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Richard’s Correspondence On The Actual Freedom Mailing List With Correspondent No. 12
RESPONDENT: Richard, have you come across the work of J. Samuel Bois and developed by Alfred Korzybski called General Semantics? RICHARD: Yes, I have come across it before ... and someone used their expertise in ‘General
Semantics’ about a year ago on another Mailing List and determined that I exhibited ‘a worldview that is beleaguered,
spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc’. (what the ‘etc’ represents I will never know). RESPONDENT: Well; I read some of the correspondence you link to and certainly I would be inclined to agree with your correspondent. I tell you that, just in case that fact interests you. RICHARD: This is what is of interest to me: which part of what the respondent wrote is it that you are ‘inclined to agree with’? That is, are you ‘inclined to agree with’ what that person initially said (further above) based on their ‘General Semantics’ expertise ... or what that person said after some discussion with me? Viz.: [Respondent No 41]: ‘To be fair I did a somewhat superficial review of some of the correspondences you have had with ‘B’ list-members, to find examples of spite, presumption, etc and did not find any that were clearly so. My disbelief of you or anyone claiming to be enlightened, or beyond, seems to have clouded my perception. There may have been examples there, but I did not, in my limited investigation, find any. I apologize for speaking without basis’ [endquote]. To explain: the respondent had not read anything at all of what I had actually written before writing their ‘General Semantics’ critique ... their assessment was made based upon an arbitrary list of words, selected ad hoc from various places throughout my millions of words, posted to the list by another respondent endeavouring to thus make the point that I was ‘argumentative, accusing, pontificating, insulting, belittling, sarcastic, judgemental, condescending, snide, hammering, repetitious and bullying’. This is what the ‘General Semantics’ respondent initially wrote in full: [Respondent No. 41]: ‘The words you choose seem to exhibit a worldview that is spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc., (see posting from No. 40 for ample examples from your writings – Thanks No. 40!)’ [endquote]. I am providing these quotes here as you say that ‘I read some of the correspondence ...’ and it may very well be that you did not fully inform yourself, of all of what the ‘General Semantics’ correspondent had to say, by reading all that they had to write before coming to your conclusion ‘certainly I would be inclined to agree with your correspondent’. RESPONDENT: I find myself at a time in my life when I am much more interested in my own writing than anyone else’s. RICHARD: Okay ... this goes some way towards explaining why you have hobbled yourself before you even start. RESPONDENT: That is why I just scanned your millions of words. RICHARD: Yet the computer counts 3,934 words on that page I provided a link to ... not millions. RESPONDENT: I admit; I did not even read the bit where your correspondent refuted somewhat his previous claim. RICHARD: Okay ... I have taken note of just how well researched your entire case against me is. RESPONDENT: I am inclined to agree with your correspondent’s initial judgement about how you express your worldview in writing. RICHARD: First, just so that there is no misunderstanding: are you saying that you are ‘inclined to agree’ that Richard presents a worldview that is beleaguered, spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc.? Second, I also ask because initially you ‘certainly would be inclined to agree’ that Richard presents a worldview that is beleaguered, spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc. Third, I am wondering if the dropping of the ‘certainly’ indicates that you are being faithful to your avowed stance that, although you hold that your viewpoint is correct and true, you also allow that it may not be? Or is the dropping of your certainty, about what the words of Richard indicate, merely an oversight? RESPONDENT: The important thing is that it is a judgment of the correspondent at a certain time and a judgment of mine. RICHARD: Indeed it is. And the respondent gave a conditional retraction giving reasons why their ‘General Semantics’ judgement had been faulty (disbelief in freedom per se) ... and it also turns out that that respondent had not actually read any of my writings anyway before mounting their ‘General Semantics’ case against me. And this is an oversight that kind of crippled them from the start. Would you say that it pays to be well-informed before commencing a critique? RESPONDENT: There is no factuality in judgements. RICHARD: Indeed not – there is factuality only in facts – this is very perspicacious of you. RESPONDENT: I have read quite some of your words; but certainly not a majority. At the moment it does not interest me to read more. RICHARD: May I ask? Why do you handicap yourself this way whilst conducting your case against me? RESPONDENT: That could change. For now I enjoy to write. Thankyou for writing what you did. RICHARD: You are very welcome ... but might I add something rather pertinent before you proceed much further? I would sincerely suggest a pause at this juncture as you may want to take some time out, upon reflection, to reconsider your current course of action. I say this, not just because of the lack of research indicated above, but because the whole thrust of your case against me is based upon spurious reasoning drawn from a viewpoint which you hold to be ‘correct and true’. And thus far there has been no indication of any willingness to actually allow that it may not be. * RESPONDENT: I certainly do not argue with your freedom. I have met you in person and I enjoy your company. I also respect highly your autonomy. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you live in Actual Freedom. I just affirm with your correspondent that from that freedom you communicate with others in a way that would suggest you hold your viewpoint as correct and thus definitive; and that therefore all other viewpoints are valid to the extent they agree with yours. RICHARD: Just so that there is no misunderstanding: I do not have a ‘viewpoint’ at all ... let alone ‘correct’ or ‘definitive’. Nothing I write or say about an actual freedom from the human condition is either a viewpoint or a mindset or a world-view or a philosophy or a metaphysics or a thesis and so on as all that I write is a description which comes out of my direct and spontaneous experiencing at this moment in time at this place in space ... my words are an ‘after the event’ report, as it were. RESPONDENT: Yes; exactly; you need words to communicate your direct and spontaneous experiencing. RICHARD: Aye, if it were not for words no one else would know about an actual freedom from the human condition ... there is no ‘transmission outside of the scriptures’ operating here. I am a fellow human being sans identity: the affective faculty – the entire psyche itself – is eradicated. There is no ‘charisma’ nor any ‘energy-field’ here as I have no ‘energies’ ... no power or powers whatsoever. Therefore it is only the words that convey that an actual freedom from the human condition exists and what it is like. For those that read them, that is. RESPONDENT: So do I. RICHARD: Your experience (what you have communicated so far) can in no way be described as an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: People get confused and react to words. RICHARD: Some people do indeed ‘react to words’ ... those people who study the relationship between these words and the people who read them come to notice that there is at least three possible outcomes in the dynamics of the engagement: a reactive effect, a responsive effect ... and action. I choose my words carefully and they are consciously designed for a specific effect: nothing I say is intended to produce a reactive effect ... all my words are sufficiently challenging to stimulate, motivate and initiate active investigation and responsive discussion. If someone reads them as being the reflection of a reactive personality – an identity – then the result they effect in themselves is a foregone conclusion: a reactive effect. RESPONDENT: ... and some adopt the words and believe they have the experience. RICHARD: Possibly ... but only those who do not read fully, eh? RESPONDENT: I react to your words. RICHARD: So I have noticed. RESPONDENT: But I do not care so very much. RICHARD: This I have also noticed. RESPONDENT: Why? Because my ‘direct and spontaneous experience of this moment in time at this space’ is fully sufficient. RICHARD: Oh? Yet according to your records on your web page, on Sunday 19 November 2000 (the day prior to writing this) you wrote to a respondent saying that you ‘feel sad’, that you ‘have hate and love’, that you are low on your ‘flow of energy ... out of fear’ and that ‘the fear arises when ...’, and that ‘a deep level of fear activates in me’, which is ‘the fear that comes from ...’ ... and so on and so on. If this is what you call your ‘direct and spontaneous experience of this moment in time at this space’, if this is what you call ‘fully sufficient’, then no wonder you cannot comprehend what I write. * RESPONDENT: I write with you because I love to write. RICHARD: Okay ... speaking personally, I write because I like to communicate. I like to communicate because I like my fellow human being. And I communicate because I would like each and every one of my fellow human beings to live in the perfection which is already always here. Then there would be global peace-on-earth. RESPONDENT: I write with you because you are one of the only other people I know who understands directly, the actual. RICHARD: You have caught my attention (‘you are one of the only other people I know who understands directly, the actual’) ... where are these ‘only other people’? For twenty years now I have been travelling, meeting with people, reading, watching media and now the internet and I am yet to come across someone who is actually free from the human condition. Can you provide book titles that detail this? Some URL’s perhaps? Some articles somewhere? I would be delighted to read of another’s accounts ... compare notes, as it were. RESPONDENT: And then when I have had enough I stop. My not agreeing with you about some things – for example that you do not have a viewpoint – is not going to make the world any more or less subject to violence and wars and such ... RICHARD: I would not be so sure about that ... someone reading this someday may very well see themselves prancing across the screen in all their full glory. RESPONDENT: ... no more and no less than your method is going to. Your method does not work Richard. RICHARD: It worked for me. RESPONDENT: Why? Because it is like all the methods through the ages it takes a direct experience and attempts to put it into words for people to understand. RICHARD: Allow me to present the method I offer (the one which worked for me): ask yourself, each moment again: ‘How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ Now I ask you: how is this taking ‘a direct experience and attempting to put it into words for people to understand’? Where a person puts this method into action, with the pure intent garnered from a pure consciousness experience (PCE), this soon becomes a non-verbal attitude or approach to each and every moment of one’s interactions in the world of people, things and events. And, as only this moment is actual (the past is not actual; the future is not actual) that dratted identity’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings scarcely get a look-in to stuff up the works. Instead, naiveté gets to walk in the world again. And it is only naiveté which comprehends just how nearby peace-on-earth already always is. RESPONDENT: And people will always react from misunderstanding and create conflict ... which is what your way is supposed to be helping to put into the past. RICHARD: May I ask? Is this viewpoint which you hold to be ‘correct and true’ not colouring your understanding here? I only say this because there are other people who did not ‘always react from misunderstanding and create conflict’ when they read my words. You are not the only person on this planet. RESPONDENT: It won’t ... it has worked in you; but your method will not work on its own to create a better world. It is interesting and has value but it is a method that creates more reactions in the end. RICHARD: I see again that you have certainly handicapped yourself by not having the interest to actually read the words on offer on The Actual Freedom web site. * RESPONDENT: Hmm ... I am trying to say Richard, what makes you imagine that I – for example – would have any more interest in hearing the ‘after the event’ reporting of your direct experience than I have in ... eating pizza? And what makes you imagine that if I do not have that interest I am any less in actual freedom than ‘you’? RICHARD: But I do not have to ‘imagine’ that you are ‘any less in actual freedom’ than Richard is. I do not need to ‘imagine’ anything at all ... I simply read your words. Only the very day prior to you writing this, your own records on your own web page show that you were writing to another correspondent about how you are experiencing life. Viz.:
You see? There is no need for anyone to ‘imagine’ that you are ‘any less in actual freedom’ than Richard is after all. * RESPONDENT: I already have direct experience ... RICHARD: I can see that you are you having what you call a ‘direct experience’ of ... um ... fear and sadness and love and hate, for example. RESPONDENT: ...and I do not claim to have a method, a way, as you claim. RICHARD: Sure, there is no argument from me in this respect. I do see that you have no method. None whatsoever. RESPONDENT: I do not want to claim that ... all it does is increases the conflict that exists in the world already. RICHARD: How? RESPONDENT: There are enough methods, enough ways. RICHARD: So far in human history there is only one method and only one way to enable an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: Yours is not unique ... you just believe it is and have a way of convincing others it is. RICHARD: If you say so then it is so ... for you, that is. I will keep my own counsel on the matter, however. RESPONDENT: What the world needs is more people who are willing to say ‘hello; this moment is a delight; isn’t it ... can we share and enjoy each others company ... I have no more to offer than you; and you have no more to offer than me ... ‘. RICHARD: Ahh ... the blind leading the blind, in other words. RESPONDENT: Then the actual will have a chance of slowly forming the real physical paradise on earth that is our potential. RICHARD: Yet this actual world already always is a physical paradise. How can that which already always is a physical paradise ‘slowly form’ that ‘physical paradise’ which is ‘our potential’? One needs to get off one’s backside and precipitate the singular event which will enable the physical paradise in to becoming apparent. Or, as I am wont to put it: to live in peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Enough methods ... really; enough. They are arrogant. RICHARD: Hmm ... here is that almost-obligatory ‘arrogant’ charge again. I have noticed that, generally speaking, only humble peoples fire this missile off. RESPONDENT: Enough people claiming that they are the one who has ‘actual freedom’ and everybody else doesn’t. RICHARD: Oh? Do you really mean to say that one person is ‘enough’? How will that put an end to all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides? * RICHARD: The actual freedom which I communicate with others is expressed in a way that clearly describes the actual and direct experiencing of being this flesh and blood body sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul ... and this description is a factual account. That which is actual is neither ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’: it is evident. A fact cannot be argued with ... it can only be reported. For example, if I were to say ‘this is a computer monitor’ I am reporting a fact which cannot be argued with (without being silly). And when I say ‘this is a computer monitor’ no one tells me I am being ‘spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc.’. No way ... Richard is only ‘spiteful, presumptuous, condescending, reductive, etc.’ when he points out a fact that pulls the rug from under another’s elaborate belief system slyly dressed up as truth and masquerading as being genuine, authentic and valid. It is the fact which pulls the rug ... not me. RESPONDENT: No; no; no ... Richard is stubborn, he genuinely believes that his self isn’t. But his self IS ... it is out in the space between us, thrust out there by his communication. I see your self, I read your self ... it is here, it is a fact. RICHARD: I will copy-paste some very astute words of yours from further below up here to demonstrate why I decline to be guided by your understanding on this particular issue:
In the jargon this process (‘I see your self, I read your self’) is called ‘projection’. RESPONDENT: Obviously that which is actual is neither correct nor incorrect. Obviously. RICHARD: Good. RESPONDENT: But we are not talking about what is actual ... we are talking about your communication. I started by agreeing with another correspondent; who later changed his mind somewhat, that your communication is of a unpleasant nature. RICHARD: It is indeed ‘unpleasant’ to have someone point out a fact that pulls the rug from under another’s elaborate belief system slyly dressed up as truth and masquerading as being genuine, authentic and valid ... I would be the last to deny that. Yet it is the fact which pulls the rug ... not me. RESPONDENT: It is contemptuous of the point of view of others ... no let me rephrase that ... RICHARD: May I make a trivial suggestion? Why not delete that and start again? Computers are really good in this respect ... no trees get wasted upon throwing rejects into the waste-paper basket. RESPONDENT: ... your communication tends towards contempt at times when other people than you attempt to communicate a point of view that does not agree with yours. RICHARD: Upon second thoughts: do not delete your rejects as it shows how you re-phrased what you were going to spontaneously say into what your ‘point of view’ dictates you must say. RESPONDENT: You even go to the extent of claiming NOT to have a point of view. You are EXTREME ... RICHARD: If I may interject? I am not extreme at all ... and a simple example will demonstrate. That which is actual is not ‘extreme’: it is simply evident. For example, if I were to say ‘this is a computer monitor’ I am reporting a fact which is not ‘extreme’ by any criterion. And when I say ‘this is a computer monitor’ no one tells me I am being ‘extreme’. No way ... Richard is only ‘extreme’ when he points out a fact that pulls the rug from under another’s elaborate belief system slyly dressed up as truth and masquerading as being genuine, authentic and valid. It is the fact which pulls the rug ... not me. RESPONDENT: ... and I happen to like extreme people who find that extremity inside themself (I use the term deliberately) rather than adopting the extremity of somebody else. Those people; the adopters, I have little time for; as you are fond of saying you do not suffer fools gladly ... neither do I. RICHARD: You must be very detached from yourself then, eh? RESPONDENT: I prefer gifted people like you who have found a way to express the perennial philosophy uniquely and freshly ... now. RICHARD: I am neither ‘gifted’ nor have I found ‘the perennial philosophy’ ... let alone express it ‘uniquely and freshly’. An actual freedom from the human condition is totally new to human experience ... thus its expression is totally new. RESPONDENT: I am well aware you will deny that ... but that is just your way. RICHARD: I am meeting each of your claims and allegations squarely and sensibly ... you saying that this response is the meeting being ‘just your way’ does nothing to further the discussion. Basically it means you are not listening. RESPONDENT: Your way depends a lot on negation. RICHARD: My way does not depend upon ‘negation’ at all ... my way depends upon extinction. RESPONDENT: You negate most of what people write to you ... and people do not like that. That’s all. RICHARD: I am meeting each of any one’s claims and allegations squarely and sensibly ... it is called having a discussion. RESPONDENT: It is not a big problem ... absolutely not for you; because you are in actual freedom ... RICHARD: It is no problem for me whatsoever ... I am having so much fun here at the keyboard. RESPONDENT: ... so the words you use are not going to change that. RICHARD: The words I use ‘are not going to change that’ ... are not going to change what exactly? Change the fact that some people find it unpleasant having a fact pointed out that pulls the rug from under their elaborate belief system slyly dressed up as truth and masquerading as being genuine, authentic and valid? Of course not ... if someone – anyone – wishes to nurse such things to their bosom they actively invite being hurt again and again. Usually this self-inflicted process that they invoke is called ‘persecution’. RESPONDENT: Nor is my misunderstanding of your intent behind your words going to change it. RICHARD: Indeed not ... the changing of it is the stuff of derring-do. RESPONDENT: Neither are your words going to change me. Why? Because ‘me’ is just out there reacting to your words at times ... RICHARD: I take particular note of what you say here and I am sure that I will be quoting these words of yours back to you at appropriate moments. Have you ever noticed how honesty and facts sit so well together? RESPONDENT: ... and really it makes little difference to the fulfilment that is here. RICHARD: According to your records on your web page the ‘fulfilment that is here’ looked like this yesterday: You ‘feel sad’. You ‘have hate and love’. You are low on your ‘flow of energy ... out of fear’. You have ‘a deep level of fear’ which ‘activates in me’. You have the ‘fear that comes from ...’. ... and so on and so on. * RESPONDENT: Which brings me to a question I have had arising for awhile. Richard, you claim to have no ego, and no ‘self’. How do you know that the situation is: there is no self in Richard; as distinct from the situation that Richard is not aware of Richard’s self? RICHARD: Apperception. RESPONDENT: Richard ... your apperception of your absence of self is like a little boy hiding behind a pole thinking that he cannot be seen because he cannot see because his eyes are both behind the pole but his body sticks out for everybody else to see. RICHARD: If you already knew this then why did you ask? Was it just so that you could write this snappy little retort in a suitable context? * RESPONDENT: Another definition also seems significant: ‘General semantics deals with our reactions to words, symbols, and to whatever happens to us; as distinguished from semantics, which deals with words and their meanings’. J. Samuel Bois. It is easy to overlook the fact that all we have in the space between us is an email list composed of words and that at each inbox there is a human sitting who reacts to the words. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I never, ever overlook the fact that the words are written by a flesh and blood human being ... irregardless of whatever name, gender, age, place of birth or any other details which may or may not be factual. I only ever talk or write in order to communicate ... I do not talk because ‘I like the sound of my own voice’, as the saying goes (I never have an internal dialogue going on, for example, as I take perfection for granted). It is that the words are being typed by a fellow human being which is important. RESPONDENT: Yes. This is where I am hoping we are moving towards. I like it that you say that. Really ... that is all we need. RICHARD: What is with this ‘we are moving towards ...’ sentence of yours? Did you not read what I just wrote? Here, I will copy-paste it for you so you will not have to search through my 101 words (just above) to find it:
Put simply: I am not ‘moving towards’ anyone or anything ... I am already always here. * RESPONDENT: I would be very interested in your unique and valuable perspective on General Semantics, which, according to Korzybski, is ‘not any ‘philosophy’, or ‘psychology’, or ‘logic’, in the ordinary sense. It is a new extensional discipline which explains and trains us how to use our nervous systems most efficiently’. RICHARD: Is there some aspect of ‘General Semantics’ which attracted your attention? Like how it has helped you ‘to use your nervous system most efficiently’, for example? RESPONDENT: Ah. This bit I was genuinely hoping you had examined and were inclined to write more about. I do understand that your interest ranges into the role of the nervous system in enforcing confinement in the human condition; and I wondered whether the general semantics knowledge base had any relationship to what you are presenting; in your estimation. RICHARD: Sure ... if you could communicate how ‘General Semantics’ has helped you ‘to use your nervous system most efficiently’ I would be more than happy to read it. RESPONDENT: I thought I had communicated sufficiently already – but I accept I had not – that General Semantics HAS NOT (as yet) helped me to use my nervous system more efficiently. RICHARD: I see ... so you quoted something that has not yet worked for you. RESPONDENT: I only read the phrase that is all ... RICHARD: Ahh ... so you quoted something that you knew nothing about. RESPONDENT: ... and immediately I thought this is something Richard is interested in so I asked you. RICHARD: Uh huh ... so you thought that I would be interested in something that has not yet worked for you and which you know nothing about, eh? RESPONDENT: Is that clearer now? RICHARD: Crystal clear: you not only quote something that has not yet worked for you; you not only quote something you know nothing about ... but you think that this is what Richard would like to hear from you. RESPONDENT: It is fine for you not to write something if you do not want to. Is that obvious? RICHARD: Shall I put it this way? I want to write something only if what you have to say about your experience and understanding of ‘General Semantics’ accords with my experience. Then we would have a mutual point of interest ... one which relates to an actual freedom from the human condition. Otherwise I would simply be doing ‘armchair philosophising’ for you. * RICHARD: If what I then read accords with my experience we would have a mutual point of interest ... one which relates to an actual freedom from the human condition. Otherwise I would simply be doing ‘armchair philosophising’ for you. RESPONDENT: I am not wanting you to do armchair philosophising. RICHARD: The why not write to me communicating how ‘General Semantics’ has helped you? If what I then read accords with my experience we would have a mutual point of interest ... one which relates to an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: I just expressed what arose in me when I read the phrase. You arose. So I communicated with you. RICHARD: Ahh ... now I understand (and please correct me if I have misunderstood): you did not actually want to have a discussion with me about ‘General Semantics’ vis-à-vis the part it has played in your understanding of yourself and life ... what you wanted to communicate to me was that when you came across some ‘General Semantics’ quotes you first thought of me? Am I understanding this correctly? RESPONDENT: Sometimes things are much more simple than we make them. Actual freedom is incredibly simple, Richard. RICHARD: Aye, all it takes is altruistic ‘self’-sacrifice ... the utter extinction of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ a soul. RESPONDENT: It is the communication that is problematic and difficult ... RICHARD: Speaking personally, I do not find communication ‘problematic and difficult’ at all ... of course the other person does need to actually read what I write. RESPONDENT: ... and that does not change the fact that actual freedom is. RICHARD: Your experience (what you have communicated so far) can in no way be described as an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: And in that actual freedom what we have is distinct autonomous people communicating their points of view with words. RICHARD: I do comprehend that this is your ‘point of view’. But I am not communicating a ‘point of view’ ... nothing I write or say about an actual freedom from the human condition is either a ‘point of view’ or a mindset or a world-view or a philosophy or a metaphysics or a thesis and so on. It is all actual.
RESPONDENT: Thanks for writing again Richard. I cannot pretend to have read even half of what you write below; but certainly I will. Today I did not even get around to continuing what I was reading and responding to from your yesterday’s post. Certainly I have the intention of responding point by point to points. One thing I recall staying in my mind is that you expressed a – it was almost put out as a requirement on your part – that I stay linear. RICHARD: You must be referring to the following exchange:
The word ‘sequentially’ comes from ‘consequence’ (‘consequential’) and means following as a sequel to. Put simply: you made a statement (No. 1) and I responded (No. 2) with information pertaining to that statement. That is, my response (No. 2) which came as a consequence of you making the statement (No. 1) related to the content or substance of your statement. Your response (No. 3) did not relate to the content or substance of your statement (No. 1) but instead shifted the emphasis away from the issue ... or, as I remarked (No. 4) a side-stepping response. I could have written ‘can you stay with the issue’ or ‘this is a red-herring’ as this ploy seeks to either change the topic or blur distinctions. If it is not a ‘ploy’ on your part then maybe (note that ‘maybe’ is a suggestion only) you are either incapable of thinking clearly (as in confused) or just plain dumb (as in stupefied). RESPONDENT: I think you were upset that I stopped writing to you in the middle of responding to points in your email. RICHARD: You may, of course ‘think’ whatever you wish. It has nowt to do with what is actually happening though. RESPONDENT: Oh yes; I was going to have dinner with my wife on the terrace and so I concluded writing with you and sent off what I had. RICHARD: Not so ... you responded to three more points after that response (No. 3 above). RESPONDENT: And you expressed that I should have finished what I started. RICHARD: No way am I going to set myself up to be in the business of telling you what you should or should not do ... you can do whatever you wish in regards to how your own brain is to function. I straightforwardly proposed that, in the course of the to and fro feed-back of a mailing list, if you would not or could not address the issues, that arose as a consequence of you starting the thread, it leaves your motive for not following through open to guesses on the part of the other (or others). It is the consequence, in other words, which ultimately tells you what you should or should not do or should or should not have done. It is you who has to live with those consequences ... not me. RESPONDENT: But that does not matter to me Richard. RICHARD: But it does ... your later E-Mails (the four more that I am yet to respond to) show just how much it does matter to you. Look, if I point out a likely consequence it is the consequence that matters ... it does not matter that I am the one that pointed it out (unless you are sucked into that ‘shoot the messenger’ syndrome). Have you never had someone point a likely consequence out to you before? RESPONDENT: What matters is that I write the response I have to you. RICHARD: Hmm ... irregardless of the content, you mean? A sort of ‘stream of consciousness’ type of writing? RESPONDENT: And I certainly cannot do that in an hour or two a day. I do wish sometimes there were more hours in the day so that I can write more in interaction with interesting people like you. RICHARD: I could make a suggestion? Try staying with the issue; the subject; the topic. Try being focussed; being relevant; being engaged. RESPONDENT: Perhaps tomorrow I will put your latest writing onto the website and over time respond. Did you see that I responded to some of your points you had made through the actualfreedom list, directly onto the new website? RICHARD: Yes ... if you had read my response you would have already known this (‘I cannot pretend to have read even half of what you write below; but certainly I will’). RESPONDENT: I meant today to also send those points via the list; to you; but other things occupied me all day. Certainly I intend to take up the points I dropped when I chose to have dinner on the terrace instead of finishing my email to you. RICHARD: I am not telepathic ... if you genuinely wish me to receive your response you will need to type it out on your keyboard and click ‘send’. RESPONDENT: And certainly I do not feel obliged on your account to ‘finish’ an email in the way that you would like me to. RICHARD: Yet I already said that in the very response of mine you are now responding to. Did you overlook this? Viz.:
RESPONDENT: And ... perhaps I have a question: do you see linearity as a requirement for actual freedom ... RICHARD: I have never mentioned the word ‘linearity’ ... mostly it is a word spiritual people use when talking with me in response to my suggestion that they stay focussed, stick to the issue, be relevant ... and communicate meaningfully. RESPONDENT: ... or did you just mean that I, Respondent, should be linear if I wish to communicate with you? RICHARD: You may, of course, be whatever you wish. If you chose to be unfocussed, dodge the issue, not be relevant and fail miserably in the entire area of communication then I am sure you will find, as a consequence, that other people’s responses (who stay focussed, relevant and communicative) will have the self-induced effect on you of you feeling derided, scorned, ridiculed or whatever other feeling that you may thus activate in that entire repertoire of feelings you nurse to your bosom. RESPONDENT: Or did you mean that ... perhaps I will come back to that; it is late and my mind is not very focused. Is that alright with you? RICHARD: It is your life you are living ... I can only suggest: what another does with my suggestions is, of course, entirely up to them. It is they who either reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction that they may or may not do. Provided a person complies with the legal laws and observes the social protocols they will be left alone to live their life as wisely or as foolishly as they wish. RESPONDENT: Oh, one more thing ... you begin to remind me of another of my correspondents who also believes he is not his body ... RICHARD: Uh? RESPONDENT: ... his words matter but not the facts about his physical existence. Curious. I had perceived you up till now as at least understanding that you cannot just think your physical body out of existence. RICHARD: Are you still talking to me? I am aware that you have not read all that much of what is on offer but it is plastered all over The Actual Freedom Web Site that I fully acknowledge that what I am is this flesh and blood body ... indeed it is the main bone of contention that the spiritualists have with me that I do not support their ‘you are not the body; you are pure spirit’ hallucination. Surely you could not have missed this single salient point? RESPONDENT: Anyway ... again probably I am not lucid and probably that is not a way of communication you value highly. RICHARD: What I value is neither here nor there at this particular juncture ... the question is: do you value it highly? Or do you enjoy making yourself feel derided, ridiculed, scorned or whatever? RESPONDENT: I recall once you derided the artistic ... did you? RICHARD: No. Maybe you felt that I did but what you feel that I do and what is actually happening are two entirely different things. RESPONDENT: And certainly your writing has a strong leaning towards the logical and the structured, and ... yes; the linear. RICHARD: Try these words for size: sensible, practical, down-to-earth, relevant, rational, coherent ... there are others but these will do for now. RESPONDENT: How can you be free Richard if you face only in one direction? RICHARD: Where have I ever said that I face only in the one direction? I describe apperception as a 360 degree awareness. Viz.:
You will find this paragraph half-way down page 215 in your copy of ‘Richard’s Journal’ that you purchased from me. You may have already read it as I noticed that your ‘Respondent’s Viewpoint’ reads:
Ain’t life grand! RESPONDENT: 180 degrees opposite to the rest of humanity? RICHARD: No ... I have stepped out of ‘humanity’ entirely. I have abandoned ‘humanity’ completely (‘humanity’ sucks). RESPONDENT: How is it that everybody has got it wrong but a man who does not even want to share his surname or photo has got it right? RICHARD: Because I have only ever been interested in one thing and one thing only: peace-on-earth ... now. RESPONDENT: How is it that you do not present a system of belief – as you claim and even seem to believe – and yet you constantly present arguments about why everybody who comes into contact with you should move towards an understanding of the ‘human condition’ in terms of ‘actual freedom’? RICHARD: Simple: if you do not want peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body then do not write to me. I make my agenda crystal clear right up-front from the very start ... anyone who choses to write to me must surely expect me to respond in terms of an actual freedom from the human condition. If not then they are either confused or just plain dumb. RESPONDENT: Oh, and one last question for now, Richard, are you sometimes wrong? RICHARD: Yes ... if you had read my response you would have already known this (‘I cannot pretend to have read even half of what you write below; but certainly I will’). Viz.:
I would sincerely suggest a pause at this juncture as you may want to take some time out, upon reflection, to reconsider your current course of action. I say this, not just because you have not even bothered to read my responses to your claims and allegations (as indicated above), but because the whole thrust of your case against me is based upon spurious reasoning drawn from a viewpoint which you hold it to be ‘correct and true’. And, despite your rhetoric, you have displayed no willingness to actually allow that it may not be.
RESPONDENT: You said once that you value your privacy. RICHARD: Yes ... I am having too much fun, living my life in the way I see fit, to clutter up my lifestyle with ‘guru-circuit’ peoples, who cannot think for themselves, trooping daily through my front door. RESPONDENT: Let us get to some facts Richard. You have been on the internet how many years? Your email address has been available to how many people in that time (in your estimation – approximately)? How many of those people have emailed you asking to come and ‘troop through your front door’ to get a more close up delivery of your wisdom? In other words; is it happening already that people are using the communication channel you do have open (email) to request a meeting with you in Byron Bay? How many people have done that already Richard? You can count me as one (and I still cherish the times we spent together discussing this and that and eating fish). Now, since you state already you are having fun living the way you see fit without the ‘‘guru-circuit’ peoples’ cluttering up your lifestyle we must assume either that not many people have made the request thru email; or you have refused many requests. Could you document the facts on this matter? Then we may be in a position to establish some projection about the likely number of guru seekers who would come to you if your name and photo were also available to the public. RICHARD: Before you go on to develop your thesis further with the collation of statistics, the plotting of graphs, considering appropriate interpolations, adding projections, contemplating bell curves and so forth, I wonder if I may point out something so obvious that you may be overlooking it? If I were actually publicising myself as you are so insistent that I do, before you first heard about an actual freedom from the human condition per Peter’s and Vineeto’s posts to the sannyas list you were subscribed to, what you would be likely to be saying now instead of the above would be demanding to know why I have set myself up as some sort of here-on-earth ... um ... actualism master replete with name, an advertised address, beaming photographs for the adoring actualists, actualism discourses, actualism workshops and ... and the whole kit and caboodle. You only have to look at some of your own correspondence (starting 6/06/2000 in the List Bot archives) to see this very accusation in full flower anyway ... and without all the publicity photographs and so on. I also recall that on 14/06/2000 you were proposing ‘... an actual freedom workshop, a weekend of exploring together what it means to be actually free on this planet in the year 2000 ... Byron Bay in the Spring’. This came just after your circular advertising and promoting a spiritually-based tantric-sex workshop that you were collecting the $375.00 participation fee for. You are not the only person to try to turn an actual freedom into a pay-as-you-participate religion ... and you will not be the last. RESPONDENT: By implication from your above writing; you imagine, or know, or have the point of view, or directly perceive, (which?), that the publication of your surname and your photo would dramatically increase the number of people who cannot think for themselves wanting to meet you. Is that how you think about it? RICHARD: No. How I think about it is how I explained it to you in this very E-Mail you are responding to:
RESPONDENT: If so; how do you justify your belief with facts Richard? What evidence do you have that you would be any more in demand by the guru seekers if your name was on the site along with your photo? RICHARD: I will provide an example that illustrates why the Internet is my chosen means of dissemination for the obvious reason of being interactive and rapid. A self-confessed guru-seeker from the other side of the world came to see me, having had some contact with the actual freedom writings, with the view of being able to be finished with gurus forever. Every afternoon for nearly six weeks this person had a private face-to-face interaction – for four to six hours every afternoon for 39 days this person had a one-on-one intimacy – and then this guru-seeker went back to their guru. Now do you see why the electronic copying and distribution capacity of a mailing list service – with it’s multiple feed-back capability – is second to none? RESPONDENT: An associated question that you might document an answer for – for my curiosity and for the archives – this being a serious enquiry into your claim that you and only you are in ‘actual freedom’. Are you absolutely sure that you have stated all the reasons why you do not wish to publish your surname and photo on the site? RICHARD: No ... and I am not about to go searching throughout my web site for you just because you have no interest in doing so. RESPONDENT: Could it be at all possible that Richard has fear for instance? RICHARD: It is becoming more and more obvious that you really mean it when you say that you either do not read my responses or only part-read them. Because I see that my response to you asking this same question, which was in this very E-Mail you responded to a couple of hours after I posted it, is quite clear, succinct and direct to the point. Viz.:
I would sincerely suggest a pause at this juncture as you may want to take some time out, upon reflection, to reconsider your current course of action. I say this, not just because your questions are trivial, repetitive and non-explorative vis-à-vis peace-on-earth, but because the whole thrust of your case against me is based upon spurious reasoning drawn from a viewpoint which you hold it to be ‘correct and true’. A viewpoint which you display no willingness to actually allow that it may not be.
CORRESPONDENT No 12 (Part Seven) RETURN TO THE ACTUAL FREEDOM MAILING LIST INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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