society and conditioning oneself, and others in turn. In actualism, one begins to dismantle this social identity, and one of the first things to emerge is fear, anxiety, and dread, because one is questioning the very things that one spent so long a period cementing in place. To begin to question these ideals, expectations, hopes, etc. sets the whole process on its head. One was conditioned in the first place with the reward being the affection, admiration, affirmation, and ‘love’ of parents, teachers, peers, neighbours, etc. Psychically and psychologically, ‘love’ is needed by the alien entity that inhabits this flesh-and-blood body because the entity was nurtured and grew in an atmosphere of ‘love’, acceptance, and affection. It seems, then, that to question deeply the meaning and basis of ‘love’ is to question the entire structure and foundation of the ‘self’. The resultant turmoil is enough to send even the most determined investigators scurrying for cover. Yet, as you point out, to be free from the feeling of love is also to be free from fear, because the emotions go together in an essential way.

This is so true. I have found in my discussions with people that love, both in its romantic/sexual expression, and in its transcendent garb as Eternal Love, is the great fixation of many, probably all peoples. I had been seduced back in the 70s and 80s, when these ideas were in popular currency, to feel that the cause of my unhappiness in life was an unhappy childhood with not enough so-called ‘unconditional love’ from my parents. I built up an identity of a person who was a victim -someone who never had enough and thus my obsession became to find and get this nebulous and rare ‘unconditional love’ substance that I so desperately craved. I now feel that this kind of love is a chimera- that love is always conditional and intimately tied into and ultimately leading to the savage instinctual part of the human equation. If one craves the supposedly unconditional variant of love, one is much more likely to be duped by the promise of an Eternal Love, a Love that is beyond space and time. It seems to be the foundation of every sort of spiritual and religious belief that there is a source of Super-Human Caring, a kind of benevolent or punitive Great Parent in the Sky that either makes our life a hell or a heaven by turns. These, of course, are nothing but fairy-tales for adults.

And this is the reason why love is always associated with violence, sadness, and suffering ... as well as child abuse, spouse abuse, warfare, torture, etc. ‘Love of Country’ leads one to pick up arms to attack other human beings without question. Love of one’s family leads many to become emotional cripples in adulthood, tied to their parents and relatives for long after they should have been weaned. Love of another always leads to the fear of losing the object of one’s love because, as you say, it is always defined by the needs of the ‘self’ that craves love.

So it appears that initially the intent to be free of the negative or ‘bad’ emotions is what fuels the investigation into the instinctual passions. But one finds out relatively quickly, going back to a seminal point that Richard talks about, that one cannot be a ‘stripped down self’. I did not really understand this at first but as I continue using the method of actualism I see with increasing clarity that this is true. One cannot eliminate the negative, invidious passions without the positive, ‘loving’ emotions, and this is a major point at which one may well balk. What I have found to be true of myself, at the current stage, is that I may fondly imagine that I am free from being shackled to the influence of others, I may imagine that I am free from the attachment to the job or the praise of the supervisor, but I am not. And each one of these startling glimpses into the way ‘I’ operate leads to a greater freedom from ‘my’ habitual clinging and holding of people, places, and things. Merely wanting to be free from these things is, of course, not enough. One has to be able to experience the ‘me’ in action, see ‘me’ in all my cunningness, duplicity, and dishonesty. One needs to be neither in love with love, or embittered and disillusioned by love’s failures. One needs to see oneself for who one is, and when I use the word ‘one’ I am referring to the alien entity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body. When one really sees oneself for who one is, one is free to be what one is. Gary to Vineeto

Your post related to ‘love’ offered much material to reflect on. In line with my current practice of abbreviating my comments a bit in order to simplify responding, I thought I would select what seemed to be the most relevant or outstanding point at this time to respond to. In part, you wrote the following:

I found an interesting quotation this morning on a website I visit infrequently. The author stated the following:

We often say ‘love’ when we really mean, and are acting out, an addiction — a sterile, ingrown dependency relationship, with another person serving as the object of our need for security. This interpersonal dependency is not like an addiction, not something analogous to addiction; it is an addiction. It is every bit as much an addiction as drug dependency. Stanton Peele & Archie Brodsky, Love and Addiction, p. 13.

The chemical and hormonal changes that are involved in the tender instincts, of which the feeling of ‘love’ or affection are derivatives, are salves for the ordinary ‘mistrust, fear, jealousy, worry, and feelings of inadequacy’ that you mentioned above – what amounts to ‘normal’ behaviour for mature adults. Keeping up a constant supply of the love substance, whether in the form of a sexual/romantic partner, attachment to special ‘friends’ or family members, or finding and emulating Divine Love supposedly emanating from enlightened beings, is indeed an addiction with devastating effects. In my discussions with people about the subject of love, I find considerable denial and minimization of the insalubrious effects of love, both human and divine, whilst elevating and enthroning the positive aspects – denial similar to the kind encountered in addictive users of other chemical substances.

Like yourself, I have come to see that ‘love’ comprises a whole constellation of moods, emotions, behaviours, and beliefs. At its’ most fundamental, there are the tender instincts of nurture and desire. These fundamental instincts are then further articulated and elaborated through the process of conditioning and learning into the whole complex constellation of human drives and emotions. I have found that it is impossible to refrain from love, which is a bit like trying to outrun my shadow- a patent impossibility. But I can investigate these various emotions, moods and passions, and it is a fascinating and engaging work indeed. Eventually ‘I’ am becoming a bit threadbare- the moods and emotions are not running my life, nor am I blindly careering about looking for love and acceptance. This ties in with autonomy- I am becoming more and more autonomous.

At an earlier point in my explorations, I naively thought that by expunging the word ‘love’ from my vocabulary, I would be eliminating the emotional hold these emotions have on me. I have not found that to be the case. The moods and feelings arise from time to time, but the difference is that they are noticed and there is this self-questioning process always going on. My partner still tells me, just about every morning, that she loves me. I do not say the words back, but neither do I cringe or recoil in embarrassment.

She still evidently believes in the promise of love, from what I can tell, whereas I do not.

That doesn’t mean that we cannot enjoy each other’s company and continue to share our lives and our cosy little home together. But the curious thing is the surreptitious thrill of delight to hear the words spoken, something that many, if not most, people living in the Human Condition feel they cannot do without. Again, there is the recognition and awareness that these words ‘I love you’ are the soul’s balm. They are music to my soul’s ears: ‘I’ stand up and take notice emphatically when offered love and acceptance by others, whether employer, co-workers, partner, etc. But again, one asks oneself ‘why’? And at what cost? Gary to Vineeto

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