April 8 2026

ANDREW: Seriously though, I have swam with these jellyfish as a kid, threw a couple back in from the shallow water the other day, and I have never heard them say anything malicious or sorrowful.

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

Perhaps this link gives you a more informative overview why imagining to be like an animal would not solve the problem of instinctual passions. (see: Sundry, FAQ16 – Why do you say animals are unhappy?)

Further information can be found in Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Animals .

ANDREW: These scientific type statements on the AFT do my head in; a jellyfish is closer to a tree or mushroom that to me.

VINEETO: And yet you said, only 2 hrs later –

Andrew: Further, it’s because I am a better version of me with alcohol that I can consider what you are saying and what I said, and go ahead an explain it.

Normal me just gets angry and shuts down or goes into hiding in my “ivory tower”, Tipsy me is far more interested in being engaged.

It is not your various cells which dictate how you feel and behave, it is your social-instinctual identity who does. When you recognize and acknowledge that you either get angry or withdraw in a particular conversation, you can decide to do something to minimise these feelings with affective attentiveness and sincere intent via applying the actualism method instead of side-stepping the problem.

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ANDREW: Regarding “hedonism” I was using it in the way Peter and Richard used it, as in straight colloquial usage of pleasure. I would say that the contradiction of the definition you linked and the many colloquial uses on the AFT leave a large confusion on exactly what was being encouraged when sex is endorsed as something to be explored. In everyday speech, hedonism refers to chasing pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Simple as that.

For context, the thought was in the middle of considering Kuba’s recent reference to sex, and the thoughts were “well, that ain’t happening any day soon, but I wonder if lifting these weights could feel good?”

VINEETO: What you overlooked when Richard used the word ‘hedonism’ “in straight colloquial usage of pleasure” that he clearly states that “actualism, being *most definitely not hedonism*”. He is clearly not encouraging “chasing pleasure for pleasure’s sake” as that would be “narcissistic hedonism”.

Richard: … nowhere on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is the slightest trace to be seen anywhere whatsoever, amongst any of those millions of freely available words and writings, of either promoting and/or promulgating a ‘narcissistic hedonism’ or promoting and/or promulgating being so by ‘putting one’s own enjoyment and interests first and foremost’ (let alone promoting and/or promulgating being so ‘without much [...] respect for moral principles to minimise the impact on others’ either) be it with or without an intimate connection betwixt the pristine-purity of an actual innocence and the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté (i.e., pure intent).

On the contrary, what is promoted and/or promulgated on the web site is enjoying and appreciating being alive/ being here each moment again – that is, despite the normal vicissitudes of life – by establishing a general feeling of well-being (a.k.a. ‘feeling good’), as a bottom line of experiencing and, thereby, all the while agreeably complying with the legal laws and observing the social protocols (i.e., the many and various customs, traditions, conventions, values, principles, morals, ethics, codes, observances, etiquettes, niceties, formalities, ceremonies, rituals, and so on, as observed in many and various ways in the many and various countries around the world).

Moreover, as a central aim in all the above is the fellowship regard of an actual intimacy whereby it is impossible to not like one’s fellow human being – and given that the means to the end are no different than that end (other than affectively for the one, in the meanwhile, and actually for the other, upon the end) – then any phantasy talk about having to minimise ‘the impact on others’ is patently preposterous, as well, as to maximise ‘the impact on others’ is to facilitate a global spread of peace and harmony. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Hedonism).

I recommend reading the whole section of the above correspondence (1^st selection) as this correspondent seems to be misinterpreting the actualism method in a similar way as you presently do.

Richard: ‘To feel pleasure affectively (hedonistically) is a far cry from the direct experiencing of the actual where the retinas revel in the profusion of colour, texture and form; the eardrums carouse with the cavalcade of sound, resonance and timbre; the nostrils rejoice in the abundance of aromas, fragrances and scents; the tastebuds savour the plethora of tastes, flavours and zests; the epidermis delights to touch, caress and fondle ... a veritable cornucopia of luscious, sumptuous sensuosity.

All the while is the apperceptive wonder that this marvellous paradise actually exists in all its vast array. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27, 8 January 2002).

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Richard: Hmm ... I have no need of a contrast whatsoever. The perfection of this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space is so pleasurable that people who call me a hedonist are missing the mark ... hedonism is nowhere near as pleasurable as this that is my on-going experiencing.

(…)

A cheap throwaway line ... you have asked me before about hedonism before and I have explained it to you. I am not going to copy and paste that exchange because it is simply a waste of time. You are going to continue to run the line that Richard is a hedonist no matter what I say on the subject. So be it. You are a fool. (Richard, Konrad Correspondence, Page 15, 11 November 1998).

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Richard: I was wondering when someone would introduce the label ‘Hedonist’ into this list – and who it would be. As ‘Hedonism’ is merely the opposite of ‘Asceticism’, (which, I understand, is your current path to obtain enlightenment) it is but an example of dualistic thinking. (Richard, List A, No. 4, #No. 03).

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Richard: Also, as you have titled this e-mail ‘actualism = hedonism’, the following will be informative:

• [Richard]: ‘... what I write is a report, a description, and an explanation, of what life is like in this actual world – the sensate world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum – which is the world which becomes apparent when identity in toto (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) become extinct.

In other words, the affective faculty in its entirety (which includes its epiphenomenal psychic facility) has no existence whatsoever ... meaning that it is impossible to ever be hedonic (aka ‘a pleasure-seeker’) as the affective pleasure/ pain centre in the brain is null and void.

The following passage is how I have described the anhedonic actualism experience: [quote]: ‘To feel pleasure affectively (hedonistically) is a far cry from the direct experiencing of the actual where the retinas revel in the profusion of colour, texture and form; the eardrums carouse with the cavalcade of sound, resonance and timbre; the nostrils rejoice in the abundance of aromas, fragrances and scents; the tastebuds savour the plethora of tastes, flavours and zests; the epidermis delights to touch, caress and fondle ... a veritable cornucopia of luscious, sumptuous sensuosity. All the while is the apperceptive wonder that this marvellous paradise actually exists in all its vast array’. [endquote].

Coupled with the inability to affectively feel pleasure is, of course, the inability to affectively feel pain (as in the pleasure/ pain principle which spiritualism makes quite an issue out of yet never does eliminate) even though most, if not all, definitions of anhedonia only say ‘the inability to feel pleasure’ ... actualism, being *most definitely not hedonism*, can never be sadistic, masochistic, or sadomasochistic’. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74, 2 September 2004).

(Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 49c, 21 January 2006).

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Richard: Yes, the sex drive is an instinct ... and this instinct – and other instincts – can be eliminated entirely. Then one is free to act appropriately according to the circumstances – and not out of an instinctual reaction. Instincts are not set in stone, they are simply ‘blind nature’s’ way of ensuing survival. With our thinking, reflective brain we can improve on nature in this respect, as we have done in so many other ways. Any instinctual drive can be eradicated.

Then one is free to enjoy the sexual act as a physical, sensual pleasure (not as an emotional or passionate ‘solution’ to loneliness and sorrow via love) or free to enjoy celibacy as an idiosyncratic celebration of singularity (not as a dispassionate or detached way to dissolve the ego via craftiness). It is then an act of free choice to have sex, or not have sex, just as easily in either alternative. No drive means no urge. With no urge there is nothing to have to deny, nor anything to have to indulge. Thus it is neither ‘Asceticism’ nor ‘Hedonism’ ... this is an actual freedom.

I do not have any emotions to enjoy (or to dislike) as all feelings – emotions and passions – are no longer extant. (Richard, List A, No. 1).

I can only say it again for emphasis – nowhere in any of these quotes, taken from the selected correspondence on Hedonism, can I find Richard endorsing the “straight colloquial usage of pleasure”. Perhaps, if you looked up his correspondence, you overlooked the word “anhedonic” and “actualism, being *most definitely not hedonism*”.

Cheers Vineeto

April 9 2026

ANDREW: Well, that will definitely mean I no longer call it hedonism.

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

There is nothing wrong with using the word ‘hedonism’ if that is what you choose as your modus operandi. If you intend to be “chasing pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Simple as that”, then hedonism is the exact word for this MO.

To just say you will no longer “call it hedonism” is not the issue – that is merely changing the label, not the action. The issue is rather, if you want to chase pleasure for pleasure’s sake, i.e. experience the ‘good’ feelings, push away or suppress the bad feelings under the guise. I only wanted to make it clear that this is not the actualism method.

ANDREW: These were the types of references I had in mind with allowing pleasure;

‘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. [emphasis by Andrew]. (Peter, Selected Correspondence, Hedonism, 28.5.2000).

VINEETO: Was it this ‘attractive option’ of “indulgent consumption that borders on hedonism” what coloured your understanding when you read Peter’s correspondence?

Of course, if one only focuses on feeling being ‘Peter’s’ experiential description one has to ignore that his experience was the result of practicing the actualism method which he described elsewhere, for instance –

‘Peter’: The essential method was to undertake a total investigation into anything that was preventing me from being happy and harmless now – after all, the point of living is to be happy and harmless now, not at some time in the future, or at some time in the past. The question to ask myself was, ‘How do I experience this moment of being alive?’ Now is, after all, the only time I can experience being happy. Any emotion such as anger, frustration or boredom that is preventing my happiness now, has to be traced back to its cause – the exact incident, thought, expectation or disappointment. At the root of this emotion is inevitably found a belief or an instinctual passion. The ruthless challenging, exposing and understanding of these beliefs and instinctual passions actually weakens their influence on my thoughts and behaviour. The process, if followed diligently and obsessively, will ultimately cause the beliefs to disappear completely and the instinctual passions to be greatly minimized. The idea, of course, is to eliminate the cause of my unhappiness, ‘me’, so that I can experience life at the optimum, here, now. (Peter’s Journal, Introduction).

And because you referred to Kuba’s recent message about sexual enjoyment (2 April 2026) “for context” here is another snippet of Peter’s report –

‘Peter’: So, it was obvious that the sex drive was the problem and the problem was in me. As an experiment, I decided to plunge fully into both masturbation and fantasy, to allow myself to push beyond the feelings of guilt and shame that had plagued me since my teenage years. I kept going beyond self-indulgence; and something curious began to happen. It became clear to me that this was just plain silly, stupid, mad and destructive. Here I was with a willing woman, to whom I was sexually attracted, and there was this drive in me that prevented me from being with her as a real woman. When I was with her sexually I would be thinking of other women, and I knew this to be a common male situation. When I saw other women I would be sexually attracted to them and fantasise about them. Facing this squarely in myself and contemplating it led me to a devastating conclusion. This sex drive within me is not concerned with me being happy with one woman; in fact, it is actively conspiring to prevent it! (Peter’s Journal, Sex).

This is to demonstrate that despite ‘Peter’s’ exuberant expression of “living a life of indulgent consumption that borders on hedonism”, it is not a philosophical advice but the lived description of the result of successfully applying the actualism method.

Just for completeness, because you seemed to have stopped looking after you found Peter’s quote – here are two examples of feeling being ‘Vineeto’s’ comment on hedonism –

‘Vineeto’: Those who overlook the second half of the phrase ‘happy and harmless’ often confuse actualism with hedonism and thus completely miss the point. You might be advised to check the topic of hedonism in The Actual Freedom Trust library – you will find that hedonism is diametrically opposite to an actual freedom from the human condition. (Vineeto, Selected Correspondence, Hedonism, 8.10.2003)

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‘Vineeto’: Becoming free from the Human Condition of malice and sorrow means to pursue becoming happy and harmless. Whereas traditional Hedonism like the Charvakas have tried to suffocate or at least balance human sorrow by indulging in pleasures and avoiding pain, actualism aims to eliminate the root cause of malice and sorrow, one’s very ‘self’ – the animal instinctual passions with one’s overlaying social identity of beliefs, morals and ethics. (Vineeto, Selected Correspondence, Hedonism, 22.7.2000)

I only present this, plus the series of Richard’s quotes in my last message, to say there was no need for you to misunderstand actualism being equivalent to hedonism, unless you chose to and then hold actualists responsible for leaving a “large confusion” –

Andrew: Regarding “hedonism” I was using it in the way Peter and Richard used it, as in straight colloquial usage of pleasure. I would say that the contradiction of the definition you linked and the many colloquial uses on the AFT leave a large confusion on exactly what was being encouraged when sex is endorsed as something to be explored. In everyday speech, hedonism refers to chasing pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Simple as that. [Emphasis added].

As a final clarification a quote from Richard in the Actual Freedom Library –

Richard: … and quite another to delightedly enjoy the ripples of pleasure that this body is patently capable of manifesting whilst actualizing benignity and blitheness.

These organic waves of sensational pleasure are usually constrained by the demands of the entity for emotional and passionate feelings … which are the synthetic compensations for the supposed indignity of having to be here at all as this despised body. When the psychological – and psychic – entity willingly abdicates its sovereignty and takes its leave, the senses can act in their optimum manner … just as when a normal person becomes blind, for instance, all the other senses are heightened. The result is a phenomenal increase in the pleasurable sensitivity of being a corporeal body in this very physical world. The resultant benevolence produces easy good-will, kindness and benevolence, for one is living in a friendly world … made all the more amiable because of the innate munificence and magnanimity of the purity of the perfection of the infinitude of the universe as is evidenced only at this moment in time.

This is important to comprehend, for under different conditions thoughtful people are prone to jumping to the conclusion that one would then be an out and out hedonist – an unfortunate appellation for I rather like the term and wished it received far better press – yet as a matter of fact and actuality, one is demonstrating one’s appreciation of all that the universe can offer by being here in a palpable and tangible sense. Instead of standing back and expressing a feeling – an emotion or passion – about this world, one is saying yes to existence in the most evident and obvious way … with tactile approbation and sensibly discernible relish. One is fully committed, for one has realised that life is inherently perfect ... and it is possible to live that perfection all the time. Then – and only then – is one being here. Being here is a direct experiencing of the actuality of this moment that is hanging in time and is vastly superior to ‘me’ as an identity ‘living in the present’. When one is actually being here, one is totally immersed, completely involved in living. One is no longer ‘holding back’, saving oneself for Something after death or Someone who is deathless. One is out from control; no more is one keeping part of oneself in reserve, for this moment is freely living me ... and I am all of me. Being here as an actuality is to be doing what is happening with the full endorsement of one’s entirety. [Emphases added]. (Actual Freedom Library, Hedonism)

It would be more beneficial and crowned with success to not put the cart before the horse – in other words, first removing the obstacles to feeling good as they occur, such as resentment or anger or hurt (hiding), rather than artificially creating pleasure via practicing hedonism via using alcohol and imagination. When those obstacles occur, you can look squarely at the feeling on a ‘deep feeling level’ (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Andrew3, 24 March 2026) as in ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, and recognizing this you can see how silly it is to waste this precious moment of being alive by being resentful, angry or hurt, and be feeling felicitous/ innocuous instead.

Cheers Vineeto

April 13 2026

ANDREW: So, if I can frame this as just “having a chat”, instead of what it actually is, a public declaration, (this is searchable public post, and not a private conversation), if I could for the sake of what I am going to type, pretend mutually that it’s a “safe space” (which it is not) then, we can read what I am about to write as if tomorrow neither of us will remember it, because we usually have conversations to be heard and to connect, rather that leave with a dossier on “he said this, and thus… I am on his side, or the other side.”

I felt whole just saying out loud, this universe (this manifestation of infinite and eternal existence) sucks.

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

As you would know, actualism is experiential. When there is no identity, either in a PCE or when actual free, the universe is experienced as it factually is – infinite and eternal. It is ‘you’, the identity which creates and experiences the self-centric limitation and boundary to then fill this limited experience with imagination and beliefs/ concepts. As such your “by definition” statement is without substance – it is either philosophical or imaginary, or both.

ANDREW: I pushed back at Vineeto about the statement “what I can eat, and what could eat me”. I understand the reference, but found it absurd. I know I can kill and eat chickens. Fish. Give me a sharp stick, and I can have a go at rabbits, sheep, all sorts of creatures. I can kill them and eat them.

Yesterday, as I thought about this, I felt completely “whole” when I said out loud “that sucks”.

VINEETO: By now, you made it clear that your whole message is an emotional reaction to what I wrote to you six days ago –

Vineeto: The instinctual passions are also called animal instinctual passions – because all animals are endowed with instinctual programming/ passions to ensure their survival and species proliferation – even jellyfish operate by the principle of attraction/ repulsion, the most primitive instinctual behaviour. Jellyfish are not free from the instinctive/ instinctual programming or behaviour, they are not felicitous either, let alone harmless. They operate under the same principle as all instinctive/ instinctual programmed creatures – what can I eat, what can eat me? (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Andrew3, 7 Apr 2026).

I understand from your ‘non-declaration’ that when you say “I pushed back at Vineeto about the statement” means that you do not question the fact of how instinctive/ instinctual passions operate but that you strongly express your displeasure/ resentment about the fact that it is so. You are riling against the way the universe, in this case sentient beings, operate and function.

ANDREW: So, what is the point?

It’s the infinitude! The infinitude is what is fundamentally enjoyable. This particular express of the infinitude does suck. But, the infinitude itself, the fundamental and essential existence of existence, is essentially what Richard called “pure intent”. Something fundamentally beyond the fact that the “red in tooth and claw” “dog eat dog” “what can I eat and what can eat me” circle of “life” in this out folding of infinite possibilities, is enjoyable. It is able to be experienced perfectly. Even though this current universe requires me to eat other living things, the infinitude itself, is not “tied to” this way of existence. It is existence. It is infinite and eternal existence.

VINEETO: There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what infinitude means [infinitude: infinite extent, amount, duration, etc.; a boundless expanse; an unlimited time; (Oxford English Dictionary)] – there is also a fundamental misunderstanding of what pure intent means but that is a topic for another conversation. This short quote from Richard might explain infinitude (there is more in Richard’s selected correspondence on the topic) –

Respondent: (9) Can you tell me how far the space around us extends. Can that space end somewhere? If so what is beyond that?

Richard: Space is infinite, so it extends indefinitely. As it is infinite, it can not end somewhere. As it does not end, there is nothing beyond the universe. It is ‘I’ who, being a fiction, desires Immortality to perpetuate ‘my’ real existence for all of Eternity – thus secretly despising this body and this physical life – and it is ‘I’ who, being a central figure in ‘my’ scheme of things, proposes that there is an outside to this material universe. There is not. This universe has no edges ... which means that there is no centre either. With no centre to existence we are nowhere in particular. Being here, as an actuality, is to be anywhere at all, for infinity is everywhere all at once. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List A, No. 23, #No.01)

As you say at the beginning of this message “this iteration of the universe sucks”, what you consider infinitude is ‘your’ imagined “iteration” of infinitude, experienced and expressed through the lens of your identity and resentment. The actual physical infinitude, boundless in expanse and time, does not have “iterations”, where suddenly different laws of physics operate, imagined perhaps of the nature that you wouldn’t find objectionable. As such your statement “the infinitude is what is fundamentally enjoyable” is altogether a product of your imagination, an ‘infinitude’ which has enjoyable “iterations” and those which “suck”.

ANDREW: Now, so this post has some depth, rather than me (in typical fashion) fill in the gaps in my own head, assuming everyone else is in my head, let me spell it out;

What is the point? This brutal existence, with creatures eating each other, is just another of the infinite ways the universe can … universe.

VINEETO: To say “We already know this. We can already imagine a far better way of existing” in one breath is an oxymoron – just because you can imagine something does not mean it is factual. It does not mean you “know this” for a fact, else there was no need to imagine. You already have filled in “the gaps in my own head”, suggesting that the universe you experience is “just one of an infinite potential ways the infinitude can exist”. In other words, you find your idea of infinitude “enjoyable”, while you find the emotional/ passional reality which ‘you’, the identity, experiences, anything but enjoyable.

This quote might be informative –

Richard: The only ‘infinitude’ there is, for an identity, is a metaphysical infinitude (a timeless and spaceless and formless ‘being’ or ‘presence’).

Respondent: I would say that regardless of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs present, it is impossible to not be in the universe.

Richard: Ha ... it is impossible for an identity (being but an illusion/ delusion) to ever be in actuality.

Respondent: But where else is there to be, for you are always here, even if you say I am something/ somewhere else.

Richard: An identity is never here – let alone ‘always here’ – as to be here is to be at this place in space (now at this moment in time). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 54, 1 November 2003)

ANDREW: We get the opportunity to free ourselves in this moment, from the very simple and apparent fact this example of the universe, sucks.

VINEETO: Whenever you allow your emotions full reign, as in this post, intelligence doesn’t get much of a chance to operate. By starting with an imagined premise that there are “infinite potential ways” of ‘universe-iterations’ you just dive deeper into imagination and metaphysics.

There is indeed “the opportunity to free ourselves” for those who are interested – allow the current strong feelings of resentment subside by neither pushing them away (repressing) nor feeding them (expressing) until you get back to feeling good. Then intelligence will get a word in edgeways.

Here is what Richard has to say about dealing with resentment [resentment: an indignant sense of injury or insult received or perceived, a sense of grievance … (Oxford Dictionary)] – best read when feeling good –

Richard: Sure, there is a whole range of reasons for getting angry (which vary according to different situations and circumstances) ... maybe the following will be of assistance in regards righteous anger (aka indignation):

• [Richard]: ‘One of the major issues the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago attended to very early in the piece was the indignation – ‘anger excited by a sense of wrong, or by injustice, wickedness, or misconduct; righteous anger’ (Oxford Dictionary) – which had dogged him from almost as early as ‘he’ could remember (‘he’ was often moved to indignancy because of injustice/ unfairness whilst still in grade school for instance) as righteousness, being oh-so-readily justifiable, is such an insidious feeling’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 79, 9 February 2005).

• [Richard]: ‘... one of the most persistent forms of anger is indignation (or righteous anger/justifiable anger): it can be eradicated rather simply by the realisation that its raison d’être – a guardian against injustice, unjustness, unfairness, inequality (partiality, discrimination, and so on) – is as much a human invention as those concepts it defends ... justice, justness, fairness, equality (impartiality, indiscrimination, and so on).

I have touched upon this elsewhere: (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 66, 27 April 2005).

• [Richard]: ‘There is no ‘chaos’ and ‘order’ as a ‘sub-stratum of the universe’ ... they are but human inventions and do not exist in actuality. The same applies to fairness/unfairness, justice/injustice and any other human concepts that, whilst being useful for human-to-human interaction, are futility in action when applied to the universe. Male logic is as useless as female intuition when it comes to being free: the everyday reality of the ‘real-world’ is a veneer ‘I’ paste over the top of the pristine actual world by ‘my’ very being ... and ‘being’ is the savage/ tender instinctual passions (giving rise to feelings of malice/ love and sorrow/ compassion etc., with the resultant concepts of bad/ good and evil/ god and so on) which cripples intelligence by invariably producing dualistic concepts. ‘Tis all a fantasy ... feelings rule in the human world’. (Richard, List B, No. 33c, 3 August 2000).

Put simply: nature is neither fair nor just – a volcanic eruption (for just one instance) does not discriminate between who or what it obliterates/ destroys – and thus coupled with the basic resentment at having to be alive in the first place is the further grievance that life is inequitable/ iniquitous. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 76, 16 June 2005).

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ANDREW: What I see is that I transferred me “fear of god” which I was born into, to a reverence of “the universe”.

The universe, is not a “higher power”. It’s down to earth. I just so happens that this iteration “sucks”. It is “down to earth” crap.

VINEETO: The physical universe is indeed “down to earth”, and the down-to-earth fact is that it is “boundless in expanse and unlimited in time”. It has always been here and will always be here. It has no “iterations”. To you it “sucks” because this is what your instinctual/ passionate identity informs you of, which operates via the principle of “what can I eat, what can eat me” (in other words, attraction and repulsion), or, in higher animal species, the instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.

Regarding consuming nutrients I recommend Richard’s correspondence on this topic – (Richard, List A, No. 16, #No.02)

The good news is that “the opportunity to free ourselves” exists, and one can diminish the influence of these passions, both ‘good’ and bad feelings, and its concomitant social identity, by being affectively attentive each moment again with the sincere commitment to feeling good come what may, and use one’s native intelligence to find and eliminate the triggers/ reasons for not feeling good (such as the resentment for being here that you have expressed). Without such firm aim one easily drowns in the continual see-saw of emotions and feelings. Here is what Chrono reported just today –

Chrono: Yes it makes everything easier if I’ve made committing to feeling good right now the number 1 priority. It makes sense now why I’d be more stuck in certain bad feelings in the past for a long time. It’s because that commitment had not been made. Now that it has, it’s just a matter of returning to that commitment if I notice I’m not feeling good and also figuring out why. (13 April 2026).

Cheers Vineeto

May 8 2026

ANDREW: Hi.

I didn’t have anything more to say about the discussion above. I otherwise was “over” trying to work out how any of this “actualism” was going to work out for me.
It clearly wasn’t. 14 years, and not so much as a sustained period of feeling good. Whatever was in my way, was clearly unmovable through whatever ways I was approaching it.

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

It often is this way – one picks up one end of the stick and runs with it but then missing an overall aspect of the actualism method/ practice, which you are starting to now experientially understand – that “feelings being a detriment to living”.

Feelings are indeed “a detriment”, at least both the ‘good’ and the bad feelings, whereas the felicitous/ innocuous feelings are only beneficial to living. Now that you experientially see how “detrimental” and silly it is to nurture those non-felicitous and harmful feelings, the obvious consequence is that they lose their dominance and attraction and “the world around is brighter and more vibrant”.

ANDREW: Strangely, over the last few days, another pursuit, has brought ‘me’ into sharp focus. More so that ever before.

Without meaning to, when I am just doing anything, the world around is brighter and more vibrant.

VINEETO: It's fascinating to read how your experiential acknowledgement and understanding that “feelings being a detriment to living” is now giving you the motivation to start living life in a different way, more sensible and salubrious, more happy and appreciative whilst giving less emphasis on philosophically working out the problems of the world.

ANDREW: It’s very obvious that the very immediate fact that ‘I’ am in the way of being able to trade effectively, and I have no one else to blame except my feeling reality, is so unintentionally the best learning experience regarding actualism I have had.

Haha.

VINEETO: Ha, who would have thought it indeed – when there is no one else to blame you realise you can fix yourself up.

And the tools and way to do that are all there on the AFT website, yours for the using if and when you want it.

Richard: I am not gifted or special ... I was born of ordinary parents, was sent to an ordinary state school – receiving an average education until I was fifteen years of age – took an ordinary job and worked for a living. I eventually got married and had four children and bought a house and ... in short, I was relatively normal and did all the expected things. Thus did I live my life for thirty two years according to the ‘tried and true’ methods as laid down by the countless millions of other humans that had lived before me. I tried my best to make their system work to produce the optimum result ... but to no avail. Only then did I make the first and most important movement of my own volition ... I discarded the ‘tried and true’ as being the ‘tried and failed’. (I did say ‘I was relatively normal’ because one thing, and one thing alone, stood out that distinguished me from whomsoever else I met: I wanted to know – as an actuality – just what it was to be a human being here on this planet, as this body, in this life-time.) (Richard, List A, No. 26)

You might be able to relate to this, further down in the same email –

Richard: It is a radical break with the past ... something akin to an evolutionary mutation, so personally seditious is its revolutionary opening gambit. (Richard, List A, No. 26).

Cheers Vineeto

May 9 2026

ANDREW:

Richard: “Eighteen years ago I looked – actually looked for the first time – at the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the oceans and the sky and the clouds … and the stars at night … and just knew that this enormous construct called the universe was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. It was all too big, too enormous, too magnificent and too marvellous to be forever a ‘vale of tears’. I realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that we all had to endure and ‘make the best of’. I felt foolish that I had believed for thirty two years that the wisdom of the world I had inherited – the human world that I was born into – was set in stone.” (Richard, List A, No. 26).

I had tears in my eyes for the first time reading something on the AFT.

Thanks for the link, Vineeto!

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

It is a wonderful piece of writing, and I am very pleased it touched you and moved you to tears.

Something has happened to you that opened a window for you to be able to be receptive in a more profound way. Perhaps your recent the insight you wrote about yesterday has something to do with it –

Andrew: … I have no one else to blame except my feeling reality …

When all other distractions are presently quiescent and you are only interested in changing yourself then you suddenly notice and absorb what has stayed obscured before – how can I change my “feeling reality” to be one of enjoyment and appreciation.

All the best for further fortuitous and beneficial discoveries.

Cheers Vineeto

May 21 2026

ANDREW to Kuba: Hmm, as an expert on cringe, and will definitely wake up tomorrow and say “why? Why did I post?” It’s not really narcissism that holds us back. That’s really just normal “selfing”.

VINEETO: Hi Andrew,

So Kuba’s post was a bit too close to the bone for you, was it? You had to step in and offer sympathy, saving a fellow-identity from taking the ultimate step by giving him disinformation regarding altruism and pull ‘him’ back to the shallow end of the pool where ‘you’ reside, albeit cringing.

Perhaps some relevant quotes from the AFT can fill the significant gaps in your understanding about altruism –

Richard: ... I was just making the point that, although it is hypothetically correct that the elimination of the instinctual passions would be the elimination of ‘I’/‘me’, it does not work that way in practice (for reasons such as already explained). Not only is it dangerous it is an impossibility ... only altruistic ‘self’-immolation will do the trick.

James: You are making a distinction between ‘I/me’ eliminating itself and it being done altruistically.

Richard: No, I am more making the point that only altruism – self-sacrificial humanitarianism – will provide the enormous energy necessary for ‘self’-immolation ... the instinct for individual survival is only exceeded by the instinct for group survival.

It takes a powerful instinct to overcome a powerful instinct.

James: I can’t readily see how this can be done altruistically without it still being done by the ‘I/me’.

Richard: Indeed not ... it is just that, at root, altruism is a more powerful instinct than narcissism.

James: I can pretend that I am doing it unselfishly but I don’t see how I can truthfully even start the process altruistically.

Richard: As it is ‘me’ who desires peace it can hardly be called an unselfish desire ... thus no pretence is necessary.

James: Ok, it might be possible by seeing that I am doing it for this body and everybody but I am really doing it for ‘I/me’ at least in the beginning.

Richard: When ‘I’ see that ‘I’ am as mad and as bad and as sad as anyone else instinctually driven it is actually impossible to say that ‘I’ am doing it for ‘me’ alone ... the repercussions of such an event are vast beyond belief. (Richard, List B, James3, 28 October 2002a).

*

Richard: To die means to die (extinct means not exist) ... to die does not mean to continue to be in existence and ‘be attent to the totality’. ‘My’ question was: How on earth am ‘I’ to do this?

Respondent: Elaborate this...

Richard: Given that ‘I’ knew, via direct experience, that ‘I’ could never, ever become perfect or be perfection ... then the only thing ‘I’ could do – the only thing ‘I’ had to do – was die (psychologically and psychically self-immolate) so that the already always existing perfection could become apparent. So when I asked (as an open question) ‘how do ‘I’ do it?’ the essential character of the perfection of ‘the physical infinitude’ of this material universe was enabled by ‘my’ concurrence. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 34a, 7 June 1999).

*

Richard: If you do not find voluntary ‘self’-sacrifice by ‘I’/‘me’ (who is the root cause of all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides and the such-like) to be noble, to be an altruistic offering, a philanthropic contribution, a generous gift, a charitable donation, a magnanimous present for the human race ... then I guess you would not be willing to cheerfully devote and give over your ‘being’ as a humane gratuity, an open-handed endowment, a munificent bequest or a kind-hearted benefaction for the benefit of each and every body, eh? (Richard, List B, No. 12g, 19 June 2000a).

There is more, which you can find in Richard’s selected correspondence on altruism.

ANDREW to Kuba: Richard wrote about it being a type of megalomania needed to really go all the way. The abandon of not being ashamed anymore. The naked and unbridled going for it, in the sense of “who am to say all the saints and saviours are wrong?!”

VINEETO: Before you advise yourself or anyone else of “not being ashamed anymore” please note that this was only done, and can only be done safely, with the utterly fundamental proviso that pure intent be dedicatorily in place – as an overriding/ overarching life-devotional goal which takes absolute precedence over all else. Besides, it was not “a type of megalomania” but the utmost confidence in the evidence of the PCE and the pure intent derived from that. He did describe being enlightened as a megalomaniacal state of being but emphasised again and again that nobody should follow in his footsteps in that regard.

ANDREW: One thing that has always puzzled me is why “altruism” was named as a necessity, when none of the reports ever had an overall theme of it.

Richard just found it curious that after weeks of wondering why he was putting of vibes that someone would want to be his disciple, he was out planting trees that he had otherwise cut down in his youth. No moment of “altruism”.

Peter, just wondering what it would be like in Richard’s world of “people, places, and events”. No altruistic words recorded.

Vineeto, who can check for us, had no thoughts of altruism. Her report was “sweeping the cobwebs out” and going for it.

Only [No. 15, List D] and Srinath had anything close to such a report. [No. 15, List D] saw that it was ‘he’ making trouble at work. Srinath saw that ‘he’ could “roar back into life and wreak havoc”.

VINEETO: Your summary of the way an actual freedom eventuates – watered-down beyond recognition into a sequence of apparent trivialities – reads very similar to what you opined 13 years ago –

Andrew: “(...) if ‘hippy’ ideals are the bulk of ones knowledge base, your freedom will look quite ‘hippy’. Nothing wrong with that, but it won’t be everyone’s cup of chai. You[r] historical statement essentially *reads to me like a failed hippy experiment*. So what?. I bet Richard has stubbed his toe and misplaced his shorts now and then as well...”. [emphasis added]. (25 June 2013).

ANDREW to Kuba: I think that your best bet is just stop posting, and do your own thing. Narcissism is just normal people stuff. Cringe is just normal. I know you can go all the way. You do as well.

VINEETO: I am curious, are you intending to spend the rest of your life the way you are because it’s “just normal people stuff” like narcissism and self-centricity and having a “cringe” is being “just normal”, without ever contemplating that there is a far superior way to live life and how to imitate the actual?

This kind of palliative advice and attitude is exactly what keeps humanity enthralled in misery and mayhem.

To explain, in case you missed it – when one fellow human being has the perspicacity and courage to recognize the utter rottenness of ‘me’ at the core of my ‘being’, which perspicacity can give him the necessary courage to ‘self’-immolate, and then you step in consolingly saying it’s “just normal selfing”, don’t worry but “you can go all the way” – isn’t that smothering the very intent to do something about the rotten human condition in oneself?

Now, where do you suppose the impetus and intent arises from to agree to ‘my’ irrevocable demise if not from the experiential understanding that ‘I’ am rotten to the core? Especially as you depicted an actual freedom just accidentally occurring and neither Richard nor Peter and Vineeto had supposedly ever any intention of doing something for the benefit of this body, that body and everybody? It just happened by accident?

If becoming actually free was such a minor accidental event, why do you think Richard wrote this –

Richard: Thus I find myself here, in the world as-it-is. A vast stillness lies all around, a perfection that is abounding with purity. Beneficence, an active kindness, overflows in all directions, imbuing everything with unimaginable fairytale-like quality. For me to be able to be here at all is a blessing that only ‘I’ could grant, because nobody else could do it for me. I am full of admiration for the ‘me’ that dared to do such a thing. I owe all that I experience now to ‘me’. I salute ‘my’ audacity. And what an adventure it was ... and still is.

These are the wondrous workings of the exquisite nature of life – who would have it any other way? [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 31, 7 March 1998).

If Richard had listened to your kind of advice that it’s “really just normal selfing”, ‘he’ would have never discovered an actual freedom, the Actual Freedom website would not exist nor would you be able to post on this forum.

Also, how do you know that “it’s not really narcissism [i.e. selfism] that holds us back”? Do you know experientially what it is that holds you back from starting the process of freeing yourself from the human condition? When you say to Kuba “I know you can go all the way”, what is your experiential suggestion how one should proceed apart from “just stop posting, and do your own thing”? Can you vouch for the success of your advice from your own experience? By having removed altruism from the process of becoming actually free you really have nothing left to offer.

No wonder you cringe when you write this stuff.

Cheers Vineeto