VINEETO: Hi Ian,

Excellent to recognize it – now you can be on the look-out when it turns up again.

Does your action of publicizing this significant discovery on the forum indicate a conscious choice to pursue actualism as your priority?

If so, you might find Richard’s quaint little wonder-tale to Rick about self-esteem helpful and informative – .

Looking at the grip the demand for self-esteem has on your life will do a lot to make you more autonomous and thus free to pursue your primary aim in life.

Cheers Vineeto

October 28 2024

IAN: I’m mishandling actualism. I recognise today that a part of me wants to be successful with actualism as a way to be lovable vs as a way to be free… applying actualism to be perfect and thereby avoid shame… to be worthy/ loved/accepted because I can’t be accused of self centred arrogance, and/or can’t be affected by shame. Good to recognise.

VINEETO: Excellent to recognize it – now you can be on the look-out should it turn up again.

Does your action of publicizing this significant discovery on the forum indicate a conscious choice to pursue actualism as your priority?

IAN: Actualism has been the ultimate goal since I had a PCE before finding the actual freedom website - whether it has always been number 1 priority is kind of a two part thing. It’s always the underlying thing, every experience gets analysed whether badly or well through the lens of actualism. I haven’t had a lot of success with enjoying and appreciating consistently (aside from a few weeks here and there where for some reason it all seems easy) but that doesn’t mean it’s not the ultimate goal. Hopefully this latest realisation will help me actually make progress. […]

The thing is I have been wanting to get to the bottom of why I feel so continuously stressed for years and I have recently cottoned on to the fact that it is less about completion of tasks (at work for example) and almost entirely about whether I feel accepted in the group. The completion of tasks is how I maintain acceptance. It seems like such a big pervasive network of beliefs that I am not sure where exactly to look.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

It seems to me that presently the actualism method is contraindicated because as yet you do not *want* to feel good for its own sake so it won’t be very successful to practice it right now.

To start with, a more practical approach would be, instead of trying to attain acceptance from everybody and their dog, for you to realize that the only person you can change is yourself. As a rational consequence you can ask why do you not accept yourself / why do you not like yourself. (It’s very difficult to make other people like you when you do not like yourself).

A first and most obvious answer is (and very common answer in fact for those honest enough to admit it) – that there is resentment – resentment of being here, of having been born in the first place and resentment for the way things are in general. It goes hand-in-glove with the belief that life is inherently bad.

Here is what Richard had to report about it – perhaps it works for you as well –

What is at the bottom of all this disapproving business is a basic resentment at having to be here in the first place (as in ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ for example) and that fundamental grievance gets taken out on the universe at large.

And for as long as ‘I’ am out to prove that life sucks (by being miserable and malicious) and that being here is the pits there is no way ‘I’ am going to be happy and harmless as to do so would be to betray ‘my’ most basic feeling about it all.

I kid you not – it was one of the first things ‘I’ realised all those years ago – yet there is a simple way to be done with such nonsense forever.

Viz.:

• [Richard]: ‘In 1980, ‘I’ , the persona that I was, looked at the natural world and just knew that this enormous construct called the world – and the universe itself – was not ‘set up’ for us humans to be forever forlorn in with only scant moments of reprieve. ‘I’ realised there and then that it was not and could not ever be some ‘sick cosmic joke’ that humans 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 real world that ‘I’ was born into – was set in stone. This foolish feeling allowed ‘me’ to get in touch with ‘my’ dormant naiveté, which is the closest thing one has that resembles actual innocence, and activate it with a naive enthusiasm to undo all the conditioning and brainwashing that ‘I’ had been subject to. Then when ‘I’ looked into myself and at all the people around and saw the sorrow of humankind ‘I’ could not stop. ‘I’ knew that ‘I’ had just devoted myself to the task of setting ‘myself’ and ‘humanity’ free ... ‘I’ willingly dedicated my life to this most worthy cause. It is so exquisite to devote oneself to something whole-heartedly ... the ‘boots and all’ approach ‘I’ called it then! (pages 240-41, ‘Richard’s Journal’; ©The Actual Freedom Trust 1997).

You will see that this is a far cry from being ‘more neutral’ about it all. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 30 September 2003).

I also recommend other examples from the Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Resentment).

Once you identified resentment and decline to nurse this futile and ineffectual feeling any longer, then *wanting* to feel good cannot be far away.

Cheers Vineeto

November 2 2024

IAN: Yes I can say although ultimately I do want to feel good, at the moment I am currently becoming aware of what I am feeling, so I suppose I am more wanting to feel what I am feeling. What the full spectrum of feelings encompasses and feels like, to feel what it is to be a complete feeling being. I had developed something like a blanket suppression order on almost all of the way I feel (therefore the way I am) and am in the careful process of uncovering and looking at everything that makes up me. I believe this is the process of accepting myself/liking myself.

In other words, once you identified the particular feeling as what it is (anger, sorrow, worry, spitefulness, melancholy, fear, etc.) then you have a choice to either keep feeling it or to decide to put it aside in order to feel better (i.e. get back to feeling good). Then from this more dispassionate perspective you can have a good look at what was the cause/trigger for you to feel such an insalubrious feeling.

To be “uncovering and looking at everything that makes up me” you do not need to keep feeling each feeling until it subsides of its own accord (and embracing it only fuels the feeling to hang around for longer) – it is enough to recognize it and then *stop feeding* it (which may take a while to find the switch until you get the knack).

I’m not sure if you succeed in liking yourself as long as you nurture, i.e. feed, malice and sorrow in your bosom. ‘Vineeto’ certainly couldn’t until she had a clear third alternative. She continued to feel bad via either suppressing or expressing her feelings as she had been taught by new-age therapists during her spiritualist years.

IAN: I don’t like myself because I can be scared, angry, sad, deceitful, petty, arrogant, childish, greedy, cunning. I am slowly welcoming those parts of me I have rejected, with the right mind I can recognise those parts are natural and appropriate for a feeling being to feel (putting aside the question as to the appropriateness of expressing or acting on them). Appropriate also doesn’t mean sensible - expected might be a better word. That is if I feel something, it’s not for no reason, nor is it an anomaly of experience. For example – it makes sense for an animal to feel like it is powerful and competent - why wouldn’t it. It seems fundamental that a creature should not doubt its ability to do and achieve what is required for survival. The odd thing is that a creature would feel like those feelings must be suppressed or hidden, but again this is about survival in the group so if the creature feels more safe (achieves homeostasis) by not expressing those feelings whether through training by peers or life experience then that would make sense that suppression occurs.

VINEETO: All this can be summed up by acknowledging the fact that you, like everyone else, was born this way and it is not your fault that you are “scared, angry, sad, deceitful, petty, arrogant, childish, greedy, cunning”. But, being equipped with intelligence you certainly don’t have to stay that way and you don’t have to *accept* the way you were born (the belief that you can’t change human nature). You can stop following the “tried and failed” template of the wisdom of the real world.

Richard: “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’.” (Richard, List A, No. 26)

Hence instead of “welcoming” those insalubrious feelings you can decide to change them (without suppressing nor expressing them). (see: (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression).

IAN: Cognitively, I understand that I can only change myself; emotionally, I want everything else to change – so there is something missing in my understanding (did feeling-being Vineeto experience something like this?). I do feel sad and angry and scared when I think about ‘the way things are in general’. I find myself thinking/feeling things like ‘life just gets worse and worse’ or ‘it’s just one thing after another’ or ‘what’s the point, it’s just never going to change’. I think these point to a belief that I have adopted or developed over the years, that life is somehow impossible to enjoy.

VINEETO: ‘Vineeto’ experienced this ‘wanting others or things to change’ but quickly put it aside as non-sensical once she started practising actualism. It’s an automatic reaction which, once recognized, need not be perpetuated. What you describe is exactly what is meant by the word resentment –

• Resentment: indignation or ill will stemming from a feeling of having been wronged or offended. (American Heritage Dictionary)

• Resentment: a feeling of anger or unhappiness about something that you think is unfair (Oxford Dictionary)

• Resentment: a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury (Merriam-Webster.com)

• Resentment: Opposite: appreciation, contentment, satisfaction, […] (Onelook Dictionary)

As such my previous advice to you still stands – as long as you consider feeling resentment being an appropriate response (and that includes “welcoming those parts of me”), no change can be evinced. You seem to have fallen for therapeutic humbug – now that there is a third alternative to suppressing or expressing (including “welcoming”) this real-world advice is superseded.

So when you say further down – “I want to decline this resentment but in the past I have only succeeded in suppressing – is there anything I can do to bridge the gap between realising something and actualising it” – you can only decline something when you have 1) recognized it, 2) acknowledged it and 3) understood it. Hence you first need to recognize that it is operating in every complaint you have with the world you live in.

IAN: On the other hand, I also really enjoy being alive, and there is so much I love about existing, and I feel sad if I contemplate dying or being gone (at the same time as desiring oblivion and release). And I love more than anything the times when I have a PCE or excellence experience.
The resentment I think comes from feeling frustrated about not having the resources to only do the things in life that I enjoy – those things that stimulate good feelings.

VINEETO: There seems to be a basic misunderstanding about the actualism method. Enjoying and appreciating being alive means exactly that – an unconditional enjoyment and appreciation of being alive (Richard, Articles, This Moment of Being Alive), not just enjoying the things you “love” (love is a good feeling, as opposed to a bad feeling). If you only want to enjoy the things you love, of course you resent that you can’t have it all the time and resent those other things you don’t love.

IAN: From communication with Claudiu I understand that when something is fully seen for what it is, then the declination will happen automatically because it is obvious to not do that. In the mean-time I can keep shining a light on the feelings/beliefs to uncover more until that moment happens. Is there anything you can suggest here.

VINEETO: I did just that in my above answers. “Fully seen for what it is” requires a *dispassionate* investigation *after* you decided that you *want to feel good* about being alive now, which is certainly not the same thing as “welcoming those parts of me” or “accepting myself/liking myself” for being “scared, angry, sad, deceitful, petty, arrogant, childish, greedy, cunning”.

IAN: As an aside – I’ve noticed that I massively enjoy hearing or reading about the experience of the actual world. For example whenever I read the tales of becoming free, or recently Geoffrey’s description of letting go of the ‘guardian’, or when I was visiting you and Richard – Richard’s description of the pelicans beak, or his demonstration of time. These stories and descriptions really get through to a part of me, I get that feeling of excitement because I know that world, and it becomes clearer to me, I get the butterflies tickle, that I am close to it. It seems to help me begin to rememorate the PCE – maybe this is my way to connect to pure intent. It was Richard’s description of the actual world ‘the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending’ which sparked recognition in me as that was how I had described a PCE that I had prior to finding the website, yet had not found a similar description in any spiritual writings. I remember being so excited because I knew he was writing about the same thing that I had experienced.

VINEETO: It is great that you do feel excited about those descriptions and I do remember you writing about those instances of your own experiences on this forum. I wondered what happened that you got sucked in so badly into the New Age therapy stuff, as I pointed out above, which resulted in losing your way. Richard’s advice to Claudiu in answer to his first post to the Yahoo list applies to you as well – (Richard, List D, Claudiu) – (in your case it would be “stop doing New Age therapy”, “stop listening to therapists, period.”)

Disclaimer: If you are currently in medical treatment/ official therapeutic treatment, then as long as this is the case the actualism method or taking any actualist advice including my own *is contraindicated* (see (Disclaimer) until you have finished your medical/therapeutic treatment. To try to marry actualism and New Age therapy is ineffectual, at best.

Cheers Vineeto

November 13 2024

IAN: I am doing what I can to recognise and understand my full self so that I can become friends with myself.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

Not sure if one needs to “understand” one’s “full self” to become friends with oneself – it is more a matter of becoming aware of the habitual attitude, put into you by parents, teachers and peers, to ‘humble’ yourself, be hard on yourself, grovel and feel that you are not good enough – whatever you do or achieve.

Once you recognize this habitual pattern, the very awareness allows you to *stop feeding* it and voila, there is already some burden off your back. It’s the affective attentiveness which allows you to do that.

Just think, if you had a habit of wiggling your toe or slightly sticking your tongue out when doing something challenging and someone pointed that out while it’s happening – you would instantly be able to stop it. The same is the case with the habit to put yourself down, except for this you develop the affective attentiveness to catch yourself doing it and then just stop. And right afterwards, to replace the detrimental habit with a positive one, you pat yourself on the back for having caught it. It is really that simple.

IAN: As Richard said on a transcript: “It is a good thing to become friends with yourself, to decide not to tell yourself off any more”.

Richard has also written: “In a nutshell: one cannot examine something fully if one is busy denying its existence.”

and even better as feeling being Vineeto put it:

VINEETO: Ok, once you have become accustomed to no longer put yourself down, you can start with the actualism method proper. Apply the same affective attentiveness (attention to how you feel) in order to see if you started to dip from feeling good (just the normal general feeling when someone asks you how you are and you reply “good”). When you notice a diminishment of feeling good – and you can only notice it when you don’t suppress the feeling itself – you stop feeding it, i.e. you don’t fight against it or wallow in it. There is no wisdom to be found in prolonging any feeling.

You get back to feeling good, just the basic being ok, ‘good’. Then, at your leisure, you can in a far more dispassionate mood than if you were in the middle of feeling bad, look at what triggered you to slip, just like it is described in This Moment of Being Alive article.

Often just finding the trigger and recognizing that it’s only a bagatelle and not worth wasting precious good time over it is enough. Only when the feeling gets triggered over and over and you recognize that it’s a bigger issue which causes distress, do you need to “investigate” as feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ described it above. For instance, what is my belief that I am getting constantly annoyed over the same thing? “It unfair, unjust and I want to feel righteous indignation over it”, for instance. Well, in that case, you can recognize the fact that life is not fair and why should you punish yourself with bad feelings in order to feel superior – looks silly, doesn’t it? And with that change in attitude, another burden is falling away …

Beliefs where relatively easy for ‘Vineeto’ – even though some of them took weeks to understand their full extent – but once ‘she’ had figured out what it was, and that it was only what ‘she’ believed and not because it was an immutable fact, then suddenly the whole particular construct crumbled and disappeared, and what a relief! This includes particular morals and ethics from your social identity which, with pure intent in place, you no longer need to believe in (without be a danger to society).

Instinctual passions are different – they don’t disappear until you are actually free. What you can do, however, by not resisting /fighting or indulging the feeling, you can change their affective energy into felicitous energy. Richard wrote about how he dealt with anger (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression) by neither expressing nor repressing it and you can use the same technique for the other passions with the requisite affective attentiveness.

IAN: I’m really still a ‘beginner’ despite having found the actualfreedom.com.au website in 2007 as I don’t have the knack yet as you put it:

Vineeto: “To be “uncovering and looking at everything that makes up me” you do not need to keep feeling each feeling until it subsides of its own accord (and embracing it only fuels the feeling to hang around for longer) – it is enough to recognize it and then *stop feeding* it (which may take a while to find the switch until you get the knack).”

This is the main difficulty; I haven’t got the knack yet – and I’m not sure why either – would love to figure this one out as it’s really the only thing I need to be able to do. Are you able to go into more detail on how stopping feeding a feeling is like in action. Was there something in particular you had to realise or uncover before you got the knack, or was it a series of experiments on how to do it until you figured it out.

In the meantime I’m still examining myself, gathering information and getting a handle on what it means to be a feeling being and the silliness of it, the impact it has on my life and the life of those around me.

VINEETO: The ‘knack’ is to get your affective attentiveness up and running whenever you remember to do so. Then noticing how you feel you deal with it as I described above. With the first successes happening, especially regarding the habit of putting yourself down, you recognize that you found the ‘knack’ and it wasn’t really difficult after all.

Cheers Vineeto

*

IAN: *Seeing the changes in feelings and emotions as habits* seems to be the way to go! Rather than delving into deep analysis or observation.

This was my goal, and now i have a better/ easier base line to practice from, and more free time to really let myself enjoy and appreciate. [emphasis added by Vineeto]

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

This is an excellent post.

I suggest to make it publicly available.

Cheers Vineeto

December 5 2024

IAN: Stream of observational consciousness from a spontaneously arising experience that occurred yesterday, a very odd but awesome excellence experience, where conditions were perfect adjacent. I felt like I was going to self immolate out of the blue…

Anyway, it didn’t happen in the end … but I’m glad I had the experience…increased confidence and understanding of the situation … it was kind of like in my teens I started pretending really hard to be a kind of person and have a serious and eventful adventure, but then yesterday it was like I was coming to my senses again and the flavour that was around was like back to being a kid again, with nothing more pressing than the immediate, no drama to pursue.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

A fun excellence experience, the perfect experience from where to contemplate ‘your’ longed-for abdication.

Having discovered what you call “the final identity … I am fun” is marvellous – being naïve to the point of being naiveté is opening the doors to increasingly allowing the universe to live you. And your “increased confidence and understanding of the situation” and “coming to my senses again and the flavour that was around was like back to being a kid again” will make the enjoyment and appreciating of each moment of being alive a child’s play (pun intended). Viz:

Richard: “Naiveté is a necessary precursor to invoke the condition of innocence. One surely has to be naïve to contemplate the profound notion that this universe is benign, friendly. One needs to be naïve to consider that this universe has an inherent imperative for well-being to flourish; that it has a built-in benevolence available to one who is artless, without guile.” (Library, Topics, Naiveté).

And from ‘being naiveté’ there is not much difference to being out-from-control, in a different way of being altogether –

Richard to Claudiu: “Lastly, the actualism method segues into what has become known as the actualism process when the actualism method has become so automatic, via habituation, that one is walking about in a state of wide-eyed wonder (naiveté) simply marvelling at being alive (sensuosity) and being amazed/ delighted that all this – the world about/the universe itself – is occurring in the first place; the actualism process is when it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish the difference between one doing it (doing this business called being alive) and it happening of its own accord; when one becomes the experiencing of being alive/of it all occurring of its own accord one is then out-from-control (not ‘out of control’ as in wayward) and a different-way-of-being has ensued.
It all becomes rather magical (‘magical’ as in prestidigitation) after that.” (Richard, Private Correspondence with Claudiu, 29 February 2012).

During the period of being out-from-control the identity (being the ‘beer’ as opposed to being the in-control ‘doer’) gallops ahead closer and closer to their destiny.

In her period of being out-from-control Pamela commented on how much better this experience (of being in an ongoing excellence experience) was compared to her 5-months PCE, and she explained that her PCE was a static experience while being out-from-control was exemplified by the progress of coming closer and closer to the actual world.

‘Vineeto’ experienced it the same way – “compared to being out-from-control, a PCE is an often brief, always temporary, glimpse into the actual world, very informative and marvellous in its own right, but a period whereby the identity is statically in abeyance and remains unchanged until it emerges again after the PCE has faded.” (Direct Route, No. 5, 16 Jan 2010).

Being in an ongoing excellence experience is the perfect launching point – because it is dynamic and not static like a PCE – from where to contemplate and move closer to one’s final goal. From here you can look closer at what possible objections there might be for ‘you’ to abdicating the throne, and whatever else prevents you from allowing the final transition to happen.

More fun times ahead, Ian.

Cheers Vineeto

December 8 2024

IAN: More on the seeing of resentment/ injustice/ unfairness/ unhappiness/ rejection/ confusion/ desperation.

To be able to see the silliness required willingness to change myself/be changed by facts combined with the recognition that emotions and moods are merely habitual, that I am not necessary for anything to continue happening, that the actual world exists, and a desire to increase my enjoyment of being alive.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

You are in fine form today, including your follow-up posts. A very enjoyable read.

You have indeed laid bare the whole structure of resentment and why so many people decide to hold onto it and more so, so many people don’t even recognize it as the underlying attitude which shapes their lives and obstructs their “ability to enjoy and appreciate”. And not only have you laid it bare but described it in so much detail how to allow it to atrophy that whoever wants to can do the same.

When feeling being Richard embarked on his adventure to live the perfection of his four-hour PCE for the rest of his life, he had little difficulty in recognizing and giving up resentment, hence it is not even mentioned in the description of the actualism method, and a lot of people overlooked how vital it is to tackle resentment in order to successfully enjoy and appreciate being alive –

• Richard: Speaking personally, the first thing I did in 1981 was to put an end to anger once and for all ... then I was freed enough to live in virtual freedom. It took me about three weeks and I have never experienced anger since then. The first step was to say ‘YES’ to being here on earth, for I located and identified that basic resentment that all people that I have spoken to have. To wit: ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ This is why remembering a PCE is so important for success for it shows one, first hand, that freedom is already always here ... now. With the memory of that crystal-clear perfection held firmly in mind ... that basic resentment goes. Then it is a relatively easy task to eliminate anger forever. Richard, Actual Freedom List, Irene, 11 October 1998)

He did however write about how in order to renounce resentment it is also necessary to do away with gratitude, because they are two sides of the same coin –

• Richard: Renouncing resentment obviates the need to apply the commonly accepted antidote: gratitude. Gratitude is one of the many ploys designed, by those who expound on the merits of self-imposed suffering, to keep one in servile ignominy and creeping despair. As strange as it may initially seem, gratitude has the same deleterious effect upon one’s well-being as the resentment it seeks to reform. When gratitude is realised as being the panacea that it is, one will gladly renounce it along with the resentment it promises to replace. To successfully dispense with the despised resentment, its companion emotion, the extolled gratitude, must also go. It is a popular misconception that one can do away with a ‘bad’ emotion whilst hanging on to the ‘good’ one. In actualism the third alternative always applies. Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Virtue and Sin, Hope and Despair, Gratitude and Resentment, and so on, all disappear in the perfection of purity. (Library, Topics, Hope)

IAN: And it was discovered by being purposefully attentive to the subtleties of how I was experiencing the moment of being alive – funny that. 

VINEETO: Brilliant.

Cheers Vineeto

December 13 2024

IAN: So now I can sense my self as a being, sometimes being a son, or being an employee, as in those ways of being occasionally come to the fore and my mood changes and i start thinking and imagining in the way of that being, and recognise that I am being this or that and decide to not go down those roads and come back to enjoying and appreciating instead … increasingly easily… so where in the past I may have been responding or reacting as a son, maybe a frustrated son or a worried son, and wanting to be a good son or a different kind of son, now I can more easily stop being a son and instead I carry on enjoying the moment as it is … this is a different way of being … not sure if it aligns with the in control different way of being but different than normal, right angles different.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

This is such an enjoyable description. Now you are beginning to discover aspects of your social identity – a son, an employee and possibly others. And naïvely paying attention to the attributes of these aspects of identity you have the choice to decline those aspects and eventually allow them to wither so that you not only can continue to enjoy and appreciate being here but naïvely marvel in wide-eyed wonder at the magnificence of the physical world around you.

This is still the same way of being even though much more enjoyable than before with less moods and triggers to diminish your enjoyment. As I wrote here (Actualism, Actualvineeto, JesusCarlos, 6 November 2024) a few weeks ago –

It is so much fun to discover and allow naiveté, to be like a child again (with adult sensibilities) and to more be like what you are rather than what (internalized) other people want you to be. I have it on good authority that remembering to be naïve can/will boost your baseline of feeling good to feeling excellent. It’s the opposite of stressing, telling yourself off or pushing hard – it’s being playful, liking yourself and others and enjoying and appreciation being here without any cause or condition, just enjoying being alive.

Have a look at Richard’s description where this being naïve can lead to – (Richard, A Quaint Clay-Pit Tale).

Cheers Vineeto

December 16 2024

VINEETO: And naïvely paying attention to the attributes of these aspects of identity you have the choice to decline those aspects and eventually allow them to wither so that you not only can continue to enjoy and appreciate being here but naïvely marvel in wide-eyed wonder at the magnificence of the physical world around you.

IAN: And it really is so much fun. It feels like have crossed a threshold where now I am engaged in the play of increasing my enjoyment and appreciation, becoming happy and harmless, above/instead of my normal goals, because it is so much fun – fun now, to see the way I tick, to identify/ describe the different facets/ faces of being this identity, and gently let them slide in favour of more harmlessness.

Enjoying seeing where this is going.

VINEETO: Good morning Ian,

I don’t know if you heard, there is a serious mental health warning regarding a new, very contagious virus called “naiveté”.

It is highly contagious because it has been discovered that it spreads on the psychic network via happy and harmless vibes such as is happening already on this forum and is therefore not restricted to only local outbreaks of the disease. It is something entirely new in the real world. Even though children display certain symptoms when young, they soon grow out of it. But now formerly serious grown-ups and easily manageable obedient citizens have been afflicted, and increasingly it appears that it can pop up anywhere on the planet.

Because it spreads via the psychic network it cannot be contained via the trusted methods of isolation, hence clinical virologists are at a loss how to deal with it. They know from some known cases that if unchecked it will, in its final stage, lead to insanity, namely depersonalisation, derealization, alexithymia and anhedonia. Authorities can only suggest intensifying seriousness and activating resentment and cynicism as a precaution. Some suggested to use the deterrent of labelling those already afflicted as followers of a cult but that has proven ineffective because of the large cultural-background variety of those afflicted.

The symptoms which have been reported (from one afflicted person) are as follows –

• And it really is so much fun. It feels like have crossed a threshold where now I am engaged in the play of increasing my enjoyment and appreciation, becoming happy and harmless, above/instead of my normal goals, because it is so much fun – fun now, to see the way I tick, to identify/describe the different facets/faces of being this identity, and gently let them slide in favour of more harmlessness.

There’s so much to it, so much wonderfulness – it seems every part of the experience of being alive is fascinating.
I’m having what seems to be somewhat cyclical (as my energy and attention waxes and wanes) waves of experiences of naiveté that I haven’t had before, where there is no enemy, where life is playful and joyful, where shimmers of amazement and wonder come to the fore, where there is literal pleasure trickling through my body in just being alive – sensuosity is also of the internal body, where feeling good really feels so good, where appreciation of my fellow human being (great phrase) and the acknowledgement of effort made and energy imparted by us as individuals and collectively comes easily. (Ian’s Journal, 15 December 2024).

Further symptoms have been observed elsewhere –

• There was a sensation in my head of unending delight. I was here again. There was immediacy and there was so much in this moment that I could not ask for anything more. Complete abundance the likes of which I had not experienced before. What surprised me even more was that for a few moments, I could not go back. It was happening on its own. This unending delight. (Crono’s Journal, 116, 16 September 2024).

• I found myself to be like a kid again for a brief moment. And in that being-like-a-kid revivification, it occurred to me with a crystal-clear clarity and obviousness as to how I do not have to be/feel the way blind nature dictated that I feel … (Zulip Chat, Srid, 5 March 2024).

• And today while experimenting with this “fresh” information it became clear to me how appreciation, i.e. being a person who appreciates whatever is happening to him, is tightly connected to being naive because I could not bring myself to be like this without feeling a bit foolish, a real simpleton! (Almog in James’ Journal, 26 July 2024).

• As long as I’m liking myself (even to the point of experiencing such unending delight), it is delicious to naturally extend that enjoyment and appreciation to incorporate any and all people. […] … there’s an immense safety in this way of being (as in, I can never be hurt). It requires no morality […], as it is sensible, delightful and effortless. […] Life is much simpler from the vantage point of being naive (being likeable and liking). A lot of things can happen more spontaneously. Life is much less serious. (Private conversation, 24.9.2024).

• And I realized – I could be sensuous! I can use the energy for sensuousness, instead. And so I proceeded to naively be sensuous and I saw that I could always be sensuous, because actuality is already always happening anyway – so sensuousness is always possible to be an ‘activity’ that one does, so to speak.
And the benefit was immediately tangible – everything shone into perfect clarity and richness, and it was immensely wondrous and enjoyable to boot! (Claudiu’s Journal, 9 December 2024).

• One is seen to be odd in no longer having a ‘grand plan’ of any description, in going blank when asked ‘who are you’ or ‘what is next’, and yet it is the denizens of the ‘real world’ that are always quick to complain about life being a burden. So all in all I am gladly proceeding towards insanity, haha. (Kuba’s Journal, 2 November 2024).

‘Worldly-wise scientists’ who have seen such reports are deeply concerned – the development of the viral disease seems to start with not being serious and having too much fun, and then disregarding some of the pillars of the strict morality of this generally sedate and obedient population. So far, they have detected no physical danger to other people as those afflicted appear good-natured, kind and gentle – but the disturbing and unsettling aspect is that they are happy and carefree, and such people cannot be controlled and/or manipulated back in line towards the status quo by arousing in them feelings of anger or fear.

Those afflicted also report experiencing a “pure intent” to leave this real world for good. If this uncontrollable disease spreads around the globe, authorities fear, it will be the end of wars and stress and the world as we know it, and therefore thousands of people employed in those industries will be out of a job.

Here is how one man who caught the virus early in his life and who was diagnoses with the above psychiatric classifications by accredited psychiatrists even said that not being afflicted with the virus of naiveté and its ramifications was “foolishness of the highest order” –

• To the realist – the ‘worldly-wise’ – this appears like utter foolishness. After all, life is a ‘vale of tears’ and one must ‘make the best of a bad situation’ because one ‘can’t change human nature’; and therefore ‘you have to fight for your rights’. This derogatory advice is endlessly forthcoming; the put-down of the universe goes on ad nauseam, wherever one travels throughout the world. This universe is so enormous in size – infinity being as enormous as it can get – and so magnificent in its scope – eternity being as magnificent as it can get – how on earth could anyone believe for a minute that it is all here for humans to be forever miserable and malicious in?
It is foolishness of the highest order to believe it to be impossible to be free. (Library, Topics, Naiveté).

End of warning message – your life will never be the same again.

Cheers Vineeto 

January 3 2025

IAN: Today I find myself wondering what it must actually be like to be like Vineeto when interacting with all us normies … obviously I can’t know, but the wondering puts me in an even more alert frame of mind to be attentive to the smallest changes in mood, in order to treat those I meet as fellow human beings, as fellow travellers … wanting the best for them.

Just recognising this now.

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

As today’s post follows your excellent post on “the herd thing”, it is understandable that you contemplate “what it must actually be like to be like Vineeto when interacting with all us normies”, identifying yourself as one of the ‘herd’. Whereas Vineeto, being actually free, only meets the actual flesh-and-blood bodies, when she interacts with people and as such there are no “smallest changes in mood” or “loneliness”. There is an actual intimacy operating, no matter if the “person I’m speaking to doesn’t have the same awareness, intention, desire, value” or not.

• Togetherness is the companionship of doing things together – be it shopping, cooking, having sex, whatever – and pertains to the willingness to be and act in concert with another.

• A closeness is where the personal boundaries are expanded to include the other into one’s own space; this is a normal type of intimacy.

• A sweetness is when closeness entrées a lovely delight at the proximity of the other (although it can veer off into affection, ardency, love, oneness).

• A richness (aka an excellence experience) is where sweetness segues into a near-absence of agency via letting-go of control and one is the sex and sexuality (the beer and not the doer).

• Magical sex is where sex and sexuality are happening of their own accord – neither beer nor doer extant – and pristine purity abounds (an immaculate perfection).

[Richard]: 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: → 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[1] following on from the above.

[1]What did not get included in those second and third paragraphs, regarding feeling-being ‘Grace’ and her rigorous gradations, was ‘her’ oft-repeated observation – regarding the onset of the third stage, on that range of naïveness, where ‘her’ gradation of ‘great’ related to sweetness – about a bifurcation manifesting where the instinctual tendency/ temptation was to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy (due to a self-centric attractiveness towards feeling affectionate) as contrasted to a conscious choice being required so as to somehow have that sweetness then segue into a naïve intimacy via what ‘she’ described as ‘richness’ and graded as ‘excellent’. [emphases added].

At this juncture it is a good idea to apply specific attentiveness to the smallest changes in mood at the point of the “bifurcation” mentioned above to not “veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy” if possible, so as to save yourself and your intimate playmate the stark mood swings which inevitably happen when one falls for love’s trappings, which always promises but never delivers.

I wish you best of success.

Cheers Vineeto

January 3 2025

IAN: Hey yes exactly this! Sincerely wondering what it is like brings forth this whole different sparkle really it brings a wonderful feeling of something exquisitely kind of giddy … that exploration incited the motivation to be more finely tuned to what is going on and everything that’s not that particular feeling … it’s like everything about me is an objection except the one that totally wants this to happen … thanks for reminding me about Grace’s gradation … really cool I will find that bifurcation and slip salubriously sideways :grinning: … such a timely reminder thank you … reading those words again makes me so happy

VINEETO: Hi Ian,

Your reply is a delight to read and your words are music to my ears.

Much appreciated.

Cheers Vineeto