June 11 2026

ED: When you told me that I’m more than just a feeler, I’m also a thinker and senser, it caused me to take note of thought and how it had been crippled by self-imposed boundaries. I gave myself full permission to use it. (Again, with an actualist’s intent.)

VINEETO: When I looked through our previous correspondences, I am not clear what you are referring to? I found this quote containing the words “feeler” and “thinker” from 7 April 2025 (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Ed, 7 April 2025).while the word “senser” was nowhere to be found –

ED: Apologies to cause the needless looking: You said this to me on the last day I visited as I was leaving. Perhaps not best to recount an exchange that cannot be referenced so please let me know if this is a misrepresentation and I can amend my post.

VINEETO: Hi Ed,

Thank you for a bit more context. What I might have said is that when there are no feelings or emotions occurring then thoughts are clearer and sensuousness can come to the fore – and I could have phrased it badly in trying to compact it into one sentence. In any case, I recommend taking your information regarding actualism from the written word rather than obscure or even distorted memories from what was said several years ago.

Here I came across a short and brilliantly explanatory quote from Richard which gives you a guide when and why you would want to minimise both the ‘bad’ feelings as well as the ‘good’ feelings without turning the very method into an identity of its own –

Richard: Look, the whole point of minimising both the malicious/ sorrowful feelings (the ‘bad’ feelings) and their antidotal loving/ compassionate feelings (the ‘good’ feelings) whilst maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings) is to make for a potent combination when this untrammelled conviviality operates in conjunction with a naïve sensuosity – whereby one is both likeable and liking – such that the benevolence and benignity of pure intent may increasingly become dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone ... to wit: for the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent, in this lifetime, as this flesh-and-blood body. [Emphases added].(Richard, List D, Martin, 6 March 2016)

You can stick it on your fridge, if you like, to remind you that purposelessly ruminating about this or that feeling for the sake of it is a waste of time when you could be maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings instead.

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VINEETO: Remember, that one’s thinking is both polluted and crippled by one’s feelings, and as such it is far more productive to first get back to feeling good so that thinking does not merely revolve around those feelings, “fantasies or fears”. You might find that when you are feeling good, and more so when you enjoy and appreciate being alive, there are no fantasies at all to distract you from being here.

ED: Yes, when feeling good fantasies or fears (fearful fantasies) do not arise. As far as I can tell such imaginations are triggered by a good feeling or a bad feeling. Once I become aware that I’ve wandered off into imagination, I’ve noticed I can interrupt it with some thinking about what it is that I am presently involved in doing – i.e. imagining being somewhere/ somewhen else. “Ah, I’m thinking about such-and-such fantasy again…” “Where did this train of thought begin / what feeling is involved/ what triggered off that feeling?” “This is similar to this other fantasy/fear I recall, I notice a pattern.” “Is this how I want to spend my time when I could be feeling good or perhaps even having a PCE instead?”

There was one that occurred today and it started due to a good feeling triggered upon receiving some news. I was swept away for approximately 3-5 minutes until I noticed what I was doing and that feeling good had be usurped by good feelings of mild euphoria. I suppose when you notice such a thing, how could you not think about it?

VINEETO: The question is how you think about it. Is it in a ruminating way (see Kuba’s post 5 June 2026) or is it with the specific purpose to find out how you tick so that you can see/understand the concept/ belief/ desire which caused the euphoria, and recognize the silliness of it for the purpose of declining it next time it happens in a similar situation. Otherwise your ‘thinking about it’ is another form of ‘self’-centric absorption.

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VINEETO: ... and more so when you enjoy and appreciate being alive…

ED: I think I am having a fine time at feeling good/ getting back to feeling good, but I could be doing better in regards to up leveling it to enjoying and appreciating being alive. I haven’t quite cracked the code to be able to access that reliably. Currently, enjoying and appreciating being alive is an exception as opposed to the norm.

When I think back on today, there were a handful of interruptions to feeling good, with one major 5-20 minute period into feeling bad. So there is obviously room to raise the bar and extend the periods that I am capable of feeling good. I’ll investigate these interruptions and what caused them, where I was, etc. Many were small things but the 5-20 minute period has to do with a persistent pattern of worrying / feeling overwhelmed by future tasks.

VINEETO: Unless you remove the cause of what interrupted your feeling good period by dissolving the accompanying concept/ pattern of the diminishment of it, it will happen again and again. To give you a simile: a fuse blows in your electric system and stops those appliances to work which are on the same circuit. You replace the fuse and they work again. But unless you find out which particular appliance has the electric fault which caused the fuse to blow in the first place, and then properly fix that (or remove it whatever the case may be), the fuse will blow again the next time you use the faulty appliance.

Actualism is down-to-earth, very practical, in the same way.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualvineeto, Ed2, 11 June 2026).

June 12 2026

LEILA to Ed: I wished I had waited till I come back to feeling good, then write that post, I did this again! Now I regret and sad about it …
Well if I had applied Richard’s method correctly moment to moment, I would have been at least virtually free by now!
I must have confused people here with my writings, I see that I am a bad contributor to this forum!
Feeling sad again!
So, let me come back to feeling good or at least feeling neutral, Ed, and then I come back and reply to your writings.

VINEETO: Hi Leila,

There is a famous poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – a revered American poet and educator (1807-1882) – called “A Psalm of Life”, and many schoolchildren had to learn it by heart – it summarizes and represents a quasi-religious depiction of what life is in the real world. Here are just three stanzas –

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave. (…)

It seems you have inadvertently transferred this near-ubiquitous paradigm of life-in-the-real-world to what you read of actualism and turned it into a real-world chore with a moral score, adding more blame and sorrow to the misery you already experience.

Let me make it simple with a piece of writing from Richard, which I quoted to Ed only yesterday –

Richard: Look, the whole point of minimising both the malicious/ sorrowful feelings (the ‘bad’ feelings) and their antidotal loving/ compassionate feelings (the ‘good’ feelings) whilst maximising the felicitous/ innocuous feelings (the ‘congenial’ feelings) is to make for a potent combination when this untrammelled conviviality operates in conjunction with a naïve sensuosity – whereby one is both likeable and liking – such that the benevolence and benignity of pure intent may increasingly become dynamically enabled for one purpose and one purpose alone ... to wit: for the already always existing peace-on-earth to become apparent, in this lifetime, as this flesh-and-blood body. [Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, Martin, 6 March 2016)

Whenever this is not your purpose then using “Richard’s method” is a waste of time at best and counterproductive to your well-being to boot, so you might as well desist and decline applying it as a moral code, relax and have one set of morality less with which to beat yourself up.

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As for sorting out facts from fiction – if you are indeed doing something akin to the BRAT diet as Ed supposed – here are two entries which caught my attention on Google AI –

Why is the BRAT diet no longer recommended?
The BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast) is no longer recommended because it is overly restrictive, lacks essential nutrients, and fails to support gastrointestinal recovery. Health organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics now advise resuming a normal, balanced diet as soon as possible. (Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials).

Why Medical Experts Shifted Away from BRAT
Lack of Key Nutrients: Following the diet for more than 24 hours can lead to malnutrition and energy deficits. It lacks protein, fat, fiber, and essential vitamins (like B12) needed to help your body heal. (Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials).

You surely can find more detailed information and then sort out the facts when you put your mind to it.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualvineeto, Leila, 12 June 2026).

June 17, 2026

DJ: Hi Vineeto, thanks for your reply.

Yes I do have practical hands-on experience in applying the method, and have had some success with examining and dispelling beliefs and their corresponding emotional responses over the years. I am not armchair philosophising in a vacuum, I’m attempting to look at the hold outs I have as an identity.

VINEETO: (…)

DJ: The hopes and dreams I was referring to in my original post were the kind of hopes and dreams referenced in your “how to investigate feelings” article – those relating to things like material success in life, finding the perfect partner etc.

The circular pattern I was referring to was that of me as an identity fearing for example, not getting what “I” want, as it pertains to real world goals / dreams… and as a result being wary of letting go of those hopes and dreams for fear of them not happening the way that “I” want – and not being able to fully reconcile that by letting go of them, the future “me” won’t care whether they are realised or not.

VINEETO: Hi Dj,

Thank you for the clarifications.

I don’t really see a problem – if you are “wary of letting go of those hopes and dreams”, then don’t let go of them, keep them. You will find out in the process of your pursuit of “material success in life, finding the perfect partner” what happens. Being in hypothetical fear of a hypothetical future, which may or may not happen as you imagine, is a sheer waste of time.

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VINEETO: If your ‘contemplation’ (meaning: “deep, reflective thought or focused observation”) has only resulted in projecting “an empty dreary future, devoid of colour”, thereby demonstrating your obvious and ongoing ignorement/ ignoration of Richard’s descriptions of being actually free on The Actual Freedom Trust website, then your “defence mechanism of the identity” is presently so powerful that you are unable to even establish a sensible Prima Facie Case for an actual freedom from the human condition by reading with at least one eye open, if not both eyes open – (…)

DJ: I have accepted the prima facie case as being valid. Nowhere have I dismissed the method or the goal of actualism as not valid. The empty dreary future was just something my mind projected out seemingly reflexively, and while I know feelings are not facts, I clearly have some work to do in examining that further.

I wouldn’t say I have an “iron clad case” for distrusting the actual world – it’s just a fear that came up.

VINEETO: So you are saying that the “empty dreary future” was a projected future as a feeling ‘being’ after having somehow banished the “hopes and dreams”?

It sounds as if you are in dire need to re-read the ‘instruction manual’ – This Moment of Being Alive – including the numerous helpful explanatory tooltips? It is a very informative article to help iron out any possible misunderstandings or ineffective usage/ habits one may have acquired about the actualism method.

The use of the actualism method has also been discussed here on the forum (see Actualvineeto-SC/Actualism Method pages 1-4) and in the Richard’s Selected Correspondence pages 1-6.

If, as you say, it was only “just a fear that came up”, then what is preventing you from feeling good right now? And before you contemplate about what you determine to be the trigger for a diminishment in feeling good, first get back to feeling good.

Richard: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago would do is first get back to feeling good and then, and only then, suss out where, when, how, why – and what for – feeling bad happened as experience had shown ‘him’ that it was counter-productive to do otherwise.

What ‘he’ always did however, as it was often tempting to just get on with life then, was to examine what it was all about within half-an-hour of getting back to feeling good (while the memory was still fresh) even if it meant sometimes falling back into feeling bad by doing so ... else it would crop up again sooner or later.

Nothing, but nothing, can be swept under the carpet. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).

DJ: Maybe a better question would be, in lieu of not having had a PCE that I can remember, how can I rememorate one – was there something that Richard did specifically that allowed him to help others to access their experiences?

VINEETO: Try this link (Sundry, FAQ, No. 64 “How Do I Induce a PCE?”). FAQs No. 5, No. 20, No. 57, No. 21 are also useful or whatever topic tickles your fancy in the index.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualvineeto, Dj, 17 June 2026).

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