Selected Correspondence Peter

What I came to see was that any resources I used or possessions I owned I had to pay for which meant I had to work for – i.e. sell my time to someone else in return for money. This realization was a slow dawning but I did have the sense to have a vasectomy after having two children, and soon adopted the quality-not-quantity approach to possessions. After meeting Richard I pushed the envelope a bit more, eventually trading my car for a new-age typewriter and reducing my work hours to a minimum in order to devote myself to the business of actualism as much as possible. Nowadays I find myself living a life of indulgent consumption that borders on hedonism yet at a level that would be easily be possible, sustainable and feasible for all human beings on the planet. To be an actualist is to become an ideal and model citizen of the world.

In my life I simply exchange a bit of time, working for someone else, for some tokens called money, which I then exchange to rent a comfortable flat, for food, clothes, and the surprising little else I actually need to enjoy life. My hunting and harvesting is done with a trolley in the local air-conditioned supermarket and takes me thirty minutes a week. Humans, at least where I live, have organized an amazingly effective administrative, legal and commercial system that, combined with my sensible actions, serves to provide a safe and wonderfully comfortable life for me.

Every pleasure I need in life is located in this flat or within walking distance.

So much pleasure that Vineeto and I sometimes have to run a little schedule to decide which pleasure next – sex, food, play on the computer, watch some TV, a walk...? One has to be wary of ‘pleasure stress’ when this actual world of delight and physical pleasure is revealed. Hedonism really – and the word has such a bad press in the real world of suffering! This is not to deny that I could be confronted with danger or indeed ill health at some time, but then I will just respond appropriately at the time. It is truly amazing that I now actually experience the planet as a safe and delightful place in which to live, while all around live in fear and aggression.’ Peter’s Journal, Evolution

And all this is actual, sensate – as evidenced by the physical senses – not merely cerebral or affective. You know, things like the smell of a woman’s armpit during sex, the feel of the breast or bum, the way you can tease a nipple to hardness, the fresh unique journey that is each sexual encounter as a literal salubrious smorgasbord of sensuality unfolds as wave after wave of pleasure engulfs us both. To feel a woman as equally sexual such that you don’t know who is thrusting or who is wiggling or where you end and she begins. To ride wave after wave of pleasure of such intensity that ejaculation is but a side order, not the main meal. And after ... to lie back and chat about how it was for each of us, to compare notes, to discuss the nuances, pleasures, particularly delicious bits, or just to lay back in that state where all the cells of the body are sexually alive and tingling and drift off into a delicious half asleep state. To drift off entirely or to eventually surface and wobble to the shower where you realize that to have hot water on tap to pour over your body is a simple pleasure that rivals any. Then maybe a cup of freshly ground coffee and a post-coital cigarette, and wonder what other pleasures are next, and in what order they will come. Hedonism has got nothing on this. Freedom is this and much more , Konrad, much more. Can’t I tease you into considering the possibility of living in paradise, here, now, on earth.

It is a paradise not only of physical pleasure as it also offers a stillness and purity wherein one is no longer driven by the instincts, where the mind is a perfectly clear and delightful and playful thing and the usual feelings of fear and aggression are replaced by a consuming sense of well being and benignity. And loneliness disappears as one immensely enjoys one’s own company. Good Hey....

So Konrad, unlike the other metaphysical and philosophical theories of freedom this one works and delivers and as such easily rebuffs charlatans and frauds. The proof is in the actual and in my experience if you can prove an end to malice and sorrow in equitable one-on-one companionship you have ‘put your money where your mouth is’. There is no greater test of fire than sexual freedom and equity, than for man and woman to live together in utter peace and harmony – not in theory but in practice.

Given that you have been on the list for a while now I’ll let you in to some inner-circle secrets. Actual Freedom, as you already know is completely non-spiritual and is in fact a front for the I.H.S. (International Hedonists Society). The I.H.S. grew out of the N.H.S. which was established by M. Python, H. Wilson, T. Beatle and L.S.D in England in the 60’s. The Indian mystics M.A.Rijuana and M.E.D.Tation attracted many of the followers away but it is currently enjoying a clandestine revival using the A.F.T. as a front. The original N.H.S. charter extolling the virtues of H.H (Happiness and Harmlessness) was derailed by esoteric and meta-physical influences but is now firmly back on the rails, sailing full steam ahead, has a full tank of petrol, is soon to turn the corner and then you won’t see it for the dust of the mixed metaphors left in its wake. So, your interest could not have come at a better time for both the organization and yourself, as the revival is in full swing. You are definitely right about Richard – he is the genuine article. He has demonstrated an unswerving ability to remain totally happy and harmless despite the severe provocation of Web mailing lists and the abounding cynicism of ex. N.H.S. members. I did, however, manage to draw level with him for several hours at our last competition where, despite the extreme provocation of no less than 6 eager spiritual-ist volunteers, I managed to remain both happy and harmless. I almost had to apply some effort in the last 10 minutes but I managed it right to the end un-assisted. A deep breathe and I leaped up on the top step of the dais, arm in arm with Richard, claiming my share of the trophy. It’s definitely a tough business, this being happy and harmless – the training is gruelling, the opposition relentless and uncompromising, the social ostracising palpable – but the delicious slide into an anonymous, selfless happiness and harmlessness is delectably delightful.

So, No. 14, you are attempting the impossible to ‘try to bridge a gap’, or to use the local vernacular ... pissing into the wind. There is no such thing as a bridge between the Spiritual World and the Actual World. They are two separate, distinct dimensions. The spiritual world is other-worldly, ethereal, dreamy, affective, emotive, imaginative, idealistic, unrealistic, ever-hopeful, non-sensical, delusionary, spirit-ridden, mythical, mystical, shamanistic... The actual world is sensate, tactile, tangible, palpable, corporeal, material, sensual, obvious, factual, sensible, pure, perfect, peaceful, eternal, infinite, delightful, pleasurable, ambrosial, hedonistic and happening right this very moment, under our noses as it were.

It’s such a great adventure to find out for yourself what it is to be a human being, and to discover the Actual World.

Yes, it seems it is a permanent affliction by now, bordering on an inherent addiction. So commonplace is it in my life that it requires no effort, no excitement, no looking for it, no trying. It is a delight to be alive, there is a tangible, palpable underlying well-being – and I get to do enjoyable pleasurable things as a bonus. Those extras sensation-al activities such as eating delicious food, smelling and drinking a cup of freshly brewed coffee, strolling through town or trolley-pushing through the supermarket, or a romp with Vineeto, tip the ever-present sensate pleasure of simply being alive over into rampant full blown hedonism. So ingrained is malice and sorrow in the Human Condition that the life I lead now would have been inconceivable to me 2 years ago, yet now it is the effortless norm. So much so, that I ‘take it for granted’ that I will have a perfect day when I get up in the morning. The ease comes from this very being able to ‘take it for granted’, for perfection is intrinsic to the actual world.

Maybe this helps to give the flavour of what I experience in the actual world –

Now the ‘actual’ in Actual Freedom means it works, and the ‘down-to-earth’ bit means exactly what it says.

‘It means that given sufficient effort and intent that one can eliminate sorrow and malice from the human body. This means, in practical terms, that one no longer suffers from feelings of sadness, melancholy, boredom, neediness, sympathy, empathy, despair or fear, let alone annoyance, offence, anger, revenge or violence. It is then possible, by way of practical demonstration, to live with a companion in total equity, delighting in freely and mutually enjoyed sex, discussion’ companionship and physical intimacy.

The physical pleasures build and build, as does the awareness of the immeasurable and limitless perfection and purity of it all – increasing ‘off the scales’. One literally ‘buckles at the knees’ as the paltry attempts of the old ‘I’ to fearfully hang on wither in the helter skelter slide to freedom.

And all this is actual, sensate – as evidenced by the physical senses – not cerebral or affective. You know, things like the smell of a woman’s armpit during sex, the feel of the breast or bum, the way you can tease a nipple to hardness, the fresh unique journey that is each sexual encounter as a literal salubrious smorgasbord of sensuality unfolds as wave after wave of pleasure engulfs us both. To feel a woman as equally sexual such that you don’t know who is thrusting or who is wiggling or where you end and she begins. To ride wave after wave of pleasure of such intensity that ejaculation is but a side order, not the main meal. And after ... to lie back and chat about how it was for each of us, to compare notes, to discuss the nuances, pleasures, particularly delicious bits, or just to lay back in that state where all the cells of the body are sexually alive and tingling and drift off into a delicious half asleep state. To drift off entirely or to eventually surface and wobble to the shower where you realize that to have hot water on tap to pour over your body is a simple pleasure that rivals any. Then maybe a cup of freshly ground coffee and a post-coital cigarette, and wonder what other pleasures are next, and in what order they will come. Hedonism has got nothing on this. Freedom is this and much, much more. Can’t I tease you into considering the possibility of living in paradise, here, now, on earth.

It is a paradise not only of physical pleasure as it also offers a stillness and purity wherein one is no longer driven by the instincts, where the mind is a perfectly clear and delightful and playful thing and the usual feelings of fear and aggression are replaced by a consuming sense of well being and benignity. And loneliness disappears as one immensely enjoys ones own company.’ Good Hey....

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