February 16 2026

KUBA: Hi Vineeto,

VINEETO to Syd: What would be radical – radically different from how you operated most of your life – is to leave/ quit ‘the philosophy and planning department’ and naïvely experimentally and experientially explore the world of people and events, with the sincere intent firmly in mind to be harmless and happy as much as humanly possible.

I put ‘harmless’ first, because for many it is the more difficult aspect of an actualist’s sincere intent. (Btw, sincere, as used on the website, does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts). (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Syd, 15 February 2026).

KUBA: This is very simple and yet so important, I am certainly taking note of this for myself. Of course the words happy and harmless as presented on the AFT website do not refer to separate items, it is one package of felicity and innocuity. However it is so easy (I have done it myself) to turn actualism into a pursuit of ‘my’ happiness, which in practice means cunningly pursuing and reinforcing the good feelings and conveniently ignoring their opposite bad feelings. In fact I can observe this bias in myself, that the word harmless can almost become like an addition that comes after happy, an after-thought let’s say. And of course when approaching it that way ‘I’ only spin round and round in self-centred circles. Also I notice in myself that often it took exactly that commitment to harmlessness in order to give up some long held and dear aspect of ‘me’, otherwise if it is just for ‘me’ then ‘I’ might as well remain the same! It is the recognition of what ‘I’ am doing by remaining as ‘I’ am which can break the cycle and this requires that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’.

So it is useful to turn this around and ask myself am ‘I’ first of all being harmless? And interestingly enough happiness comes rather easily when ‘I’ am being harmless to begin with, harmlessness provides a stable platform for ongoing happiness. But the most important part of this, I think, is that the commitment to harmlessness requires that ‘my’ self-centredness progressively diminishes, which means that ‘I’ am then ready to radically change.

VINEETO: Hi Kuba,

I appreciate that you more and more can understand the role that being harmless plays in the overall pursuit of whittling down ‘me’ as in becoming less and less ‘self’-centric which is the instinctive norm of being. For me it was the main concern and last question after I became newly free if I was really being harmless in all I did, including all the ramifications and consequences for others in what I said or did. You put it well when you said “this requires that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’”.

KUBA: This reminds me of something you wrote a while back (paraphrasing) that it is a shame that the recent generation of actualists does not share the same sincere commitment for peace on earth. I remember I took that as a bit of an insult, like “what do you mean!? I am an actualist after all”. And yet it is true that harmlessness has been an afterthought!

VINEETO: I could not find where I had mentioned it but I can refer you to where Richard wrote about it – and repeated it as a tool-tip in several other of his correspondences – starting with –

Andrew: I remember reading on the AFT, Richard mentions the general mood of the 1960’s and has good things to say about it. The focus on peace, adventure, challenging social order, an optimistic view that change was possible.

Richard: Yet what you remember reading on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is actually what feeling-being ‘Peter’ wrote – feeling-being ‘Richard’s focus in the 1960’s was, instead, on warfare, misadventure, upholding social order, an unenterprising view that change was impossible – which is neatly encapsulated in ‘Peter’s Journal’ via descriptions of then being a typically radicalised university student (per favour the subversive ‘Nouvelle Gauche’ socialistic-communistic propaganda, of Mr. Herbert Marcuse (a.k.a. ‘Father of the New Left’) and the ilk, which gripped the largely proto-revolutionary imagination of those socio-politically impressionable youths of the time).

(...)

And here is why that replication is truly epoch-changing:

• [Richard]: “(...) man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus *the very core of civilisation itself* ...”. [emphasis added]. ~ (15 July 2015 & 23 June 2013 & 28 February 2012 & 05 January 2010 & 11 December 2009 & 13 November 2009).

As the implications and ramifications of this epoch-changing replication not only directly relate back to your “make love, not war” and “give peace a chance” allusions to the idealistic 1960’s generational shake-up of the prevailing cultural ethos, of the post-World War II era, but directly impinge upon your failure to “share the opinion that there was anything special about that era” then this is an apt moment to spell-out just what the “naïve optimism” of the sixties generation (disparagingly referred to as ‘the boomers’ and the suchlike, by succeeding generations, when not latterly being called ‘old farts’) has managed to spawn.

(In case it has escaped your notice: the first settlers to take up residence in Terra Actualis are all a product of that naïvely optimistic sixties generation, as contrasted to the cynically pessimistic generations who disenchantedly succeeded them, and it remains to be seen whether the latter can successfully retrieve their long-lost naïveté or not).

To spell-it-out then: All through the ages, and throughout all cultures, one basic predicament exemplified the problem of human relationship and, thus, civilisation itself: man and woman had never been able to live together in peace and harmony – let alone with mutual gladness and delight – for the twenty-four hours of every day for the duration of their respective lives.

Each and every person currently alive, and ever alive, on this otherwise verdant and azure paradise has or had entered this world of minera, flora and fauna via the only possible way – any and all peoples both alive and now dead are or were the progeny of man and woman – and the quality of the start of life is, to a considerable degree, dependent upon the quality of the relationship between each and every person’s progenitor and progenitrix.

Any and all children can and could but blindly follow the examples – and the precepts – bequeathed, at best, with the all-too-human love and compassion of their parental providers and carers (not to mention their extended families).

Obviously, what was required was an in-depth investigation and exploration, an existential uncovering and discovering, a salutary seeking and finding, of the pitfalls and problems which have beset and tormented both genders – difficulties which were, so had it been ordained, set in concrete and indisputable – as per the hoary “you can’t change human nature” maxim.

That appalling status-quo was simply not acceptable to a handful of persons of a sufficiently naïve sensitivity.

Thus the basic premise was, and is, as simplistic as this: if man and woman cannot or could not live together with nary a bicker or a squabble – let alone a quarrel or a wrangle – then forget about street-marches, assorted ‘love-ins’ and other public-demonstrations calling for world peace because man-woman sexuality and intimacy is the genesis of family and thus the very core of civilisation itself.

*

Is it not high time ‘grown-ups’ began living-up to the title “mature adults” else the next generation, and those thereafter ever anon, also settle for a best which is less than the superlative best? [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Andrew, #2).

It's best to read the rest in the original because it has several tool-tips attached.

Historically you can say that my parents’ and my own generation were deeply shocked by the devastation of the world-wide war that had just finished, and my own generation had to see with shock-and-horror the ongoing threat of the mutual assured destruction [MAD] of the cold war eventuate into an even bigger hot war. Personally, I was so affected by this looming threat so much that I decided to not bring any children into this then terrifying world. I later veered off into the spiritual search for inner peace and got sold on Rajneesh’s idea of the New Man. (see Peter’s Journal Chapters ‘Spiritual Search’ and ‘Peace’). But both Peter’s and my longing for peace on earth, in this lifetime were put on the right track and imbued with a whole new practical meaning when we met Richard who had a genuine and already proven track record how to achieve it.

Regarding the following generations, despite many minor wars constantly happening, Europe and the US remained overall little affected. Perhaps because of this apparent ‘peace’ – more of an ongoing armistice or truce – people turned to other concern, and fascinatingly one of the generations (X maybe) has now been called the ‘me’-generation – seeming only concerned with themselves, their rights, their self-image and their safe-space. Of course, because this is a generalisation, it is not the case for everyone, but in the context of (not) being vitally interested in peace on earth, as an overarching desire in one’s life, history had an influence on all.

So each has to find their own overarching motivation to want to become actually free from the grip the instinctual passions and the ‘self’-centric identity have on their lives and others. Each needs to find their motivation to dare to come out of their (apparent) safe cave or ‘self’-involvement and eventually develop/ discover a care for a larger circle than themselves. The very nature of an actual freedom (self-immolation) is such that ‘I’ cannot do it for ‘myself’ only. And when Richard says “And to dare to care is to care to dare” (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 62, 26 March 2004) he is not merely “saying that ‘daring’ and ‘caring’ amounts to the same thing” as Syd would have it. It is a sequential process.

What it means, when written out, that one needs daring/ courage to allow “that ‘my’ horizon expands past just ‘me’” as you so aptly put it, and starts deeply caring for one’s fellow humans as well, because they feel like I-as-an-identity feel, they require the same basics for living like I-as-an-identity do, they have the same or similar troubles I-as-an-identity have, they suffer from war and deprivation as I-as-an-identity would do, and so on. It does take daring to care. And, of course, this is an affective caring because it is felt and experienced by feeling beings – it cannot be otherwise until one is actually free (or in a PCE or close to becoming actually free). To want to put off daring to care until one has a PCE or is close to becoming actually free would be utterly silly and delaying one’s destiny forever.

And only then, when I care enough, do I dare to consider a commitment so radical, it has never being dared before Richard – a commitment to whittle away at the whole of the identity to the point that agreeing to ‘my’ demise remains the only sensible thing to do.

KUBA: I guess it can be said that ‘Geoffrey’ and ‘Srinath’ dared to care. I do remember Srinath mentioned to me a while back that this was one of the last puzzle pieces that clicked for ‘him’ before self-immolation – caring.

VINEETO: They certainly did. I have deep respect, admiration and appreciation for both of their daring and caring, and then the daring arising out of their caring.

You will find that the second part of Srinath’s correspondence with Richard is all about him finding out the intricacies and details of caring and learn about the various tricks the identity employs to jump to the (imaginary) end before having walked the walk, and how to finally proceed to a near-actual-caring and one’s destiny.

Cheers Vineeto (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Kuba 12, 16 February 2026).