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Others ~ Selected Correspondence People
Nowadays I hardly notice ‘me’ as an affective identity interfering whenever I relate to people in day-to-day affairs. When I go out to work or chat with the neighbours I am pleasantly anonymous, nobody really knows what I think or feel about life and the universe, and I am simply what I am and what I do – a fellow human being chatting about the garden, a bookkeeper, a customer standing in the queue in the post office or being served at a coffee shop. This pleasant anonymity is delightful. It is release from obligations, affiliations, and identifications. I come and go with complete ease, whether about town, in the food store, at work, or in the neighbourhood, freed from anxieties about who I am going to meet, what they might think of me, etc. I am ‘another Bozo on the bus’ so to speak, a phrase used by Albert Ellis. With identity effectively diminished, although not eliminated in entirety, there is not that evaluation and comparison with others that stems from the social identity. Gary to Vineeto
All, In the light of what is going on: What is your idea of conducting a sensible dialogue? Please feel free to send your thoughts. My idea of sensible dialogue is this: it is a sequence like this:
Each step is taken to completion (or both parties can agree to drop it for reasons such as scope, interest). Because matters can get out of hand and hidden assumptions can distort later part, it is important to finish off each step. I don’t see value in calling names, jumping here and there, refusing to substantiate intermediate points, cross-referencing other mails, second guessing other’s mind and intentions, not holding oneself accountable for what one has written so far (one can change one’s mind because one thinks one was mistaken – and one can say so – and the point will be settled). Because the issues involved are intricate. * Your idea to have a sensible discussion is a sequence like this::
But that is only a one to one conversation this is a forum, cross-referencing other mails’ is i.m.o. an excellent way of keeping the conversation going. Also when taking (admittedly that requires some experience and practice) words face value not necessarily a sequence need to be hmm ‘structured’ like [person1 makes a point person2 agrees and adds more observation or disagrees and illustrates or asks for clarification person1 responds appropriately (like above)] It well can be person 1 makes a point/ asks a question/ makes a proposal/ whatever. Person 2, 4, 6 agree and/or ad more observation and /or disagree and/or illustrates or asks for clarification. I have often referred to this forum as some sort of ‘virtual coffee table’. In fact I like to have a thread containing at a minimum three participant. Even if one of them is talking completely out of his hat. You may have noticed also that the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ is rather frequently used these last days. I like to introduce a new term ‘cognitive dissonant tolerance vs. cognitive dissonant in-tolerance’ Well enough of this. Yes the example I put out was not to cover every situation... just how one can sensibly cooperate with another to bring about clarity in what is being discussed... I have benefited greatly from various dialogues that kept this kind of focus. Levity has its place once a basic sensibility approach is ensured, not at the cost of it. I haven’t seen such coordinated discussions in other forums. I liked the term ‘virtual coffee table’ introduced by you and have used the term elsewhere. I am glad that this is a virtual coffee table: one can pursue what one finds valuable without having to waste time on everything that goes on. Also I liked your humoristic posts. At some point I was browsing through the archives and I have read the posts from the beginning of this list: I see that you have been actively participating since the beginning. I am interested in your personal account of what has changed since you have started participating in these discussions. No 33 to No 23
One can, through investigating and experiencing the instincts in oneself, see them more clearly in other people. I had talked at a previous time of changing my scope of practice as a social worker – I got a job in a treatment program for children. I had never worked with children before and, for me, it was a daunting prospect because being with children always seemed to trigger me to re-experience the anguish, anger, resentment and hurts tied up in my own painful childhood. Despite years of insight-based therapy, I was still subject to bouts of convulsive crying, deep sorrow and debilitating depression at times. It was heart-rending to go through these painful emotions and they made little sense to me. I had been told by supervisors that I ought to work with children, that it would be good experience, etc. Yet I was afraid to do this and I gradually began to want to be free from this fear. So, after I quit my last job, I went out and got a job working with children. My current supervisor told me that she thinks I am a ‘natural’ at it. Since practicing actualism, I think there has been a progressive shrinkage in the emotional-memory part of my psyche and brain perhaps, whereas I do not experience the types of fears, angers, etc that I used to. My intelligence and common sense is free to make sense of the interactions with people around me. Working with children is a most satisfying and engaging way of getting an inside and intimate look at the Human Condition in action. It is rather an ‘eye-opener’ and one realizes that one is yet a part of this vast enterprise known as society and culture and that all ‘I’ have to offer is yet again the same tried and failed techniques that keep the instincts under control and keep us from going off the rails. But I am in no way advocating retiring from the world of people, things and events into a do-nothing state of isolationism. For an actualist the market place is the best and most fertile testing ground for exploration – there is nothing like the boss at work, one’s partner, one’s parents or children, one’s friends, the TV news, the neighbours, etc. to bring to the surface the beliefs, morals, values, viewpoints and ethics that initially stand in the way of becoming happy and harmless. Yes, I am relating in an improved way to people at work, i.e. where I spend the most amount of my waking time. I am open to new ways of doing things and not being so darned ... stubborn, in a word. At least at the job, I realized that I had zilch experience working in this area and was open to imbibing what others had learned and had to teach me. It must be that way with actualism as far as I am concerned. There are people on this list with far, far more experience than I (you for one) and I want to learn what it is that you have to convey. Gary to Peter
The friendships that were in my life have all gone with the wind as those friends see me as no longer ‘loving’ and ‘supportive’ and my reluctance to give or receive advice about ‘problems’ is seen as callous disinterest. Friendship – in the real world seems to me to be simply a watered down version of ‘love’ – ‘help me to prop up and aggrandise my identity so I won’t feel separate, alone, scared’. My journey so far with this ‘way’ has yielded more freedom and unconditional happiness than any thing I have experienced before and I have reached the point of no return – normal or spiritual are no longer options. Mark
In order to clean up my act I had to stop getting involved in other people’s lives – as in giving advice, commiserating, being busy with everyone’s emotions or exchanging resentments about how tough life is. I became very ‘self’-obsessed, only concerned about my own emotions and how I can investigate and eliminate them. One has to be ‘selfish’ in that way no doubt. Actualism would probably not appeal to people who are still busybodies or do-gooders. About a year into the process it became apparent that, in becoming less and less of an emotionally driven being and therefore less ‘self’-centred, my range of perception and attention had broadened. It was then that I understood that altruism has nothing to do with my former ethical ideal of unselfishness but that it arises out of the fact that we are all fellow human beings and that I want the best for me and every other human being. When one is honest and sincere, the best contribution to peace-on-earth means freeing myself and others from the burden of my animal instinctual passions – ‘self’-immolation. Lately I have been looking at what a burden that really is. I can see that I, being born into this world, was burdened with these passions and that I have similarly burdened others with them. All my cares and woes as a human being really do burden the people around me and place incredible demands on the others for care, dependency, nurture, etc. When I free myself from malice and sorrow, I am fundamentally freeing both myself and all those others who I am related to in my life, even people who I may never actually meet. My father once told me, when I was younger, that all he ever wanted for me in life was for me to be happy, because I was plainly so miserable. I am glad to oblige the elder in every way. Gary to Vineeto
I knew from my pure consciousness experience that I wanted intimacy – the innocent ever-fresh fascination that I experienced first in those moments with Peter, not knowing what he is going to say or do next and being unconditionally curious and attentive. This goal of actual intimacy was my guiding line, this is the quality in which I want to relate to people. Therefore I was eager and willing to find out how I can live this actual intimacy that I experienced in my PCE. 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
The quickest, most direct and most effective way of determining what is fact, i.e. what works and what doesn’t work, is by your own life experiences. By the time mid-life comes around, most people have had sufficient life experiences to already know what doesn’t work and only if there is still some doubt about a particularly sticky issue do you need to investigate further. As an example, I needed only to draw on my own life experiences and my observations of others around me to know that love does not work, and never can work, to negate malice or sorrow. This is why I wrote my journal in the style I did, including many examples of my life experiences and my inevitable failures to find peace and happiness, both in the real world and the spiritual world. The other kind of investigation is by deliberately setting out to make sense of a vexing issue, as we did in our recent conversation about intelligence vs. instinctual passion. In this type of investigation you root around and dig up all the information, data and observations you can and balance those against the currently accepted viewpoints and beliefs that others have about the subject, and then you eventually come to find an answer – to come to an understanding of the facts of the situation. Vineeto and I have spent many, many hours mulling over issues relevant to the human condition with no disagreement or disharmony simply because we were searching for the facts – something that is clearly evident, obvious and indisputable. The only person I really talk to about these matters are people on this list and my partner. I have from time to time read her a little bit out of the book. I have read her a little bit from your Journal at times. Then we have discussed the issues presented in the writing and commented on it from our own experience. I rather like doing this and have learned a few things about her in the process. Given that I am practising actualism myself, I suppose I carry that into the marketplace in a sense, but I do not proselytize (how could I?) nor do I really talk to anybody about it. I would, given the opportunity, but I am careful about this sort of thing. I recently talked privately to a couple of people who had written to me from a mailing list that I recently subscribed to. The response or lack of a response I got from them was an indication to me of the radicalness of actualism and the reluctance of people to question their cherished beliefs and assumptions. When someone is not willing to question their beliefs, thoughts and emotions, inquiry is dead in the water before it even starts to float. Gary to Peter
The next fear I encountered was the fear associated when actively dismantling my social identity. The fear was that if I no longer believed what everyone else believed, if I no longer valued society’s morals and ethics, if I no longer thought and felt how I had been taught to think and feel, then I would certainly be punished and ostracized. What I soon came to realize was that the moment I stopped trying to change other people by pointing out where their beliefs were wrong, no longer did I provoke defensive or offensive responses from others – no longer did I feel punished or ostracized. This also meant that increasingly I had little in common with my friends because I no longer shared their beliefs and also I no longer empathized with their misery and I no longer supported their malice towards others. Very quickly my former friendships mutually dissolved, as there was no longer any emotional bond or need for support on my part. As my social identity dissolved so did my fears of the dire consequences of punishment and ostracization. I have not had any ‘friends’ for such a long time now. I always have been quite a loner. It used to bother me that I did not have many friends – a voice kept playing in my head telling me that this was not ‘normal’ and I ‘should’ have more friends, even though I did not want any. I have found the whole process of ‘making friends’ and ‘keeping friends’ so wearying that I am glad to have dispelled with the whole process. It is not that I am anti-social. While still a loner, I do enjoy the company of other people and I get the feeling that they enjoy mine. I go out socially from time to time. There is no one I feel I dislike. But I don’t go out of my way to ‘make friends’. At a social gathering, if my partner is with me, I mostly stay with her. In a larger social situation, I feel content to mix with people not in my immediate group, or try to get to know new people. It is so nice to talk to people and not to feel held down by allegiance to certain selected ‘friends’, cliques, or subgroups. In a social situation at work, I like to mix with people not in my immediate work group. I like to ‘cross the lines’ in other words. Growing up, I remember being terrified of people – I would actually flee the house when friends of the family or other adults came over, so I suppose most of my isolative, loner-like tendencies are hold overs from growing up. I am still aware that there is that fear of people and fear of strangers underlying my social interactions with others. After all, most people are socialized to be afraid of ‘strangers’ – I seem to recall running across that in the actualism literature somewhere- although the paradox is that most people are the most hurt and traumatized by the people they are closest to. I find it interesting sometimes to just observe people and be open to what is happening in social situations. Sometimes when in a restaurant, I like (if I am feeling in a particularly receptive mood) to sit across from someone else who is by themselves and just be aware of their presence. Not spying on them mind you, but just be aware of them sitting there as they are undoubtedly aware of me sitting there. There may be a glance, a smile, etc, or there may not be. The old Gary would seclude himself from interaction and nurture his fears of others to the point of being a recluse. The process of actualism is not a process of isolation from others – it is a process of becoming fully engaged in the wondrous experience of being alive in the present moment. It is a process of learning how to live in the world as-it-is, with people as-they-are. It is an active investigation of these fears that hold one back from enjoying, indeed delighting, in the present moment. There is also an atavistic component to this fear. Atavistic fears are those that are passed on over countless generations either as spoken or unspoken taboos that hint at horrific consequences should one dare to stray too far from the accepted norm. Many of these relate to retribution and revenge by the Gods and spirits or horrendous acts of torture wrought by the shamans and priests for heretics and those possessed by evil spirits. Often these fears would occur in dreams at night-time or when stirring the wrath of some God-man on a mailing list. Provided you keep your wits about you and don’t goad a fanatic, investigating these fears can be great fun because these fears are eventually seen to consist of the same pithless wind as the shamans and God-men themselves. I am enjoying engaging people more around the issues that concern me. I am ‘sticking my neck out’ more and I am exercising my mind, flexing my brain muscles. I am actually enjoying challenging some people on things that they are saying, particularly when these make little or no sense to me. I used to not have much stomach for this kind of thing – I think I lacked confidence. But now I am gaining confidence, and with it I am gaining the ability to speak my mind plainly without fear of the consequences. Sometimes I ask myself ‘What do I have to lose?’, and the answer that comes back is – nothing. Please note that I am not talking about goading or bullying people, but it does involve active engagement of the other in the process of inquiry into the items of interest. This can be done with anyone. Often people don’t like questions – I have been told that I ask too many questions. But questioning is the essence of inquiry. Many people are not interested in inquiring, and in that case there is nothing you can do it is best I suppose to see this early on lest one get sucked into a never-ending process of gamesmanship. Gary to Peter
The human social identity is rooted in comparison to others – we are taught by reward and punishment to conform to society’s standards – to be ‘good like Johnny or Betty’, ‘not to be bad like Tom or Sally’. As children our performance and behaviour is constantly ranked and rated at home and school in comparison to others as we are imbibed with a social conscience. Conformity and mediocrity become our role models and we have only two choices – either to humbly acquiesce or blindly rebel. Humanity rewards conformity and punishes rebellion, giving rise to endless cycles of endemic necessary suffering and senseless necessary struggle. The only way out of this mess is to become autonomous – to break free of the shackles that continually hobble us to comparing ourselves to others who are similarly afflicted by the human condition. I found the only way to do this was to do it – thinking about it, worrying about it, or fearing the consequences of freedom only wasted even more time. Had I not been so keen to compare myself with others, I doubt the situation at work would have as seriously upset my equilibrium as it did. In any event, one’s ‘equilibrium’ is extremely precarious: most people seem to react rather violently to even minor changes in their circumstances. The whole recent situation at work got me in touch with my fear of failure, and I even felt that I had failed at actualism. I don’t think I have expressed this before, but I have feared that I was a failure at that which I am most interested in – peace and harmony with those around me. I also think in some respects I am afraid to practice actualism because I am afraid I will end up bereft of companionship, home, sanity, income, and comfort. I think very subtly I have had the attitude: ‘So, this is what it all has gotten you – now you’ve lost your job and embarrassed yourself – see what you get!’ Sometimes it gets so scary I wish I could turn tail and run back to the ‘safety’ of the Human Condition. Actually, thinking about it, I suppose I could if I really wanted. So, Peter, I think I am finding the doing part very difficult. I seem to be spinning my wheels a lot fearing the consequences. The only way to dispel comparison on the path to Actual Freedom is to do the best you can do. If this best is free of malice and sorrow, if this best is done with integrity, then whatever is done is simply the best in the circumstances. It is a bit weird when you get to the stage when you lose this ‘self’-measure of comparison with others for I find I now have no standard other than my own integrity. Believing in society’s hypocritical goods and bads, opinionated rights and wrongs, yearning for praise and cowering before criticism all gradually disappear and then it is as if there is nothing to hold on to – no external reference for ‘me’ in comparison to others. This stage can be unnerving and daunting and it is mightily reassuring that the sun comes up every morning, no matter what was going on in my head or my heart. In some respects I feel I am now doing the best I can under the circumstances. I said a couple malicious things when I was under the gun but it could have been worse. I am going in to where I worked this afternoon for an ‘exit interview’ and I am keenly aware of not wanting to bad-mouth anyone and leave on the best terms possible. This was not true over the weekend when I got myself in a worked-up state, resentfully focusing on getting ‘revenge’ by maligning my supervisor’s handling of the situation. As I told you before once, I have always had a terrific resentment of authority figures and it has dogged me my entire life. If there is anything good to come out of this situation, it is to screw up my determination and intent to rid myself of this destructive feeling, as well as the other feelings. What I have come to see in my writing is that my experience is typical to all, in that I am a flesh and blood human being born into the human condition exactly like everyone else, and therefore my experience in becoming free of the human condition will be relevant to all. The usefulness of our conversations is that we on this list are the very first to be taking the direct route to an actual freedom from the human condition. The usefulness of anyone interested in writing about their own process is that a breadth of experiences will be recorded and made freely available on the web-site for anyone who is interested – for those who are doing it now and for those who will inevitably follow. Yes, I think I can see that my behaviour, which I am prone to severely castigate myself for, was little different than most people in a similar situation. When one’s ass is on the line, one can see many people kick into instinctually malicious, fearful, or aggressive behaviours. I think I am little different in this respect. Continued practice of actualism probably resulted in a situation where I was able to stand up for myself and assert my autonomy rather than remaining miserable and bringing my job home with me. Sometimes the best thing you can do is cut your losses, chalk it all up, and move on to something new. Often when I work on posts such as this, I can feel the fresh flush of excitement to be on the leading edge of something of monumental importance to the human species. It is something entirely new, and we are the ones who are actually doing it right now. Although I may occasionally stumble and fall on the way, each of these ‘setbacks’ is pregnant with information about ‘me’ and presents the opportunity to see for myself just what we are talking about when we talk about the Human Condition. Gary to Peter
Having been full-on on the spiritual path for 17 years I had a few friends who either were either left limping along as church-going spiritualists or were still shopping in the spiritual supermarket. I naively thought they would be interested in actualism but the moment they realized it involved questioning their spiritual beliefs, their automatic self-defence mechanism cut in and when they realized it also involved effort and work it was way too much for their spiritual ego. I just refused to let this experience muzzle me, which is why I chose to write about my experiences rather than try and change other people. 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. * What I discovered about my friendships was that the moment ‘I’ stopped maintaining them and cultivating them for my own self-ish purposes that the friend would also stop contacting me and the friend-ship would eventually sink because it needed two people, both constantly rowing, to keep it afloat. I started to see that everybody is busily engaged in living their friends’ lives and not their own. When I eventually saw this clearly, I stopped the insidious practice of seeking others out for emotional support – mutually agreeing how tough things are – or blaming others for the mess my life was in. This proved a turning point in my living with Vineeto, as I started to take total responsibility for my behaviour, feelings, moods and actions. It has been my experience that ‘I’ need special friends for the validation and confirmation they give of ‘my’ existence. I am not a misanthrope. Neither am I a hermit. I enjoy the company of other people, I enjoy talking to many different kinds of people, and I enjoy going out socially from time to time but I do not keep any ‘friends’ at the present time. I think my questioning of relationships of this sort really began with the suicide of my ‘best’ friend in 1989. It was a terrible shock, and the emotions which it engendered in me were not very pleasant. After that, I began to be much more selective in terms of having friends, but also I began pulling away from these kinds of exclusive relationships. I began to see that a ‘friendship’ in a way is a special kind of ‘love’ relationship, and in my experience at least, involves a considerable amount of dependency, possessiveness, jealousy, envy, guilt, etc. I think you are right that people are engaged in living their friends’ lives and not their own. I have wondered if perhaps I were trying to insulate myself emotionally from the pain of being attached and related to someone in a close relationship and I think I am. I find the sticky mess of friendship too much to endure, and I neither want to experience the painful emotions related to having a friend nor the positive emotions of love and affection for another. Probably that makes me an ‘emotional cripple’ in some people’s eyes, but that has been my experience. I simply gave up talking to people face to face about Actual Freedom and reverted to occasionally dropping in a bit of common sense into a conversation – a much less confronting exercise, although even this does appear to stir up some issues in some people. I tried writing on a few spiritual mailing lists and was cyber-executed from one and censored off another, so I do my writing on the AF mailing list now, but as you will have noticed even this list has now attracted a few perfervid objectors to peace on earth. Hmm ... interesting. I was not aware that you do not write to other lists anymore. What I found in my brief experience of writing to others recently was that, yes, it did seem to be stirring up some issues in others, but it was stirring up the same issues in me. I found it was a fascinating way of observing my own psyche in action, and to sharpen my own thinking about some things. I think in the future I am going to be a little more circumspect in what I say to others. I have noticed that when I involve myself in groups, cyber or otherwise, I tend to come in guns a-blazing. Perhaps for me this is some kind of defence mechanism in action – you know, the best defence is a good offence. I have sometimes jumped right into these things and offended other people, rather than trying to ease in gradually and observing etiquette (or nettiquette). Gary to Peter
This business of becoming free of the human condition already feels tough enough at times but to beat yourself up for not succeeding simply means yet another moment of potential happiness and harmlessness has been squandered in ‘self’-indulgence. And again, this is not denial, because the next real thing to investigate, the next real issue to investigate, will come swanning in by itself. In the market place, unlike the Monastery, Sangha or ‘inner’ cave, there is an ample supply of normal events and normal people to test one’s happiness and harmlessness. Indeed. And this is one of the chief differences between actualism and spirituality’s ‘How to be in the world but not of it’, because in actualism there is no need for any allegiance to an exclusive group or clique, no identification of oneself being a member of any particular identifying belief system. One is free to be with people as-they-are, whatever their particular beliefs or religiosity or lack of religiosity. It seemed that when I was involved with a spiritual lifestyle, I was always looking for people who were friendly to my particular belief system, and I would befriend people based on whether or not their beliefs conformed to mine. In actualism, there is none of that, and one is free to have an actual intimacy with all people, regardless of where they are coming from. This is, as I think about it just now, one of the fundamental differences between actualism and so-called spiritual belief. As a spiritual believer, ‘I’ am dependent on the spiritual or the religious group for a continual reinforcement of my identity as a spiritual being or as a member of a spiritual community, and I seek this affiliation constantly as this reaffirms and supports ‘my’ existence. In actualism, one has to go it completely and totally alone, alone in the sense of depending on nothing else but one’s own common sense and intelligence as well as one’s own pure consciousness experiences as one’s guide. Naturally, one can talk to others through the medium of this list, as well as read the readings, but there is no allegiance nor membership with a defining body of actualism ‘believers’. This further contributes to the dismantlement of the social identity because ‘I’ thrive on being a member of a group with certain defining beliefs. Without them, I experience first-hand that ‘I’ am nothing but a wayward social identity, an illusion, careering around in fear and confusion. Gary to Peter
Actualism is not about avoiding, withdrawing, hiding or suppressing. Actualism is not about becoming a hermit or a monk or a nun. Unless one is fully engaged in the world, unless one is fully prepared to investigate all of the major issues that prevent an actual intimacy with one’s fellow human beings, fundamental change is impossible. There are different levels of engagement with the world around you. Some people are very engaged, socially and politically. Some individuals are very engaged in civic activities, for instance. I am not. To people who lead more socially oriented lives, I would probably look somewhat like a hermit. But the critical thing is that I am not avoiding these things because I am afraid of them, simply because I prefer not to do these things. I have very much experienced the impetus to take on an activity because I would ordinarily avoid it. I think one needs to face and eliminate fears. And one cannot eliminate a fear if one is avoiding the object of the fear. By actually taking on the very thing that one is afraid of, one has an excellent opportunity to fully investigate whatever issue is preventing an intimacy with one’s fellows. To some extent, this very sort of thing occurred during my job search. I found myself charging into some career areas that ordinarily I would avoid because I have the interest and desire to find out what I have been avoiding. A confidence develops that one can eliminate fears in this way, by probing, questioning, and challenging oneself to go further all the time. Gary to Peter
Hello Peter... Something you wrote seemed right on – it was the following: What I did was a lot of experiencing of, and thinking about, grief and one of the most striking aspects I clearly remember was how much this emotion was a part of my identity. This accords with my own recent bout of morbidness. I realized on some level, at least, that the grief was part and parcel of ‘my’ very identity – it is a large part of who I think ‘Gary’ is. It is a very old, familiar emotion that heralds to the early years of life, and perhaps goes back a good deal further. It is tied up with my mother’s tragic illness and subsequent devastating disability, the sadness and grief of a small child, along with all the sympathy and well-meaning endeavours of a number of relatives and close family friends, later worn as a kind of badge of honour and used to justify the most malicious actions, and by the age of 7, I am sure, became a very part of my personality and modus operandi in the world. To experience this grief again, unhindered by the social identity with its conceptions of what is right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, and to be able to see the effect that this emotional state had on my close, live-in partner, along with its unspoken demand for attention, nurturance, as well as the imposition of my moods and emotions on another, and the hurt that this caused in her, was a revealing glimpse at ‘me’ – the passionate identity – going full blast. It did not do to tell myself that I ‘should not’ feel this way, or be this way. No, it took much longer to sort it all out, but also to make the shift to a sensuous awareness of the feeling and emotion and what it felt like, as well as a forfeiture of the claim of uniqueness – that this grief was ‘my’ own, but rather, looking at it as human grief and sadness, and the effect that this emotion is having on this present-day world of people in their inter-connectedness. As the shift came and happened, it seemed to be a short hop, skip, and jump to pulling myself up by my bootstraps and determining to pull myself out of the welter of sad emotions and get on with the business of living my life to the best of my ability – happy and harmless again. It was not a wrenching experience, which would imply a kind of suppression or repression, but it was a shift easily made when I realized the futility of remaining a sorrowful and suffering person. So there it is: Just a few thoughts for now. Gary to Peter
However, regarding my ‘social life’, I find that I no longer feel the need to affiliate with other human beings the way I once used to. In days gone by, I used to think that having ‘friends’ was very important, yet now I cannot really say that I have any ‘friends’ nor do I want any. Because the word ‘friendship’ implies an obligation to stick with another person through thick and thin, and I find that I am not prepared to do that. I would much prefer to go my own way and allow someone else the freedom to do the same, so I cannot say that anyone is my ‘friend’ in that sense. I feel much the same about family relationships (and I am talking about family of origin here, not family of procreation). I keep in touch with members of my family. But compared to other people who I see around me, my sense of a family identity is very weak indeed. During the first two years of practicing actualism I also experienced that my ‘friendships’ dropped away but lately I have had occasion to meet several of these former ‘friends’ and to do work for several members of the spiritual group I was in before. All of these meetings have been delightful as am now meeting fellow human beings, I am interested in them as fellow human beings and, as such, have enjoyed their company. The difference between now and before is that I now make no emotional demands of people I meet which then frees them of the burden of ‘me’, nor do I have emotional expectations of them which then frees me from the constant need to intuit and imagine what they were thinking and feeling about ‘me’. I have never been a ‘people person’ the way I see some people operate. In the past, when I had friendships, I had maybe only one or two very close friends, or an intimate partner, and I pretty much placed a great deal of demands on those relationships and was devastated when they ended. Of course, my emotional demands were usually what resulted in the relationship ending, and this was particularly true of ‘love’ relationships. I have had to examine what ‘my’ emotional needs are, wherein they consist, and how I can best conduct myself in relating to other human beings, including my current partner. It is not simply a matter of finding an ‘appropriate’ form of conduct, it is a process of digging into my very core to uncover the feelings and emotions that create havoc in living with others. I have found that ‘I’, as an instinctual entity, am incredibly greedy and self-centred. ‘I’ place almost constant demands on others for support, succourance, and attention, and I am most disconcerted when these are spurned. ‘I’ also am extremely controlling, issuing a string of the most minute directions as to how others should conduct their lives in relation to ‘me’. Because the instinctual entity inhabiting this body is essentially a sorrowful and malicious entity, ‘I’ inflict this sorrow and malice on others around me, either in corporate existence with others in society or in a close co-habitational living arrangement with an ‘intimate’ partner. The only way I can see to get around this is to get out of it completely: to self-immolate. There is great significance in the phrase ‘fellow human beings’ because the only way you can begin to treat your fellow human beings as fellow human beings is to firstly demolish your own social identity. The first component that has to go is one’s spiritual identity because a Christian never meets a Buddhist as a fellow human being, a Rajneeshee never meets a Krishnamurti-ite as a fellow human being, and so on, because each have different beliefs, that make for differing identities. The very best that spiritualists can muster up is a feeling of oneness – a feeling that always fails to translate into a practical and tangible peace and harmony between members of a spiritual group, let alone between members of competing groups. Then there are other aspects of one’s social identity that demand attention if one is to ever get to the stage where one can see and treat one’s fellow human beings as fellow human beings and not continue to think and feel them to be separate ‘beings’. A man never meets a woman and sees her or treats her as a fellow human being because men and women have been instilled with opposing gender identities – identities that are mandated by each side in the battle of the sexes and are rife with mutual feelings of suspicion, fear, ignorance and superstition. Similarly, a father never meets a son and a mother never meets a daughter for each has a socially-imposed identity relative to each other – a complex set of social obligations, emotional demands and needs, expectations and resentments that serve to prevent each from either seeing or treating each other as fellow human beings. Similarly, an American never meets an Australian, a Lithuanian never meets a Nigerian and so on, for each believe they belong to a different culture and each call a particular piece of the planet ‘home’. The list goes on, but I won’t, for you will have got the gist by now. What normally happens in relationships when things start to go wrong, as they inevitably do, is that the each party blames the other for failing to meet their needs, fulfill their expectations, nurture them sufficiently, respect their feelings, and such like. Often a begrudging compromise is reached in relationships or failure is allowed to run its natural course. As you well know from your experience with actualism, the only way out of this mess is to demolish one’s own social identity, piece-by-piece, element-by-element. And the proof that this process works is that you begin to not only see but to treat the fellow human beings you come in contact with as exactly that – fellow human beings, irregardless of their age, gender, kin, race, religion, culture, nationality, and so on. Yes. I have found that palpable evidence of the demolishment of the social identity is a relative absence of what I will, for lack of a better term, call the ‘inner critic’. There used to be an ‘inner critic’ who was a rather noisy chap in the head who would almost immediately categorize others according to their racial, ethnic, class, weight, size, etc. Whilst I am still aware of this critical voice in the head, the corresponding feelings that arise in the heart are much more open to examination. And I realize that it is this tendency to lock on to others with particular emotional reactions to their ‘different-ness’ that in large part complicates interacting with others in the social environment. I am also aware of how, in my spritual days, I use to swan along in a blissful, rose-colored glasses phase of feeling ‘we are all one’ or ‘we are all God’s children’. This sticky, gooey state of denial seemed at the time to be a solution to the condition of separation, divisiveness, and conflict that human beings find themselves in, but it was gained at the price of completely losing touch with the underlying reasons for so much strife in the world, and it was only a temporary ‘feel-good’ solution, as I witnessed the same conflict and strife in the microcosm of the religious group that I belonged to that happened in the world at large. It was this obvious inability to live in peace and harmony within the religious group that pulled the rose-colored glasses off my eyes and hastened my abandonment of the spiritual way of life. As long one is identifying with any particular group or sect, living in peace and harmony with others is an impossibility. * To take your questions one at a time –
If you are part of the human condition then ‘you’, as an alien-feeling psychological and psychic entity, need to relate to similar alien-feeling entities, otherwise you feel even more desperately lonely and alien. As you are discovering, the nature of this relating can only be emotive – ‘it seems to me that a ‘relationship’ is about sharing joy and sorrow, sharing the complete pathos and movement of human emotion and human feeling.’
As you actively diminish and wither both your social ‘self’ and your instinctual ‘self’ – your personality and being, or your ego and soul if you like – there is less ‘I’ and ‘me’ remaining to think and feel ‘he or ‘she’ needs or desires a relationship with other ‘he’s or ‘she’s. I am not being clever here, because if you set off on a moral or ethical course of not needing or not desiring relationships with other people – take it on as a shouldn’t – you can only end up feeling an outcast or alien or becoming a hermit and a celibate. If you do so, history shows that the emotional void that is created by this act of withdrawal will commonly be filled by the ‘discovery of a greater love and meaning – a God, by whatever name. To retreat from the world of people, things and events is to fall into the spiritual trap of withdrawal and denial which when combined with the fantasy of sublimation and transcendence leads to the pathological state of dissociation and solipsism. In actualism you go the other way – you deliberately move closer, you deliberately become more intimate whenever the opportunity arises. It is only by daring to do this can you discover the previously hidden or repressed layers of affective feelings and passions that are preventing ‘your’ demise and therefore inhibiting an actual intimacy with the world of people, things and events from occurring. This is a very important couple of paragraphs right here. When you are talking about deliberately moving closer, deliberately becoming more intimate, I assume you are talking about ‘intimate’ as actual intimacy rather than as real world intimacy. In actual intimacy, the noisy chap in the head, the ‘inner critic’ if you will, has been effectively stilled, and what is left is a clear-eyed sensate perception and a roving, active intelligence that can immediately grasp the significance of a situation. This flesh-and-blood body can easily relate to other flesh-and-blood bodies in the social environment, but as soon as this body begins to relate to others in terms of a spurious real-world intimacy based on searching for commonalities, identification with a particular quirk or different-ness, then sub-grouping develops, a kind of us vs. them mentality shows up, and suddenly living in peace and harmony becomes incredibly difficult, an ideal more than a reality. At this point, I would say that I am not taking it on as a ‘should’ that I do not need or want relationships. To me it is a dare. I am daring to be free of all of the group identifications that are formed on so many levels, I am daring to extricate myself from these various group affiliations, and at times it has been an extremely daunting, lonely business. Particularly when I have realized that there is no God up there pulling the strings or who I can go to in times of prayer for support. To me it feels like a very dangerous course to be on because I have the sense that I am ending ‘Gary’, that ‘Gary’ has been none other than an emotional, instinctual being who has formed these various affiliations and identifications. If this is recognized the moment that it occurs by attentiveness to what is happening at the moment, it is in effect pulling the plug on ‘me’, and through the repeated action of this pulling of the plug on ‘me’ self-immolation is hastened. *
Relationships are vitally important for an actualist for they hold the key to becoming aware of, exploring and incrementally removing the obstacles that inhibit an actual intimacy from one’s fellow human beings. Spiritualists always put relationships with their God, or their Self, first and relationships with their fellow human beings second – but for an actualist the exact opposite is the case. For an actualist, the closer the relationship, the more valuable the relationship for only close relationships are emotive enough and powerful enough to bring to the surface the emotions that are normally suppressed or glossed-over in ‘normal’ stand-offish relating. It is good to remember that if you are avoiding something or denying something, it is impossible to experientially investigate it and this is nowhere more obvious than in discovering precisely what is preventing you from being intimate with another human being – one to one. Yes, I can see the importance of relationships, particularly very close relationships, for an actualist. In normal, everyday relating to others in society, the rules of fair play as expressed through ordinary morality, values, and ethics often take precedence. But in relating to one’s mate or partner, often one’s instinctual behaviour is laid bare, with the full range of selfishness and greediness occurring. It is not for no reason that in the large majority of marriages, statistically for instance, there is at least one episode of actual physical violence at some point. In normal society, for instance, one can often put one’s best foot forward and be an exemplary citizen, so to speak, yet at home be a perfect beast and a dreadful rogue. One’s mate knows things about one that nobody else knows because they live in close proximity and see the ‘real’ person. I have no doubt that it people wanted to know what I am ‘really’ like, they should ask my intimate partner, for she is the one who spends the most time with me. That is why the closer relationship is the acid test of actualism. The so-called intimate relationship is going to be the test ground of the actualism method – if one cannot live in peace and harmony with one’s intimate partner one is neither happy nor harmless. Gary to Peter
In other words, in a relationship one social and instinctual identity attempts to relate to the other’s social and instinctual identity and both parties are mutually dependent on the other for maintaining their identity, negotiating their individuality and battling their loneliness because a human being only has an identity in relation to other people. A personality is only better than or lesser than, more needy or less needy, stronger or weaker in relation to – i.e. relative to – other personalities. You are hundred percent spot on when you say that ‘the entire package’, both the good and the bad emotions in a relationship, ‘needs to be deleted’. Last week I met a friend whom I had not seen for seven years and this meeting gave me an opportunity to observe in what way my relating to people has changed since I took up actualism. It was a very enjoyable meeting and a pleasant surprise, contrary to some meetings with other former friends, as we were able to find lots of things in common to talk about despite the fact that I have abandoned my spiritual beliefs and loyalties. It was all made easier by her own discontentment with the outcome of her own spiritual search and her interest in what solutions I have found. What had changed for me since I had seen her last was that I experienced none of the emotional aspirations that are usually inevitable ingredients to a friendship. In fact, I was aware that I easily responded each moment to what was happening – be it her curiosity or bewilderment, a silent appreciation of our surroundings, a chat about food or living in Australia, her future plans or who she met yesterday. I told her as much about how I live now as she asked to know but felt no need to demand her attention or interest. I was simply me, I did not have an image, beliefs or precious feelings to promote or to defend and I did not feel any emotional bonds, fears and obligations interfering with meeting a fellow human being. Your experience meeting your former friend I can only compare to brief forays at ‘going home’, ie. returning to my hometown to visit my aging father, other relatives, and perhaps see an old friend. I have had a wonderfully liberated sense upon these reunions. There is none of that dread that used to mark my homecomings, none of the having to explain myself and what I have been up to, no trying to impress others with the latest thing that I am into. I have found none of the heavily laden emotional longings surrounding these meetings, and I have left with a fresh feeling knowing that I put my best foot forward and neither expected nor demanded anything that the other could not give. I think I know what you mean by responding each moment to what is happening. Gary to Vineeto
Hello Richard ... I found your recent comments to
One of the most striking things to happen to me since I started practising Actualism is the diminishment of emotional connections to other human beings. I cannot say that there are absolutely no connections to others, as it is obvious to me in my relationship with my partner that a sense of connectedness comes up from time to time in various ways. And no doubt this happens with other people as well. However, I have noticed for a long period that when people want to be ‘friends’ with me, for instance, and make certain friendly overtures, these are generally not at all reciprocated on my part. In other words, the offer to ‘make a friend’ or ‘be a friend’ or such similar things as happen in the social world usually fall completely flat on my part. I have sometimes gotten the impression, gleaned from body language and other cues, that this irritates people. Overtures of this type just do not seem to ‘take’ with me. It is difficult to describe but I am sure that the other practiced Actualists on this list know what I am talking about. Another obvious sign of the diminishment of emotional connections is in the ‘need’ to affiliate. I seem to have no need to affiliate with others, in the sense that that word is commonly used. This is not to say that I am rude or inconsiderate towards others, but as I feel little need or drive to ‘socialize’, pair off with, or otherwise ‘bond’ with others, there is little in an active social sense that is going on with me. Which brings me to a point: in my investigations of what it means to be a human being, I have been struck with how much of human socializing is based on commiseration – sharing a common plight and grievance, and additionally sharing feelings and emotions: whether it be returning to work on Monday, the state of the economy, the price of gasoline, how unfairly the work place is treating you, etc., etc. Human beings seems to revel in their complaints and gripes, and a sense of resentment is the cement that seems to bind people together in many social situations. Indeed, it is the raison d’être for political groups and political causes of various types. However, not to get too far afield and to return again to the theme of emotional ‘connection’, I have sometimes in past months been aghast at my lack of emotional, social connection to others. There has been the fright that I am suffering from a serious mental disorder. In that one’s emotional connections with others are a prime indicator of one’s mental health, that may certainly be the case, although I carry no official diagnosis (not having come into contact with mental health professionals in any capacity that relates to me personally). There has been something at times like anxiety and shock to recognize that I am no longer moved by a need to affiliate and identify with others. This fear reminds me of the fears I first encountered in Actualism – atavistic fears relating to being an ‘outcast’, i.e.. falling off the plate of humanity, so to speak. However, the fears have taken on a somewhat different spin, at times feeling myself to be the object of derision or discrimination. Whatever it is, and although there may be a slightly paranoid flavour at times, I am unable to return to what once was a habitual mode of operation socially – to seek out ‘relationships’ with others, whether they be friendships, kinship with family members, or groups to identify with. As I write these words, I am thinking that these fears are basic atavistic fears related to the demolishment of one’s identity, as well as fears that indicate the presence of the identity in the first place. These fears have largely settled down at the present time. I would welcome any comments either you or other participants have about the topic currently under discussion. I would be interested, for instance, in knowing how your own conduct socially and in terms of intimate, emotional connection has changed since you have been living in Actual Freedom compared with your previous life as a ‘normal’, care-worn person. Specific questions that arise might be the following: do you belong to any groups or organizations of any kind? Do you have a more active social life now or less active? What happened to you socially when you self-immolated? Gary to Richard
Not too long ago in the past, ‘I’ wanted acceptance by as many as would accept ‘me’ – so I used to be very fluent in ‘identity talk’, speaking/ writing/ listening in a style that was very much approved by other identities; and, as a consequence, ‘I’ was usually liked by nearly everyone in ‘my’ life. One of the reasons I enjoy seeing Richard correspond is because he writes things that can be so challenging, to one’s socialized ‘being’, as to be perceived as aggressive (thus making him out to be a very unlikeable identity) – which is the main reason why ‘I’ would always remain silent when seeing another’s fundamental contradictions*); and therefore maintain a friend/an ally who would most likely also remain silent when seeing one of my own. Consequently keeping each other in the dark – that’s how much we cared. I have seen Richard lose countless potential friends/ allies by refusing to play this game. And this game was therefore more important to them than whatever is on offer on the Actual Freedom website and list. No 47 to No 60, 3.2.2006 *) Small/trivial contradictions are easy to point out, especially by sugar-coating them with humour, but the fundamental contradictions are another matter entirely. * I don’t criticise Richard for being persistent, challenging, unrelenting, refusing to let people off the hook when they’re doing something dodgy, pointing out their fundamental contradictions etc. Never have. I do think it would be possible to do all of that in a friendly and peaceful way though. (...) How exactly would you go about doing this, No 60? How could you explain to somebody that their most treasured feelings/noble ideologies/optimistic dreams (those very things that give meaning to their life) are fundamentally flawed in that they have never and will never bring about peace-on-earth, without the possibility of coming across as ‘aggressive’, ‘arrogant’, ‘hostile’ and ‘unfriendly’? As an example, the first girl who I fell in love with was nothing less than perfect to me; she gave meaning to my life. But when someone informed me, in a very kind and considerate way, that this girl was actually only interested in older guys (despite her telling me otherwise)… I resented this person and denied the evidence put forth. After several months of digesting what had been presented to me, and seeing the facts of the matter for myself, I realized I had thoughtlessly shot the (friendly) messenger of a very factual but unpleasant message – and the style of the message was flawless, it was the substance I had a problem with. Now, here is the thing, even if actualism was all substance and no style I would have still been interested enough upon first approaching it to get to where I am now. As the style, which I personally find a lot of fun by the way, is only very partial – it is the content, the substance of the words, that interests me. No 47 to No 60, 3.2.2006a * I don’t criticise Richard for being persistent, challenging, unrelenting, refusing to let people off the hook when they’re doing something dodgy, pointing out their fundamental contradictions etc. Never have. I do think it would be possible to do all of that in a friendly and peaceful way though. How exactly would you go about doing this, No 60? See below for an example:
See? Would you by chance consider the possibility that a ‘friendly and peaceful way’ of communicating coexisting with a ‘persistent, challenging, unrelenting, refusing to let people off the hook when they’re doing something dodgy, pointing out their fundamental contradictions etc.’ type of communication is different from a ‘friendly and peaceful way’ of communicating without a ‘persistent, challenging, unrelenting, refusing to let people off the hook when they’re doing something dodgy, pointing out their fundamental contradictions etc.’ type of communication? I ask since I have a life of experience with the latter – and a relatively recent acquaintance with the former; which, out of fear, I do not always pursue. I don’t much care about this style issue (I just don’t like the denial that there is an issue for many people). The way I see it – When somebody is physically ill, a competent doctor will instruct certain actions to be commenced in order for the patient to become healthy again – regardless of the manner in which the prescription is expressed, what is prescribed will work the same. Somebody who truly desires to get well will gladly follow the prescription in spite of any affective ‘issue’ they may encounter with the doctor or his style of communicating. However, since the human condition is not considered an illness by many/most – and actualism is even less likely to be considered the cure I am not at all surprised that these issues gain the same importance, if not more, than the prescription itself. Especially as my experience has shown that the style is mostly a manner of expression steered by the substance (few or no emotional impediments). I resent … So do ‘I’ :o) That’s why, just as I was angry at the messenger because I thought that there was a hidden agenda – a lie in progress – where there actually was none, I see that you too are angry/get angry (a form of resentment) for reasons which you have already explained. However, in this case, I can relate more to your feelings than to your reasoning; so I hope you excuse me for being a bit skeptical about your claims, which seem logically sound, but are at best influenced by resentment – or at worst based on it. [I resent] the oft-repeated implication that an objection to the style of actualists is necessarily an avoidance reaction to the content. The two can exist simultaneously, and there can be one without the other. They are orthogonal. In the ‘real world’, I suppose so – and you are living proof of it, right? But, in the actual world (as the flesh and blood bodies that we actually are), or even with common sense operating, there are only so many ways you can describe a simple white sheet of paper – and since the expression of such is not the thing in itself, and both parties involved intimately know this, there would never arise any such conflict as the one you are currently experiencing; even when detailing such complex things as is the human condition. If someone criticises an actualist’s style, must it necessarily be the content they are really objecting to if the truth be known? No, and I hope you see the resemblance, but I cannot recall ever criticizing the wrapping paper on my favourite birthday presents/Christmas gifts as a kid. Can’t it be that the style sucks, independently of the content? I think it can. Well, if by ‘sucks’ you mean – ‘To be disgustingly disagreeable or offensive’ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/suck Could anything ‘disgusting’ or ‘offensive’ ever come into existence in a non-affective refreshingly sensuous world? However, if you’ve watered down the word ‘sucks’ to just mean ‘disagreeable’- Then, yes, I think it can too. Like when I am ill and have to take antibiotics, it ‘sucks’ how some of the tablets come packaged… it’s such an ordeal to open it! When I tear the protective covering, sometimes two (or even three!) pills come tumbling out when all I needed was one. Of course, this never happens when I open the package with scissors, which make a near perfect cut, but then I have to go look for the scissors! Man I tell you, if I’m ever in charge of the packaging design of antibiotics here in Mexico – I am going to make sure they are more easily accessible, aerodynamic, colourful and whatnot. But, in the meantime, I’m sure glad them pills exist as they have cured me more than once from a potentially fatal disease… and, curiously enough, I have yet to come across somebody who didn’t take them because of the packaging design. I think some of the actualists, led by Richard himself, communicate in a way that needlessly alienates people who would otherwise be interested in exploring more of the subject matter. If the people who made possible this exploration ‘communicate in a way that needlessly alienates people’ and these alienated people consequently ceased ‘exploring more of the subject matter’ because of a feeling of alienation… then all it took was one feeling to stop the exploration and I sincerely think they will be better off because of it as they don’t need to spend any more time on something they are not sufficiently interested in. Now, if someone insists that they don’t feel alienated but that they are in fact being alienated – then all it took was being on the receiving end of an emotional offence to stop the exploration and I sincerely think they will be better off because of it – as they don’t need to spend more time on something they know is both dishonest and perverse. Besides, purposefully alienating others for egocentric reasons requires malice – and if there is malice in these here actualists, then why even listen to them/why stick around? Or, if the alienating is not done purposefully but rather in denial – and they clearly will not budge from their position – then why even listen to them/why stick around? I can only think of a few reasons, some things ‘I’ could/would do, and because I am aware of the motivation that may lie behind these and what it entails for ‘me’ – I understand my disinclination to be ‘persistent, challenging, unrelenting, refusing to let people off the hook when they’re doing something dodgy, pointing out their fundamental contradictions etc’ when it comes to interacting with my fellow human beings; and therefore the extent to which I care for them. No 47 to No 60, 7.2.2006 Web page designed by The Actual Freedom Trust |
