Actual Freedom – Mailing List ‘D’ Correspondence

February 6 2014

RESPONDENT: Hello people.

I have been lurking on this mailing list like forever. I have been reading actualism writings since 2007. I have had 2 PCE’s that I can recall but they only lasted a few seconds and happened a long time ago. I have never met Richard or Vineeto but I have communicated with them by email. But I mostly don’t communicate with them anymore because Richard never replies to my emails, and Vineeto, well she replies sometimes but often she doesn’t reply either. I am not complaining here just describing how it is. (Subject: Hello, Fri, 3 Jan 2014)

RICHARD: G’day No. 46,

Further to your [quote] ‘just describing how it is’ [endquote] it may be handy to point out how I rarely reply to anyone’s private emails – rather than just not to yours – as all of my life I have never been much of a letter-writer (for instance, in my first marriage, 1966-1983, my then-wife conducted all correspondence including celebratory-cards/ festive-season cards, and so on, to relatives and acquaintances).

Indeed, in the early days of having The Actual Freedom Trust website on-line – during the five-year period when I was an ISP myself (albeit in a small way) owning a nowadays difficult-to-obtain block of IP addresses and running both a web-server and a mail-server on a net-worked computer system in my home – it did not take long before I found myself utilising a stock-standard response template for the queries and objections many and various peoples addressed to me privately.

Vis.:

Dear {...insert name...},
Thank you for your email of {...insert date...}.
Please address your observations and/or queries to The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list as I rarely, if ever, conduct a private correspondence: [...now-dead link snipped...]
The mailing list venue is the best forum for discussing these matters as all those subscribed can thus benefit from any discussion – all peoples interested can read and/or join in – thus ensuring maximum input and diverse approaches and/or experiences. This also has the effect of exposing any flaws or weakness in what is being presented – a peer- group review as it were – and can only serve to further the establishment of what is factual.
Plus an actual freedom from the human condition works best in the market place – and not behind cloistered walls – and the relative anonymity of the internet medium allows for an uninhibited expression that is unequalled anywhere else.
Thank you for your interest.
Regards, {...insert name...}.
(Acting as Administrator).

Interestingly enough, it was a minority who eventually subscribed to the mailing list and, out of those who did, an even smaller minority posted something – let alone regularly – preferring, apparently, to be non-participants (and thus, presumably, not have any ‘flaws or weakness’ exposed to ‘peer- group review’).

Incidentally, out of idle curiosity I have just now checked the ‘Sent’ folder for 2013, in my hard-drive email client, and it appears I wrote a grand total of 11 private emails last year (several of which relate to a sibling advising me our biological mother had died).

RESPONDENT: I have written to them many times and they know a lot about me. They know for example, that I have been diagnosed as having a mental illness, which most doctors have said is schizophrenia. Richard and Vineeto have also said they can’t talk to me about my mental illness.

RICHARD: Rather than just stating that baldly it may also be handy to point out why not ... to wit: having medicalised however it is you are experiencing yourself/your world – by soliciting medical assistance – it would be highly improper for me to proffer counselling as those medically-trained/ officially-registered professionals are duly licensed to provide such assistance (and particularly so as they have the legislatively-sanctioned power of forced admission to locked psychiatric wards solely on their say-so).

What I did say to you, however, is what I tell anyone in a similar situation: whenever surging feelings/ racing thoughts are operating keep your hands in your pockets and your mouth shut ... and all will be well (eventually).

In other words, it pays not to be persuaded by such powerful feelings/ urgent thoughts to do anything one would not ordinarily do at that time; if it be lunch-time, for instance, have some lunch even if not particularly hungry; if there be bills to pay, or whatever, pay them as if normal; and in every way, shape or form, act and speak normally (especially important, apparently, is to not go prancing naked along the main street – particularly while conversing/ arguing with ocularly invisible friends/ enemies – as that is an almost sure-fire way to be forcibly incarcerated, without legal trial, for an indefinite duration in some unsavoury lock-up (e.g., psyche-ward) ... plus, more than likely, along with the forced ingestion/ injection of, mostly quite deleterious, state-approved drugs which can, and do on occasion, turn what is otherwise a neurotic condition, with or without psychotic episodes, into being a psychotic state).

*

If I might ask, though, what benefit do you obtain from having gone insane?

Put differently: what advantage accrued to you upon becoming a lunatic?

Regards,
Richard.

February 6 2014

RESPONDENT: BEFORE ‘As for your use of ‘I had seen through Richard’s method’ ... you have to be referring to the question: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ ... as that is the only method I advance. In what way, may I ask, have you ‘seen through it’? In what way is it either personally unhealthy or socially reprehensible ... for how else can it be deemed faulty?’ www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-honesty.htm

‘What ‘I’ did, all those years ago, was to devise a remarkably effective method of ridding this body of ‘me’ (I know that methods are to be actively discouraged, in some people’s eyes, but this one worked). It takes some doing to start off with, but as success after success starts to multiply exponentially, it becomes automatic to have this question running as an on-going thing (as a non-verbal attitude towards life ... a wordless approach each moment again) because it delivers the goods right here and now ... not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – almost on demand – and thus satisfies the ‘scientific method’. ‘I’ asked myself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive’?’ http://web.archive.org/web/20110930023940/http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/thismomentofbeingalive.htm

AFTER ‘Note: asking how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is not the actualism method; consistently enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is. And this is because the actualism method is all about consciously and knowingly imitating life in the actual world. Also, by virtue of proceeding in this manner the means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and appreciation – are no different to the end itself.’ www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/thismomentofbeingalive.htm (Subject: The actualism method has changed, Thu, 30 Jan 2014)

RICHARD: G’day No, 46,

The title of this new thread you started – ‘The actualism method has changed’ – reads as if you are making a statement of fact (rather than, say, presenting a query such as ‘has the actualism method changed?’).

Two questions immediately spring to mind:

1. What has ‘the actualism method’ changed from (according to you)?

2. What has ‘the actualism method’ changed into (according to you)?

*

And here is a supplementary question: what have those parenthesised [quote] ‘a non-verbal attitude towards life ... a wordless approach each moment again’ [endquote] words in the quote you retrieved from the ‘Internet Archive Wayback Machine’ – and which words still feature, albeit no longer in parenthesis, on my rewritten ‘This Moment Of Being Alive’ web page – conveyed to you these last four-five years (since 2007)?

Regards,
Richard.

February 7 2016

Re: The Intimate Ambiance Experiment Audio Recordings

• [Claudiu to Richard]: “Could you go into more detail as to what intimacy experiences are, how they differ from excellence experiences, and what role they play in being out-from-control/in a different-way-of-being? Did they feature in feeling-being ‘Richard’s wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom?” (Message № 21810).

• [Respondent to Richard]: “In addition to that I would also like to ask about “real intimacy” and “actual intimacy”, I mean, is that intimacy you are talking about related to “real intimacy” or would it be “near-actual intimacy” or something like that?” (Message № 218xx).

• [Claudiu to Respondent]: “Just to clarify, since the phrase “real intimacy” doesn’t appear on the Actual Freedom Trust website - by “real intimacy” do you mean something like “intimacy in the 'real’ world”, or, affective intimacy, as in, say, “the affective intimacy of love”?”. (Message № 21813).

• [Respondent to Claudiu]: “Yes and yes, if you’re not actually free then I assume any intimacy will be affective anyway, that’s why I’d like clarification”. (Message № 218xx).

[Richard to Claudiu]: “In the same way that excellence experiences (EE’s) were a notable feature of feeling-being ‘Richard’s virtual freedom experiencing circa March-September 1981, although of course not named as such back then, so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend. [...elide 10 paragraphs re the felicitous advent of naïve intimacy...]”. (Message № 21835).

*

RESPONDENT: Hello, Richard.

There are lots of references to “actual intimacy” on your website but there is no mention of “real intimacy”. Is “real intimacy” the same as “The affective intimacy of love” mentioned below?

Regards,
[Respondent]

RICHARD: G’day [No. 46],

I incorporated considerable detail relating to “near-actual intimacy” (as per your “in addition” query re-presented further above) into my response to Claudiu’s request – as in, “the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté” & “an intimacy of such near-innocence” & “the felicitous advent of naïve intimacy” & “a near-PCE...intimacy experience”, for example – whilst bearing in mind your “yes and yes” reply, to his clarifying-with-live-links email to you, on the assumption that the word yes means ...um... ‘sim’ (i.e., ‘resposta affirmativa’).

Look, the reason why that “real intimacy” term of yours does not appear on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is essentially no different to why a term such as, say, ‘real sincerity’ also does not feature even though countless peoples fake sincerity, as a matter-of-course, throughout many of their interactions with their fellow human beings – developing that particular skill-set is considered an essential part of on-the-job training, for instance, in matters of commerce (e.g., used-car salespersons) and politics (e.g., ambassadorial attachés) for some obvious instances – inasmuch the distinction between such unreal sincerity and a real sincerity (just as is the case with unreal intimacy and real intimacy) is not the focus of what is on offer on the website.

Indeed, the entire focus is upon how being alive, as a conscious/ sentient creature on this verdant and azure planet, is experienced during perfection experiences which are known, for convenience in communication, as pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) – as contrasted to how life is experienceable when either an ordinary state of being is operating or a non-ordinary state of being, a.k.a. an altered state of consciousness (ASC), is operational in its stead – and instead of coining new words, when reporting/ describing/ explaining such experiencing, it was far more practicable to instead exploit an anomalous distinction, which exists in everyday usage of the English language (however, not in Brazilian Portuguese, though), between the word ‘real’ and the word ‘actual’.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 25]: “And now, if my grandmother would ask me if God exists, I would tell her that it does, He’s real but it’s not actual. Ha-ha-ha ! And then she’ll ask me what actual means, I suppose that’s where the <go> starts”.

• [Richard]: “Back when I was a father, when my then children would ask me if Santa Claus was real, I would say yes but not actual like a table is, for instance, as their mother was full-on into the traditions and such diplomatic answers, rather than an outright no, made for relative domestic harmony and they had no difficulty whatsoever in grasping that concept (and applying it to witches riding broomsticks as well and fairies at the bottom of the garden and so on).

Curiously enough many years later (for I was a normal family man back then) that diplomatic response came in handy when endeavouring to come to terms with the existential dilemma I was living at the end of the enlightened period ... hence the term ‘actual’ in actual freedom.

If a child can grasp it anyone can (even though dictionaries draw no such distinction)”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 19 July 2003).

This anomalous usage is only possible because the word real (from Late Latin reālis, from Latin rēs, ‘thing’) has increasingly come to mean, in everyday usage, more or less whatever is perceived, felt or intuited to be a reality for the percipient, the feeler or the intuiter thereof (e.g., “you create your own reality”) – and corresponds to a similarly self-centrically subjective usage of the word truth (e.g., “that’s your truth”) as distinct from the word fact – whereas the word actual definitively refers to that which exists, or occurs, as a matter of verifiable fact and has thus far remained intact, as such, despite the veritable onslaught objectivity has been assailed with since relativity infected mainstream academic thought due to mathematicians having taken over physics, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with their abstract mathematical models

Furthermore, as the term ‘real world’ is a regular feature of everyday English usage (e.g., “life in the real world”) – and especially so in a pejorative sense, as in, “welcome to the real world”, for example, or “life’s tough in the real world” and “it’s dog-eat-dog in the real world”, for instance – it readily lends itself to being contrasted to the unadulterated actual world (i.e., the world of the senses, the sensate world, the world where flesh-and-bodies already reside) where being alive, as a conscious/ sentient creature, takes place on a paradisaical terraqueous globe, as an everyday actuality.

Thus, by the prefacing of the word ‘intimacy’, in this instance, with the word actual – so as to refer to how intimacy is experienced in actuality (where flesh-and-bodies already reside) – the necessity of explaining what newly-coined words mean is thereby obviated.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 110]: “Perhaps it would help me if you explained what felicity is”.

• [Richard]: “One way to put it would be to say that the felicity being discussed – the felicity inherent to perfection – is what the feeling of happiness is but an affective substitute for ... and to then say that when I went public to inform my fellow human being of my discovery I chose to not coin new words, as that would be counter-productive, but to instead make a distinct difference between the word ‘actual’ and the word ‘real’ (plus the word ‘fact’ and the word ‘true’) whereas the dictionaries do not.

Suppose I had used the letters ‘qwerty’ (the first six letters on a standard keyboard) to refer to what is inherent to perfection; would it not have led to being asked what that means? For example:

• [example only]: ‘Happiness is dependent upon felicitous events whereas qwerty, being inherent to perfection, occurs all the while regardless of infelicitous events’. [end example].

Besides which ... anybody having had a memorable PCE knows exactly what I am talking about”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 110b, 13 June 2006).

Therefore, what you are effectively asking – via your “Is “real intimacy” the same as “The affective intimacy of love” mentioned below?” wording – is whether or not intimacy is the same as the intimacy of love.

Yet, because intimacy can be referred in several ways by feeling-beings – as indicated by those quick dictionary definitions you provided – then your query makes about as much sense as its obverse would (i.e., whether or not the intimacy of love is the same as intimacy).

As the word ‘intimacy’ refers to the state or condition of being intimate – a word which comes from Latin intimātus, past participle of intimāre, ‘to make familiar with’ from Latin intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost, deepest’; from intus, ‘within’ – perhaps a more extensive dictionary entry than those quick ones will throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to know about intimacy per se and the intimacy of love.

Viz.:

• intimate (n. & adj.): A. (n.): 1. a characteristic example of a human type (only in early 17th. cent.). 2. a very close friend or associate (early 17th. cent.). B (adj.): 1. (a): of or pertaining to the inmost nature or fundamental character of a thing; essential; intrinsic; now chiefly in scientific use (early 17th. cent.). (b): entering deeply or closely into a matter (early 19th. cent.). 2. proceeding from, concerning, or relating to one’s deepest thoughts or feelings; closely personal, private (middle 17th. cent.). 3. involving very close connection or union; thoroughly mixed, united (middle 17th. cent.); [e.g.]: “There is an intimate interdependence of intellect and morals” ~ R. W. Emerson. 4. of knowledge: resulting from close familiarity; deep, extensive (middle 17th. cent.). 5. (a): united by friendship or other personal relationship; familiar, close; also, pertaining to or dealing with close personal relations (middle 17th. cent.); [e.g.]: “An intimate friend, a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul” ~ L. M. Montgomery; “Having children in common they had something more intimate than could ever be shared by friends and lovers” ~ A. N. Wilson; “Waking up with someone seemed more intimate than making love in some ways” ~ J. Krantz. (b): familiarly associated; closely personal (late 19th. cent.); [e.g.]: “These diminutive intimate things bring one near to the Old Roman life” ~ H. James. (c): having or seeking to create an informal, warm, friendly atmosphere (early 20th. cent.); [e.g.]: “The armchairs had been arranged in intimate groups” ~ W. Boyd. 6. (a): euphem. having sexual intercourse (with, together) (late 19th. cent.); [e.g.]: “Some of them were what newspapers call intimate together, without having undergone marriage” ~ R. Macaulay. (b): pertaining to or involving the sexual organs or bodily orifices (early 20th. cent.); [e.g.]: “There was a long, fairly passionate embrace with a certain amount of intimate caressing” ~ K. Amis; “Intimate searches (of body orifices) will be conducted by police officers” ~ Times; (adv.): intimately (middle 17th. cent.). [Origin: early 17th. cent. from Late Latin intimatus past participle of intimare, from intimus (n.) ‘a close friend’; (adj.) ‘innermost’ + -ate, suffix forming adjectives and nouns]. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary).

And:

• intimacy (n.): 1. (a) intimate friendship or acquaintance; close familiarity; an instance of this (middle 17th. cent.); [e.g.]: “So great was their intimacy that rumours of a stronger tie – amorous, even marital – persisted” ~ A. Fraser. (b) euphem. sexual intercourse (late 17th. cent.); [e.g.]: “She stayed the night at his father’s house; intimacy took place on that occasion” ~ Westminster Gazette. 2. inner or inmost nature; an inward quality or feature (middle 17th.-late 18th. cent.). 3. intimate or close connection or union; rare (early 18th. cent.). 4. closeness of observation or knowledge (early 18th. cent.). [origin: middle 17th. cent. from intimate (adj.) + -acy]. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary).

What is immediately noticeable is how the listings in the various dictionaries do not feature the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté. This is because there is a marked lack of information on the distinction between the intimacy of love and that naïve intimacy (as pointed out in the latter part of the first paragraph of my Message № 21835).

Viz.:

• [Richard]: “(...) so too did intimacy experiences (IE’s) play a similarly significant role even though increasingly overshadowed by the insistent emergence of love – and, especially, Love Agapé – in the later months due to *a marked lack of precedence and, thus, of any praxeological publications* (nowadays made freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust web site) on the distinction betwixt the near-innocent intimacy of naïveté and the affectional intimacy of romance lore and legend”. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu4, 28 January 2016).

I also detailed how feeling-being ‘Grace’, who was exacting in evaluating ‘her’ differing ways of being a ‘self’, had gradations of scale in regards to intimacy (togetherness: → closeness: → sweetness: → richness: →  actuality magicality) – all of which correlated to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself to an actual innocence – in the second and third paragraphs following on from the above.

Thus your query (posted nearly 7 hours after that Message № 21835 of mine) also bears no relationship to all of this “near-actual intimacy” detail I specifically incorporated into my response to Claudiu’s request as per your “in addition” query in Message № 218xx.

*

(Incidentally, and purely as a matter of historical note, I first detailed the above gradations publicly on Tue Nov 10, 2009, in Message № 7476 which – along with 30+ other posts of mine – was deliberately censored via being deleted from this forum’s archives and thus potentially stricken from view forever, as part of a concerted effort to stop the global spread of peace-on-earth dead in its tracks, along with several proposals to prevent me from publishing copies of my ‘Yahoo Groups’ correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust web site).

*

In regards to elaborating on the difference between intimacy as experienced by feeling-beings (i.e., the affective intimacy of the ‘real world’) and the actual intimacy experienced by flesh-and-blood bodies only (i.e., sans identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty), in the world as-it-is in actuality, it will be instructive to first provide the context from which you selected that second paragraph of mine you quoted (with that paragraph highlighted for convenience).

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 27]: “Richard, I am currently perplexed about ‘caring’. You distinguish between ‘feeling caring’ and ‘actually caring’. I think I understand the distinction for the most part – ‘feeling caring’ is caring based upon emotion – ‘feeling’ that one cares, and ‘actually caring’ is something that happens ONLY in a PCE or when one is actually free. Now, this results in the somewhat shocking statement that the only people who actually care are those in pure consciousness”.

• [Richard]: “Aye, it can indeed be a shock to realise that, for all the protestations of being caring, no one trapped in the human condition actually cares. However, apart from galvanising one into action, it is a liberating realisation as it releases one from the bonds that tie.

There are always strings attached in affective caring”.
[...].
• [Respondent № 27]: “I have similar questions about the distinction between ‘feeling intimacy’ and ‘actual intimacy’. Could you define exactly what you mean by those terms – as well as just exactly what you would say is going on when there is a ‘feeling intimacy’?”

• [Richard]: “So as to circumvent coining new words I chose to make a distinct difference between the word ‘actual’ and the word ‘real’ (plus the word ‘fact’ and the word ‘true’) whereas the dictionaries do not: thus when I talk of the actual world, as contrasted to the real world, whilst both words refer to the physical world I am making a distinction in experience.

I usually put it this way: what one is (what not who) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/‘me’) inside the body means no separation whatsoever – whereas ‘I’/‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose.

*This entity, or being, residing in the body is forever cut-off from the actual – from the world as-it-is – because its inner world reality is pasted as a veneer over the actual world, thus creating the outer world reality known as the real world, and experiences an affective intimacy (oneness, union, unity, wholeness) wherein the separation is bridged by love and compassion ... instead of an actual intimacy (direct, instant, immediate, absolute) where there is no separation whatsoever*.

In other words, no separative identity in the first place means no division exists to be transcended”.

• [Respondent № 27]: “Is there no intimacy in feeling intimacy?”

• [Richard]: “Yes, there is the feeling of being intimate”.

• [Respondent № 27]: “If that’s the case, why do you call it feeling ‘intimacy’?”

• [Richard]: “Because that is what it is ... the feeling of being intimate”. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 18 November 2002).

Basically, I am sitting here (metaphorically) scratching my head and wondering just what it is you want to know which is ... (1.) not already explicated in that exchange ... and (2.) not already elaborated on in my ‘intimacy experiences’ email (posted nigh-on 7 hours before this one of yours).

Perhaps if I were to put it this way: a feeling-being, residing as they do in their ‘self’-created ‘inner world’, feels separated from other feeling-beings as a matter of course (who, whilst similarly residing in their own ‘self’-created ‘inner worlds’, nevertheless manifest as residing in that feeling-being’s ‘self’-created ‘outer world’) and seeks to bridge that separation in the only way a feeling-being can – affectively and psychically – such as to experience a feeling of being intimate (i.e., a feeling intimacy a.k.a. an affective intimacy), when successful, and even unto an affective-psychic union, or oneness experience, when that feeling of being intimate, through having become a loving intimacy, then transforms itself, via what is known as “falling in love”, into a state of being called “being in love”.

Meanwhile, here in this actual world – (where flesh-and-bodies already reside and where nary a feeling-being nor any dichotomous inner-world/ outer world reality is to be found wheresoever) – any and all experiencing is intimate in its very nature by default (expressed as “direct, instant, immediate, absolute”, in the above quoted paragraph), as in unmediated, and I have previously highlighted the all-inclusive nature of this by referring to “an actual intimacy with an ash-tray” for deliberate effect.

Given that intimacy as typically experienced by a feeling-being is so totally different to intimacy as bodily experienced, in actuality, then this impression you have (about how “most people still can’t tell the difference” between them) looks more like an impression in need of considerable review than anything else.

And especially so as your speculation about the intimacy involved in “The Intimate Ambiance Experiment” (which to you “appears to be the intimacy of friends talking” despite having listened to very little of the recordings) – being based on the differentiation between a feeling-being’s intimacy, as typically experienceable, and intimacy as bodily experienced (else why ask for elaboration thereof and thus clarification thereby) – neither takes into account the very raison d’être of the experiment itself, despite such featuring in its title, nor the intimacy atypically experienced in the real world [so atypical, in fact, as to not feature in the listings in the various dictionaries].

Here is a “thought for the day” (so to speak): unless you have or know of “friends talking” solely with the intent of [quote] “creating a felicitous/ innocuous/ intimate atmosphere via psychic currents (i.e. via each participant aiming to enjoy and appreciate each moment of being alive via at least (affectively) feeling good, thus automatically giving off general-sense-of-well-being psychic currents, to be picked up by the other participants and to reinforce their own general-senses-of-well-being, and so on in a feedback loop)” [endquote] then your “it appears to be the intimacy of friends talking” speculation similarly looks to be in need of considerable review as well.

And especially so as you immediately go on to express how you, personally, are *still* desiring “the intimacy of close or genuine friendship where one can be honest about one’s true feelings and talk about anything” (which, bespeaking as it does of such “intimacy of friends talking” being yet to happen for you, suggests that the very nature of your speculation itself is based upon an ideal as to what constitutes an intimacy born of friendship).

*

As to your query regarding the word ‘associates’ vis-à-vis ‘friends’ the following exchanges are quite informative in respect to not only friendship/ comradeship and connubiality/ conjugality but also in regards to familial/ societal relationships as well.

Viz.:

• [Respondent № 88]: “A comparison between a relationship with love and a relationship with ‘actual freedom’, would be appreciated”.

• [Richard]: “Okay ... first and foremost I am assuming you mean the word in a way more or less similar to this:

• relationship (n.): a connection, an association, spec. an emotional (esp. sexual) association between two people. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary).

As a relationship is *specifically* described as being an emotional association between two people – as in an affective connection, union, bond (as in ‘the bonds of friendship’) or tie (as in ‘family ties’) – it confuses the issue somewhat to call being together monogamously with another, when actually free from the human condition, “a relationship” ... indeed, in the first edition of ‘Richard’s Journal’, where I used that very word (albeit as a modern-day substitute for the word ‘marriage’), it caused enough confusion for some readers as to occasion my replacement of it with the term ‘an association’ when preparing the second edition.

Having said all that ... there actually is no comparison between a relationship (either with or without love) and an association where there is an actual freedom from the human condition because the former, being within the human condition, is essentially an association with another identity whereas the latter is an association with another flesh and blood body. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 88, 27 April 2005a).

And:

• [Richard]: “Given that the primary basis of a meaningful friendship is an affectionate attachment, a tie or a bond based upon one identity making an affective connection with another identity, it speaks volumes about the underlying nature of relationship that a proposition of that ilk [viz.: an overture of friendship] deemed to be spurned incurs chagrin. A succinct description of this core nature can be as follows:

• ‘friend: a person joined by affection and intimacy to another, independently of sexual or family love’. ~ (Oxford English Dictionary).

• ‘friend: one attached to another by affection or esteem’. ~ (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary).

• ‘friend: a person you know well and regard with affection and trust’. ~ (Princeton’s WordNet 1.6).

• ‘friend (word history): a friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin amicus ‘friend’ and amos ‘I love’ is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos ‘friend’ and phileo ‘I love’. In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, freond, the Old English word for ‘friend,’ was simply the present participle of the verb freon, ‘to love’. The Germanic root behind this verb is fri-, which meant ‘to like, love, be friendly to’. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).

Of course the words ‘friendly’ and ‘friendliness’ have different connotations to the root meanings of ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’ ... such connotations as amity, affability, amiability, geniality, cordiality, courtesy, civility, helpfulness, kindliness, gentleness, benevolence, and so on.

The need for a friend, and to be a friend, is an urge for an affectuous coupling based upon separation; an identity is alone and/or lonely and longs for the union that is evidenced in a relationship. When both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct there is no need – and no capacity – for such unity: the expression ‘life is a movement in relationship’ applies only to a psychological and/or psychic entity who wants the feeling of oneness – a synthetic intimacy per favour the bridge of affection/love – which manifests the deception that separation has ended. And if human relationship does not produce the desired result, then one will project a god or a goddess – a ‘super-friend’ not dissimilar to the imaginary playmates of childhood – to love and be loved by.

The ridiculous part in all this is that we are fellow human beings anyway (like species recognise like species) and to seek to impose friendship over the top of fellowship is, as someone once said in another context, like painting red ink on a red rose ... a garish redundancy. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 24 June 2003).

To summarise: as a flesh-and-blood body only my experience of all flesh-and-blood bodies – of which there are 7.0+ billion of the human variety – is direct, instant, immediate, absolute ... as in, unmediated by any separative identity, whatsoever.

In other words, as there are no feeling-beings in actuality then their highly-valued relationships/ friendships have no actual existence either.

’Tis all so simple, here.

Regards,
Richard.

RETURN TO MAILING LIST ‘D’ INDEX

RICHARD’S HOME PAGE

The Third Alternative

(Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body)