November 13 2025

VINEETO: Indeed, this is the very way the actualism method works in a nutshell. By following a self-less inclination you are having fun and vice versa, felicitous and innocuous feelings don’t provide fodder for ‘me’.

CHRONO: Much simpler when it’s actually applied as written haha. I have been reflecting more on what it means to be sincere and the part that sticks out more now is that it is to be in accord with the fact. What is the fact? The fact is the actuality ascertained in a PCE. How can I align with this fact? By enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. In a PCE, it is seen that only this moment genuinely exists and all is already perfectly happening.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

Let me stop you right there. Where you are going with this is that you can never “be in accord with the fact” until you are actually free. This is called a red herring and stops you from even starting. To be sincere, i.e. “in accord with the fact”, means you don’t deceive yourself when a good or bad feeling interferes with enjoyment and appreciation. Therefore you are as honest as you can regarding the feeling which is happening at this very moment of writing this – for example something like “ahh, I can never be sincere, it’s too difficult, I rather stay as I am”. Sincerely acknowledging what is happening you’ll eventually sort it out with the intent to being happy and harmless – and you have demonstrated many times before that you can do that excellently. If you notice imagination happening like creating future scenarios, you sincerely acknowledge that knowing something imagined is not a fact.

CHRONO: And my struggle seems to be in seeing that I can never match this effortless perfection. Highlighting the belief that ‘I’ can be perfect. ‘I’ can only allow it through imitating it. ‘I’ can never be it. I feel viscerally conflicted or torn. There must be another belief why I do not simply incline each moment towards it. Perhaps I am jumping the gun again.

VINEETO: Of course, if you want to arrive before you start it’s a clear indication you are “jumping the gun” … and sincerely inquiring why you are going on this side-track will inevitably provide the answer and then you sort out what it right in front of you. Remember to get back to feeling good first.

*

VINEETO: It’s wonderful, isn’t it. To be ‘someone’ is the modus operandi for which you have been conditioned since childhood, backed up by the instinctual imperative of survival – but is this really still necessary? As you say “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”. It is also possible because you can be naïve with all your adult sensibility intact.

CHRONO: I’m not able to even think of any reason why it’s necessary aside from the usual provisions of the feelings of warmth and belonging. I find it more enjoyable to be happy and harmless.

VINEETO: Excellent. What about the “feelings of warmth and belonging” – are you game to boldly go where you haven’t gone before and naïvely explore intimacy between fellow human beings in lieu of “warmth and belonging”?

*

VINEETO: Yes, the real-world rules, morals and dogmas operate in opposites and have only two alternatives. There is a third alternative.

CHRONO: Weirdly has taken me a longer time to figure that out experientially. I just had this realization about sexual desire and why I have “trouble” with it. It occurs in every human being to some extent, so why am I making a big deal out of its occurrence? And I finally realized it, it’s because of repression. There’s a guilt surrounding it as I mentioned previously. But what if there was no guilt? Then I am somehow morally reprehensible. As I previously saw that ‘I’ cannot end ‘me’ and ‘I’ am already born this way, then there’s no taking blame for my feeling this desire. I understand better now where you say:

Vineeto: As for the second aspect of the “feeling of guilt” because “you are disregarding your partner” – when you deliberate shift your focus of interest from personal sexual satisfaction only to intimacy, the whole nature of sexual congress will change in the direction of including your partner, as a fellow play-mate, in the direct (bodily) intimacy of sexual congress. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Chrono2, 31 October 2025)

VINEETO: To ease the pressure of what was originally repressed may take some persistence because repression happened not only because of the “feeling of guilt” but also because it is something unfamiliar to be explored/ experienced as to what happens when you lift the lid, so to speak. It helps to be a friend to yourself and be gentle and consciously enjoy the adventure, without back-pressure from yourself. Richard’s second part of the quote explains why it has never really been allowed to be explored naïvely.

CHRONO: And also this section from Article 2 in Richard’s Journal I am able to see in operation:

I am understanding now that the shift to intimacy is a different game altogether from the one that gives sexual desire a central role. That is, my focus on getting rid of it won’t work.

VINEETO: Indeed, half the job is to sort out what doesn’t work. The process of getting accustomed/ familiar with naïvely and gently shifting to intimacy in practice, might sometimes appear a balancing act between “holy” and “vulgar”. Don’t fall for either, keep looking for the fun and benevolent way (to yourself and your partner) – the third alternative.

*

VINEETO: Indeed, being in control is the sole function of this contingent ‘being’, ‘me’, the entity which does not exist in its own right and needs to control to prevent being exposed as such. ‘You’ need to keep working hard to justify ‘your’ existence, whereas “it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”, when you can allow yourself to be what you are. You lessen control by progressively allowing the obstacles to enjoyment and appreciation to disappear via attentiveness and (if necessary) investigation – and thus by imitating the actual.

CHRONO: Yes I recently noticed as it was happening how much that insults and compliments make up this being a someone. If ‘my’ whole point is to survive, then I’m only taking these on personally to survive. And now I have some more cues to look out for.

VINEETO: Ha, it is indeed so, when you look at the content of what your “belonging” really consists of – “insults and compliments” – punishment and reward – made valid by the feeling of power or loss thereof. Another confirmation that you were right when you said “being a “someone” is a serious business” … and ”it’s actually enjoyable when I don’t”.

*

VINEETO: I don’t know what holds authority, anyone’s authority, in place for you. For ‘Vineeto’ the very justification for any authority disappeared in one fell swoop with the startling apperceptive discovery – <snipped> (Actualism, Vineeto, A Bit of Vineeto, #oneevening)

CHRONO: Actually the only authority I can think of is the authority of Humanity through morals, ethics, and judgements. But it all hinges on the idea of caring. I have been reflecting again on what it means to be caring in the real world vs being carefree and considerate. Can I be carefree AND considerate? I am reading the chapter titled “It is possible to be sensitive without being vulnerable”. And being ‘vulnerable’ in the real world is perhaps the gateway into what real world caring is.

VINEETO: The reason the described PCE (now snipped) was such a consequential event for ‘Vineeto’ because ‘she’ realised that every and all authority people assume stems from some god’s authority – god is the ultimate source for what is right and wrong, bad and good (=heaven and hell). All the values by which humans are socialised originate from the ‘Tried and Failed’ legacy of enlightened beings, gods and goddesses. Hence to realise that there is no room for god in an actual infinite, and perfect, universe, and the justification and ultimate origin of right and wrong disappears.

The same applies to your “authority of Humanity” and “the idea of caring”. While being caring and considerate are aspects of being harmless, the word “caring” in the real world is generally synonymous with feeling caring, i.e. giving out affective vibes of caring, sympathy and compassion, together with or even instead of practical caring. This is because humanity’s idea of caring is tightly linked to “putting the other before oneself”, being compassionate and self-less.

Hence the aim of being harmless together, including the considering the consequences of your words and actions might have, will a clearer guidance for what you want to be –

Martin: Does harmlessness have nothing to do with ‘others’?

Richard: (…)

• [Richard]: “(...) it may be worthwhile bearing in mind that it is impossible to be happy (be happy as in being carefree), as distinct from feeling happy, without being harmless (being harmless as in being innocuous), as distinct from feeling harmless, and to be happy *and* harmless is to be unable to induce suffering – etymologically the word ‘harmless’ (harm + less) comes from the Old Norse ‘harmr’ (meaning grief, sorrow) – either in oneself or another”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard Actual Freedom List, No. 62, 26 March 2004).

Thus to be harmless as per actualism lingo (being free of malice) is beneficial both to oneself – plus it feels unpleasant (hedonically) to feel malicious (affectively) anyway – as well to others due to being unable to induce suffering either in oneself or another, via affective vibes and psychic currents, and vice versa. (…)

Martin: (…) I don’t think I’ve really understood what harmless means, as I can’t help but either put ‘myself’ or ‘others’ first (as a kind of denial of ‘self’) when I think of being harmless. (…) ‘Harmlessness’ feels like something you *do* to another human being – or an effect you have on them – but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?

Richard: Do you see how almost all of that paragraph you wrote as a lead-up to your query about being harmless – as in “but do you simply mean it as an absence of malice and sorrow?” that is – stems from or revolves around that hoary religio-spiritual practice of putting each and every other ‘self’ before one’s own ‘self’ (a.k.a. being an unselfish ‘self’) so as to counter selfishness? (…)

As being harmless does not feature in religio-spiritual practice – peace-on-earth is not on the religio-spiritual agenda – then the sooner that nonsense about being an unselfish ‘self’ is abandoned the better. (Richard, List D, Martin, 6 August 2016).

CHRONO: But what does it mean to actually care?

VINEETO:

Richard: … near-actual caring is, of course, epitomised by a vital interest in the suffering of all human beings coming to an end, forever … (Richard, List D, Srinath2, #near-actual-caring).

*

Richard: Hence it came to pass one fine evening that feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ realised, with a profound visceral impact, how ‘she’ had never actually cared – although ‘she’ certainly felt caring (in fact ‘she’ had a deeply - ingrained and ongoing feeling of caring about all the misery and mayhem) – and upon that realisation transforming itself into an actualisation (as per the intimacy-yearning process detailed in the ‘Direct Route Mail-Out № 05 email part-quoted at the top of this page) it activated “a caring which is as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster” and there was indeed action which was not of ‘her’ doing ... to wit: the ending of ‘her’ and all ‘her’ subterfuge and trickery (just to stay in keeping with the above wording purely for effect). (Richard, List D, Srinath2, 6 August 2016).

You can find some more on intimacy and caring in Vineeto, Selected Correspondence, Intimacy. I also found ‘Vineeto’s’ correspondence with Tarin on being harmless instead of merely feeling harmless useful. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Tarin, 13.8.2006).

CHRONO: I was having an afternoon at work when there was a bout of increased delight. And I remembered that one of the objections that I feel is that ‘I’ need to be here to protect this physical body. When all of a sudden I realized that ‘I’ do not exist to protect this physical body. ‘I’ exist to protect ‘me’. The physical body is secondary to ‘me’. All of ‘my’ caring is self-centred. And I became aware of this most fundamental confusion. This just hit me in a very visceral way and I felt a shiver at the bottom of my spine. And I’ve just been aware since of all of ‘my’ caring since and the inherent self-centeredness of it.

VINEETO: Well spotted – “‘I’ exist to protect ‘me’”. Once you are aware of this fact it is much simpler to discover the identity’s tricks and diversions. As always, there is a way of interacting being less self-centred, i.e. being naïvely harmless and considerate and preferring/ valuing intimacy over sexual prowess.

CHRONO: Recently a different issue has cropped up and has taken the place of previous issues. I am seeing indignation and slights featuring more. I for some reason am feeling more keenly aware of iniquities in every day interactions. I am more aware of ‘injustice’ and ‘unfairness’. I feel it really deeply. Both in daily interactions and in an overall rule of the world way. Perhaps these are issues I have not looked at in-depth enough. (I’m writing at work so I’ll have to re-visit my response).

VINEETO: Can it be that you notice indignation more because you discovered how much “‘my’ whole point is to survive”? You may find this familiar –

Richard: Speaking personally, the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago instantaneously rid ‘himself’ of the bulk of those school-age hurts and slights—whilst sitting out in the sunshine one fine morning, putting pencil to paper in order to finally record those dastardly events for posterity, as per a long-held and cherished ambition to do so at length—via seeing-in-a-flash that, as it was simply not possible to ever physically be a child again (and thus juvenilely susceptible to not only those bully-boys and feisty-femmes but any enabling teachers and principals as well), there was absolutely no need whatsoever to continue nursing them as a carryover grudge. It soon became increasingly apparent, thereafter, how those childhood hurts had been vital to the maintenance of the righteous indignation which fuelled ‘his’ plaints of injustice (a.k.a. ‘unfairness’) and, thus, ‘his’ mission to bring justice (a.k.a. ‘fairness’) to the world. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression, 21 Jan 2016).

*

VINEETO: Are you asking if the habit of being a ‘victim’ is related to a “need for power”? It certainly is, it is the flip-side of the same power structure, which, being sourced in the instinctual passions of fear and aggression, is operating ubiquitously.

CHRONO: EDIT: Yes I was thinking they’re related. I can see it being a flip side of the same power structure but am trying to see the third alternative in it. I keep thinking then I’ll be taken advantage of. Actually I think my current issue is related to this being a ‘victim’ and is related to the need for power. Will have to reflect and write more on it soon.

VINEETO: Ha, the role of being a ‘victim’ at first appears more virtuous but it is only the other side of aggression inherent to the instinctual passions in each and every feeling being. If you can recognize this and affectively acknowledge it, then neither repressing nor expressing the feeling might allow the third alternative to hove into view.

Also the question ‘why do I need power’ may be interesting to contemplate. Personally, I have no power whatsoever.

*

VINEETO: By choosing to be naïvely happy and harmless you voluntarily withdraw from the battlefield (not as a pacifist or virtue-hunter) but as someone who prefers (i.e. values more) getting along in a beneficial way with your fellow human beings.

CHRONO: This does make sense and I am thinking on it further so that I’m not repressing or expressing indignation in some cunning way.

VINEETO: A reminder before you are getting too deep into thinking about the serious problems of life –

Richard: You need to have a keen sense of humour. This business of becoming free is not – contrary to popular opinion – a serious business at all. Be totally sincere ... most definitely utterly sincere, as genuineness is essential. But serious ... no way. Humour is essential – it is inevitable in an actual freedom – and one has a lot of fun along the way. An actual freedom is all about having fun; about enjoying being here; about delighting in being alive. All that ‘being serious’ stuff actively works against peace-on-earth. One has to want to be here on this planet … most people resent being here and wish to escape. This method will bring one into being more fully here than anyone has ever been before. If you do not want to be here, then forget it. (Library, Topics, Humour)

Cheers Vineeto

November 21 2025

VINEETO: Where you are going with this is that you can never “be in accord with the fact” until you are actually free. This is called a red herring and stops you from even starting. To be sincere, i.e. “in accord with the fact”, means you don’t deceive yourself when a good or bad feeling interferes with enjoyment and appreciation. Therefore you are as honest as you can regarding the feeling which is happening at this very moment of writing this – for example something like “ahh, I can never be sincere, it’s too difficult, I rather stay as I am”. Sincerely acknowledging what is happening you’ll eventually sort it out with the intent to being happy and harmless – and you have demonstrated many times before that you can do that excellently. If you notice imagination happening like creating future scenarios, you sincerely acknowledge that knowing something imagined is not a fact.

CHRONO: Hi Vineeto,

Ah I see now how what I wrote can be construed that way. What I was trying to convey with the phrase “to be in accord with the fact” was “imitate the actual” (by being happy and harmless). That is, from the perspective of the actual, the identity is an illusion and not actually existing. But that doesn’t change the fact that it does “exist” (this reminds me of “drawing the line between feeling and fact” all over again haha) and ‘I’ can align with the way things are in actuality by imitating it (thus being in accord with the fact). So I was communicating improperly by saying “to be in accord with the fact” when “imitating the actual” would have been better. It seems I was using the word sincerity incorrectly.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

Thank you for your reply and explaining what you wanted to convey. In the correspondence you linked to, Rick was attempting to cunningly prove that feelings are actual, therefore his whole line of reasoning was polluted.

What I meant by saying ‘sincerely acknowledging what is happening’ was more explicitly explained in this snippet of ‘Vineeto’s’ correspondence –

‘Vineeto’: I discovered various objections to acknowledging that I was an instinctually driven being were due to the moral and ethical values that I had absorbed in my early years at home and in school, administered by parents, teachers, priests and peers. And then I noticed the stumbling blocks of my idealistic dreams – how I wanted to be, how I thought I ought to be, how I dreamed I could be – and they often stood in the way of clearly seeing, feeling and understanding what was emotionally going on. (…)
For me the penny dropped when I realized that whatever I do, think, feel or imagine, ‘I’ can never escape ‘me’ – in other words, whatever reality ‘I’ am trying to create, ‘I’ remain always in situ. This insight also wiped off imagination as an option for improving my life in any way.

The ‘more felicitous reality’ that I experience in Virtual Freedom is not created by ‘me’ but it is the inevitable result of painstakingly removing the building blocks of ‘my’ beliefs, ideas, concepts, morals, principles, ideals, etc., thereby diminishing the grip of my instinctual passions. The ensuing vacuity of emotion-backed thoughts allows the felicitous (and innocuous) feelings to come more and more to the fore – an essential precursor to ensuring that one’s sensuous awareness is fact-based and not imagination-based. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 60f, 1.3.2005).

Perhaps the word ‘honest’ is more unambiguous for you when it comes to acknowledging, and if necessary, investigating, one’s feelings and beliefs in the process of ‘imitating the actual’?

When Richard explains sincerity, he certainly did not indicate that only someone actually free or in a PCE can be sincere –

Richard: And the key to unlocking naiveté is sincerity, pure and simple.

Respondent: Can one ‘try’ to be more sincere? Curious.

Richard: Sincerity, or any expansion thereof, is not a matter of trying: anybody can be sincere (about anything) – all it takes is seeing the fact (of anything) – and in this instance the perspicuous awareness of blind nature’s legacy being the arch-crippler of intelligence ensures one stays true to/ correctly aligned with that (that very factuality/ facticity seen).

And which (being aligned with factuality/ staying true to facticity) is what being sincere is ... being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 68d, 18 October 2005)

“Seeing the fact (of anything)” requires honesty, intelligence and perspicacity, being authentic, genuine and straightforward, but in general not a ‘self’-less experience. If sincerity was only possible during a ‘self’-less experience then how could sincerity be the key to naiveté?

It would be putting the cart before the horse. It seems you are unnecessarily complicating (sophisticating) the matter.

*

VINEETO: Of course, if you want to arrive before you start it’s a clear indication you are “jumping the gun” … and sincerely inquiring why you are going on this side-track will inevitably provide the answer and then you sort out what it right in front of you. Remember to get back to feeling good first.

CHRONO: Yes I do seem to have that tendency to want to viscerally “jump over” issues. Basically not looking at what’s right in front of me right now but instead trying to jump ahead to know what it is and consequently having the opposite effect. Or the other thing I try to do sometimes is force the seeing and that also has the unintended effect. Very cunning I think. But I’ve been slowly bringing each one into light and these discussions are helping me see what I have been doing. Once again seeing that there are no shortcuts. And I ask myself why I would want to “jump over” and I can feel an angst and agitation continuously operating. Perhaps it will come more to light the more I question it and allow it.

VINEETO: Here is something ‘Vineeto’ discovered at the time –

‘Vineeto’ to Alan: I know at times I was as impatient as you seem to be and I consequently got upset when I still discovered another bit of ‘me’ and then another, until I realized that it was the very expectation that freedom should fall into my lap tomorrow that was preventing me from continuing to sincerely question every little bit that ever keeps me from being happy and harmless 24 hours a day. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Alan-e, 18.2.2002. [and, of course, enjoying and appreciating when there was no problem!].

It’s fascinating when you discover how “angst and agitation” are nearly continuously operating like a back-ground engine which keeps ‘me’ in existence. Again, it helps to put everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis – this will slowly diminish the urgent quality of your instinctual passions and thus the need to control every move of your life. This passionate urgency seduces ‘you’ to fight against ‘yourself’ in the name of actualism, whereas when you recognize this pattern, you can get back to naïvely enjoying and appreciating being here, genuinely ‘imitating the actual’. Don’t look for problems (which in itself can be an addiction) – you only need to investigate when you are not felicitous/ innocuous, which your ongoing attentiveness will inform you of.

CHRONO: I recently became more aware of a belief operating under this which goes like “there’s no way that this is possible (actual freedom)”. When I ask myself why, it felt like then that would mean I have been suffering my whole life for no reason. This is like some sunk cost fallacy and I know that’s how it is for everyone but I really believed that to be the truth (that life is supposed to be grim). It occurs to me “life could have been easy this whole time?”. I’m embarrassed because I have been serious my whole life and I didn’t have to be. Now I see that the belief morphed to a “I wish my suffering meant something” along with a strange feeling of running out of time.

VINEETO: Ha, you discover something that could be life-changing – that life is meant to be fun – and what does the identity do, automatically, ‘you’ make it into a problem! It’s a natural ‘self’-protecting reaction, and only informs you how cunning ‘I’ am when feeling in danger of exposure. Recognize the silliness and humour in the situation and voilà, the problem disappears.

*

VINEETO: What about the “feelings of warmth and belonging” – are you game to boldly go where you haven’t gone before and naïvely explore intimacy between fellow human beings in lieu of “warmth and belonging”?

CHRONO: I am indeed, and the adventure part of it is that I turn away from all that I have known and take a step in the direction that I have never gone before. I can feel an automatic reaction then that to turn away means that “it’s a cold and lonely world out there” but I won’t fall for that this time.

VINEETO: Yes, you are getting better and better at this game of finding out how ‘you’ tick and how to distinguish between reactive emotion-backed thought and intelligence in action.

(…)

CHRONO: I can see how it can be a balancing act between “holy” and “vulgar” as I have noted on many occasions that libidinal feelings flip into feelings of deep revulsion and disgust. And perhaps that’s all because of how I’ve approached sexuality. I’ve noticed that I actually do have this belief of uninhibited sensuality and sexuality being “vulgar”. Even writing this I am getting doubts whether I should because I am saying something I shouldn’t be saying. I’m being animalistic by considering it. It’s most likely ‘my’ way of interpreting where I have not gone before and intuiting what would happen were I to lift the lid. But I am aware of this now in a way I was not before and as you suggested I will not fall for either and look for the third alternative.

VINEETO: This quote from Richard’s journal (Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Two) is a real eye-opener, how the dichotomy of all the moral and ethical injunctions one so obediently follows dates back to the qualities of enlightenment (the ‘Self’ or ‘God’) being the only acceptable alternative. And whenever you consider the third alternative of being naïvely and sensately/ sensuously intimate, doing something entirely new, those injunctions will do their utmost to keep you on the straight and narrow path. It all ties back to that life-changing discovery – that life is meant to be fun. Enjoy the thrill and adventure.

*

CHRONO: I related a lot to what you wrote here:

‘Vineeto’: I understand that well. Particularly in the first years of practicing actualism / attentiveness I wanted ‘time out’ from somehow not being here as the very things I noticed when I did apply attentiveness continually rocked ‘my’ world. But then again I had to understand that the method of actualism is to pay attention to being alive and only when I don’t enjoy being here then there is something to look at and to sort out and I came to see that my ambition to speed up the process by looking for problems (and resultant guilt when I didn’t) was only another way of not enjoying being alive. Eventually, the more beliefs/ attitudes/ opinions I questioned and dropped by the wayside, the easier it became to be here instead of retreating into ‘my’ familiar world of dreams and feelings. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Tarin, 21.8.2006)

Also here you wrote:

‘Vineeto’: I remember well the first evening when I looked at Peter and saw him as just another human being – not as a partner, a mate, a member of the other gender, a lover, a sexual object, a valuable addition to my circle of friends, and not as someone who would approve or disapprove of me – simple another fellow human being. Suddenly the separation I felt was gone and there was a delicious intimacy, as ‘I’ was no longer attempting to force him to fit into ‘my’ world. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Tarin, 13.8.2006)

As I was thinking on this, I noticed that I have some belief that to see my partner as “just another human being” makes them not special. And I am wondering what makes them special if they are just another human being. I realized that it’s the fact that they want to spend time with me and I want to spend time with them. And I am able to appreciate this fact much more now. Everything else is about ‘me’.

VINEETO: Yes, “just another human being” is more than a “belief” – when ‘I’ am in charge, that is how ‘I’ perceive and assess everyone, including oneself – nothing special, either with grey-coloured glasses – gloomy and hostile to ‘me’ – or rose-coloured glasses – loving and trusting towards ‘me’, and hence extensions of ‘me’ “part of ‘my’ world”, as ‘Vineeto’ said. In the second quote ‘she’ described what happened during a PCE, an apperceptive seeing. It was very startling and entirely new to ‘her’ experience.

*

VINEETO: The reason the described PCE ( now snipped) was such a consequential event for ‘Vineeto’ because ‘she’ realised that every and all authority people assume stems from some god’s authority – god is the ultimate source for what is right and wrong, bad and good (=heaven and hell). All the values by which humans are socialised originate from the ‘Tried and Failed’ legacy of enlightened beings, gods and goddesses. Hence to realise that there is no room for god in an actual infinite, and perfect, universe, and the justification and ultimate origin of right and wrong disappears.

The same applies to your “authority of Humanity” and “the idea of caring”. While being caring and considerate are aspects of being harmless, the word “caring” in the real world is generally synonymous with feeling caring, i.e. giving out affective vibes of caring, sympathy and compassion, together with or even instead of practical caring. This is because humanity’s idea of caring is tightly linked to “putting the other before oneself”, being compassionate and self-less.

Ha, the role of being a ‘victim’ at first appears more virtuous but it is only the other side of aggression inherent to the instinctual passions in each and every feeling being. If you can recognize this and affectively acknowledge it, then neither repressing nor expressing the feeling might allow the third alternative to hove into view.

Also the question ‘why do I need power’ may be interesting to contemplate. Personally, I have no power whatsoever.

CHRONO: Yes I did note that God had been the ultimate authority for ‘Vineeto’ and I can see it all come together for me right now. This need for power, authority, and caring seem to be linked and it has clicked for me in the last week. This is because as I’ve noted before that I’ve unwittingly been applying the “putting others before oneself” injunction. It’s actually related to my being a ‘victim’. It does appear that being a ‘victim’ is more virtuous in the real world and gives the false feeling that I am ‘powerless’. I am actually also exerting power by being a ‘victim’ but just not in an overt way. And I noticed that inherent to being a ‘victim’ is the belief that one is then worthy of being saved from harm and suffering. Almost like that by choosing to be a ‘victim’, I am being humble. And an extension of that is the belief that one can be saved by some Higher Authority or Saviour. It is odd because I’ve never seen myself as believing in some Higher Power but I am acting and being as if there was. Perhaps there is more to unfold here.

VINEETO: Indeed, it is excellent you start seeing the bigger pattern, and how ultimately all ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ injunctions stem from the ‘Tried and Failed’ paradigm Richard described in his Journal, Article Two, you quoted above. When you understand this in its totality, it loses its virtue, attraction and power over you.

CHRONO: I can see how pernicious “putting others before oneself” is because it takes all eyes off ‘me’ and ‘I’ can wreak further havoc. I was wondering “why do I need power” and the answer was only in relation to me being a ‘victim’. Where I am not a ‘victim’ (or an aggressor), there is no need for power. I can fully see what it is to be harmless now. And the subsequent discussions on it have clarified a lot. I can see how setting the bar as ‘no malicious feelings present’ does not necessarily mean that I am being harmless. It’s self-centricity itself which is the issue. And in practice I can already see how much more ease and harmony there is. Making harmlessness a top and first priority easily allows happiness to follow because I am considering both myself and the other.

VINEETO: Ah, this is wonderful. Diminishing ‘self’-centricity allows you to be increasingly naïve, liking yourself and others and discovering how much fun being alive really is. Here is a snippet from ‘Vineeto’ you might relate to –

‘Vineeto’: When I stopped supporting both my own feelings of sorrow and those of others I became increasingly aware of the extent to which my relationships were built upon mutual support for common grievances and loyal allegiances against what we perceived as difficult to deal with people, upsetting things and worrying events – in other words, when I sorted my own feelings out for myself I lost interest in other people’s sad stories and subsequently we had less in common to share. Friendships in the real world are by and large emotional allegiances against an adversarial world – where there is neither sorrow nor enemies, there is also no need for loyal and emotionally supportive friends. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 60f, 7.2.2005).

*

VINEETO: Can it be that you notice indignation more because you discovered how much ‘‘my’ whole point is to survive“? You may find this familiar –

Richard: Speaking personally, the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago instantaneously rid ‘himself’ of the bulk of those school-age hurts and slights—whilst sitting out in the sunshine one fine morning, putting pencil to paper in order to finally record those dastardly events for posterity, as per a long-held and cherished ambition to do so at length—via seeing-in-a-flash that, as it was simply not possible to ever physically be a child again (and thus juvenilely susceptible to not only those bully-boys and feisty-femmes but any enabling teachers and principals as well), there was absolutely no need whatsoever to continue nursing them as a carryover grudge. It soon became increasingly apparent, thereafter, how those childhood hurts had been vital to the maintenance of the righteous indignation which fuelled ‘his’ plaints of injustice (a.k.a. ‘unfairness’) and, thus, ‘his’ mission to bring justice (a.k.a. ‘fairness’) to the world. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression, 21 Jan 2016).

CHRONO: It does make sense now that I think about it. It seems much of my childhood hurts have been held on passionately deep down and are the source of much of my railing against “the system”. I was on a trip with my partner this past week and we finished watching “Mr. Robot” and I related very deeply with the protagonist especially towards the end. I felt his hurts as my own and the indignation and hurt reached fever pitch. This post from Richard is indeed very familiar and timely as it helped backing out of it. I find myself sometimes thinking that I am supposed to hold onto these hurts and slights, otherwise I will let people walk all over me and take advantage of me. But I am an adult now aren’t I? Something further to unfold here which I will come back to.

VINEETO: Ha, here you have the old paradigm’s dichotomy again, being either angry/ indignant or being taken advantage of. It will be such a relief when you finally let go of “childhood hurts” and “railing against “the system””. Instead of looking for/ relying on emotional reactions to what you ought to do or avoid, why not make it a habit to assess each situation intelligently, in line with pure intent in order to work out if you can safely let go of your childhood hurts and resentments.

Richard: When I use the word ‘intelligence’ I mean the same thing as the dictionary definition of intelligence: the cerebral faculty of understanding (as in intellect) and with the quickness or superiority of understanding (as in sagacity) or the action or fact of understanding something (as in knowledge and/or comprehension of something) which means the ability to rationally and thus sensibly reflect, plan and implement considered activity for beneficial reasons ... and to be able to convey information to other human beings so that knowledge can accumulate around the world and to the next generations. (…)

And now that intelligence has developed in the human animal the blind survival passions are no longer necessary – in fact they have become a hindrance in today’s world – and it is only by virtue of this intelligence that blind nature’s default software package can be safely deleted (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation in toto).

No other animal can do this. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 50, 19 November 2003).

*

VINEETO: A reminder before you are getting too deep into thinking about the serious problems of life – (snipped quote re humour)

CHRONO: Also a great timely reminder haha.

VINEETO:

Richard: (...) the human species has been doing its thing for at least 50,000 years or so – no essential difference has been discerned between the Cro-Magnon human and Modern-Day human – and may very well continue to do its thing for, say, another 50,000 years or so ... it matters not, in what has been described as ‘the vast scheme of things’ or ‘the big picture’, and so on, whether none, one or many peoples become actually free from the human condition (this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/ carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed ... nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly). Nothing at all ... nil, zero, zilch. Which means that nothing really matters in the long run and, as nothing really does matter (in this ultimate sense) it is simply not possible to take life seriously ... sincerely, yes, but seriously?

No way ... life is much too much fun to be serious! (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 22 December 2004).

Cheers Vineeto

November 27 2025

VINEETO: “Seeing the fact (of anything)” requires honesty, intelligence and perspicacity, being authentic, genuine and straightforward, but in general not a ‘self’-less experience. If sincerity was only possible during a ‘self’-less experience then how could sincerity be the key to naiveté?
It would be putting the cart before the horse. It seems you are unnecessarily complicating (sophisticating) the matter.

CHRONO: Yes that makes sense and I certainly have been complicating it. So I have been looking at what I feel and acknowledging it without trying to jump ahead or force anything.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

Thank you for your reply. I am pleased you can see the point I was making.

*

VINEETO: Here is something ‘Vineeto’ discovered at the time – (snipped)

It’s fascinating when you discover how “angst and agitation” are nearly continuously operating like a back-ground engine which keeps ‘me’ in existence. Again, it helps to put everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis – this will slowly diminish the urgent quality of your instinctual passions and thus the need to control every move of your life. This passionate urgency seduces ‘you’ to fight against ‘yourself’ in the name of actualism, whereas when you recognize this pattern, you can get back to naïvely enjoying and appreciating being here, genuinely ‘imitating the actual’. Don’t look for problems (which in itself can be an addiction) – you only need to investigate when you are not felicitous/ innocuous, which your ongoing attentiveness will inform you of.

CHRONO: I’ve been down the road of looking for problems and trying to fix them (and it certainly is an addiction) haha. And couple that with insincerity and the suffering only gets magnified and perpetuated. I’ve fought with myself for long enough. Seeing this cunning operating more clearly, I can apply putting things on an ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis more effectively now.

VINEETO: This is excellent. It takes a bit of getting used to it but when you remember Richard’s quote at the end of this message it makes it all so much more obvious that taking anything serious or emotionally urgent, as per the instinctual imperative, is well and truly a waste of time.

*

VINEETO: Ha, you discover something that could be life-changing – that life is meant to be fun – and what does the identity do, automatically, ‘you’ make it into a problem! It’s a natural ‘self’-protecting reaction, and only informs you how cunning ‘I’ am when feeling in danger of exposure. Recognize the silliness and humour in the situation and voilà, the problem disappears.

CHRONO: Yes I allowed this seeing and I wondered in a gentle way “how would it be if life was meant to be fun from now on?” First it was felt that “life can be fun from now on” is boring (and this I found rather funny) but then that feeling dipped into a deeper feeling which I felt surging throughout my whole body. There was a deep feeling of dread. Basically I became aware that I am mortal. I am going to die and there is no escaping it. Perhaps some part of me has had the belief that ‘I’ could be immortal. That I would be able to cheat death somehow. Death is a fact and there’s no escaping it. It’s rather funny and not funny to me at the same time lol. All of this is connected somehow and one seeing here expands my seeing on the other beliefs. I can see how this relates to the “Tried and Failed”.

VINEETO: The desire for immortality certainly relates to the “Tried and Failed”, but it also relates to the instinctual programming to survive at any cost and the fact that ‘I’/ ‘me’ have usurped the role of this body’s keeper. Here is a fascinating insight from Richard on the origin of the universal belief in ‘my’ immortality –

Richard: As I understand it, in the on-going study of genetics the germ cells (the spermatozoa and the ova) have been classified as being of a somewhat different nature to body cells. This has led to speculation that each and every body is nothing but a carrier for the genetic lineage ... that the species, therefore, is more important than you and me or any other body. Now, whilst that theory is just a typically ‘humble’ way of interpreting the data, it did strike me, some years ago, that this genetic memory could very well be the origin of the immortal ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ (as contrasted to ‘I’ as ego who will undergo physical death). Hence it occurred to me that the source of ‘who ‘I’ really am’ could very well be nothing more mysterious than blind nature’s survival software.

I have always had a bent for the practical explanation ... and solution. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Vineeto, 30 September 1999).

This information might not make it easier to face the “deep feeling of dread” when contemplating that you are mortal. For ‘Vineeto’ the other side of the coin was the very possibility that ‘my’ ‘immortal soul’ can go extinct *before* physical death, exactly what ‘Vineeto’ wanted more than anything else in ‘her’ life (after she learnt about an actual freedom and experienced the actual world in PCEs). So you can see that your fear of death and your search for freedom from the human condition are intimately linked. The fear of death is the ultimate weapon of defence each time ‘you’ feel in danger of being insignificant, diminished or exposed as a contingent being.

Being this flesh-and-blood body only there is no fear of death at all.

Richard: ‘The very fact of the propinquity of death became a pivotal element in taking the first step on the wide and wondrous path, back in 1981, when a neighbouring farmer’s fourteen-year old son was killed in a car crash. A woman from another farm, whilst telling me all about it, bemoaned the fact that his future as a potential concert-pianist was tragically cut short (quite a normal observation).

What struck me rigid for the nonce was the more valid fact that this boy had virtually missed-out on a normal childhood through being forced, by well-meaning parents of course, into endless hours of piano-practice while his siblings and peers were outside playing games (as children are wont to do). And now he was dead – it had all been for naught – and he would never, ever be able to come out and play.

From that moment on death was my constant companion; an ever-present reminder that to die without having ever lived fully as in totally fulfilled, completely satisfied, utterly content – was such a waste of a life.

I would say to people, then, that were I to live that which the PCE’s had made apparent – as in an irrevocable permanency – for only five minutes I would then happily die. That is how precious an actual freedom from the human condition is. (Richard, List D, No. 7, 16 November 2009).

*

VINEETO: This quote from Richard’s journal (Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Two) is a real eye-opener, how the dichotomy of all the moral and ethical injunctions one so obediently follows dates back to the qualities of enlightenment (the ‘Self’ or ‘God’) being the only acceptable alternative. And whenever you consider the third alternative of being naïvely and sensately/ sensuously intimate, doing something entirely new, those injunctions will do their utmost to keep you on the straight and narrow path. It all ties back to that life-changing discovery – that life is meant to be fun. Enjoy the thrill and adventure.

Yes, “just another human being” is more than a “belief” – when ‘I’ am in charge, that is how ‘I’ perceive and assess everyone, including oneself – nothing special, either with grey-coloured glasses – gloomy and hostile to ‘me’ – or rose-coloured glasses – loving and trusting towards ‘me’, and hence extensions of ‘me’ “part of ‘my’ world”, as ‘Vineeto’ said. In the second quote ‘she’ described what happened during a PCE, an apperceptive seeing. It was very startling and entirely new to ‘her’ experience.

Indeed, it is excellent you start seeing the bigger pattern, and how ultimately all ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ injunctions stem from the ‘Tried and Failed’ paradigm Richard described in his Journal, Article Two, you quoted above. When you understand this in its totality, it loses its virtue, attraction and power over you.

CHRONO: The level to which these injunctions and perhaps spirituality itself have seeped into every nook and cranny of everyday life is astounding. It’s so all-encompassing that you would initially not even be able to conceive of another alternative.

VINEETO: It is indeed “all-encompassing” and has not just “seeped” in – spirituality is part and parcel of being a ‘being’ because ‘being’ itself is not actual and as such ‘you’ are ‘a spirit being’, so to speak.

Peter described it like this –

Peter: ‘When I was leaving the spiritual world and began to really investigate what others had to say about the human condition, I was amazed to discover that everyone – and I do mean everyone – has a spiritual outlook on life. The spiritual viewpoint permeates philosophy, science, medicine, education, psychology, law, etc. (Actual Freedom Library, Topics, Spiritual).

This caused a stir of protests on the mailing list, so Richard explained it further –

Richard: In order to understand what Peter is referring to it is essential to comprehend that he is using the word ‘spiritual’ as a catch-all word to describe that which is not material – the primary antonym for the word ‘spiritual’ in a dictionary is the word ‘material’ – and is best explained by his observation in his journal (page 86) that, when he met me, he realised that [quote] “Richard was the only atheist I had met and seemingly the only one that has ever been”. [endquote].

It is the same for a person who does not believe in the spiritualist’s soul, either (and no materialist does believe in one): not believing in a soul does not mean that ‘me’ as soul (aka ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) has become extinct ... and that includes an actualist on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27h, 1 April 2004).

CHRONO: So I decided to turn away from following my usual way of being about intimacy. And I was simply allowing a “what if?”. Like just suspending ‘my’ path temporarily just to see. Then my eyes were seeing into the softness of being here. I became aware of that sweetness. This sweetness was not directional as if for one person. It was here for everyone. It was markedly different from the usual way of being intimate. It didn’t have to be on a special occasion. It’s always here. I am wondering now if I could always be like this. What’s standing in the way?

VINEETO: Ah, this is delicious – it’s the very sweetness of the imminence of pure intent (see Actualvineeto, Articles, Sweetness). It is indeed “always here”, always accessible, whenever you allow it to happen. The only thing standing in the way is any objection to whole-heartedly being here.

*

VINEETO: Ah, this is wonderful. Diminishing ‘self’-centricity allows you to be increasingly naïve, liking yourself and others and discovering how much fun being alive really is. Here is a snippet from ‘Vineeto’ you might relate to –

‘Vineeto’: (snipped) Friendships in the real world are by and large emotional allegiances against an adversarial world – where there is neither sorrow nor enemies, there is also no need for loyal and emotionally supportive friends. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 60f, 7.2.2005).

CHRONO: Yes I can relate to that. Sometimes though I feel in people’s sad stories it can flip to compassion. But I can more easily see now how it’s not harmless. I am perpetuating both mine and the others’ suffering when I am being compassionate. But it still feels like a “tug at the heart strings” like I am abandoning everyone.

VINEETO: That is the dichotomy of the old paradigm as laid out in Richard’s Journal, 1997, Article Two you quoted in your last message. The third alternative always becomes apparent when you follow neither one or the other of the real-world alternatives.

CHRONO: It does make sense now that I think about it. It seems much of my childhood hurts have been held on passionately deep down and are the source of much of my railing against “the system”. I was on a trip with my partner this past week and we finished watching “Mr. Robot” and I related very deeply with the protagonist especially towards the end. I felt his hurts as my own and the indignation and hurt reached fever pitch. This post from Richard is indeed very familiar and timely as it helped backing out of it. I find myself sometimes thinking that I am supposed to hold onto these hurts and slights, otherwise I will let people walk all over me and take advantage of me. But I am an adult now aren’t I? Something further to unfold here which I will come back to.

 VINEETO: (…)

CHRONO: It feels like my biggest current block is those childhood hurts. I am aware of it operating in many situations now. The indignation keeps the hurt in place that I can see. But without the indignation there is only hurt. I’ll try your suggestion and not rely on emotional reactions but instead look at each individual situation intelligently.

VINEETO: I quoted something to Andrew yesterday about letting go of childhood hurts, which you might have already read (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Andrew2, 26 November 2025). Here is another related quote –

Richard: Until one wakes up to implications and ramifications of the factuality of already being here on this planet earth anyway, whether one wants to be or not (‘I didn’t ask to be born’), one is fated to forever seek consolation and commiseration in the arms (both metaphorically and literally) of another similarly afflicted. Yet the simple fact is that, despite the ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ rhetoric, one does want to be alive (else one would have committed suicide long ago) and all that it takes is to fully acknowledge this and thus unequivocally say !YES! to being here now as this flesh and blood body ... and this affirmation is an unconditional agreement/ approval of life itself as-it-is.

I did not ask to be born either (truisms can be so trite) ... but I am ever-so-glad that I was. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 24 June 2003).

At the beginning of that correspondence Richard talks about “the need for a friend” which might be informative for you as well.

*

Richard: (…) the human species has been doing its thing for at least 50,000 years or so – no essential difference has been discerned between the Cro-Magnon human and Modern-Day human – and may very well continue to do its thing for, say, another 50,000 years or so … it matters not, in what has been described as ‘the vast scheme of things’ or ‘the big picture’, and so on, whether none, one or many peoples become actually free from the human condition (this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/ carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed … nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly). Nothing at all … nil, zero, zilch. Which means that nothing really matters in the long run and, as nothing really does matter (in this ultimate sense) it is simply not possible to take life seriously … sincerely, yes, but seriously?

No way … life is much too much fun to be serious! (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25g, 22 December 2004).

CHRONO: Ha I find it funny that death is what makes everything not serious but also is so serious for ‘me’.

VINEETO: Here is another one for fun –

Respondent: Or as it happened in my case of inquiry, did you mean that ‘if one doesn’t see the fact of physical death as an end all, one could not be happy ... let alone harmless’?

Richard: Yes, I have sometimes asked peoples of a ‘Jehovah’s Witness’ persuasion, when they come knocking on my door and showing me paintings of their imagined paradise on earth after their god has annihilated 5,993,000,000 of the 6,000,000,000 human beings currently alive by treading them in a winepress, whether they have ever considered what it would be like in fact rather than fancy to be the flesh and blood body they are for ever and a day (locked into being a specific body-type, a female, for instance, endlessly giving birth to baby after baby for all eternity).

Which means for billions upon billions of years ... and still more billions to come! (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 30, 19 January 2004).

Cheers Vineeto

December 9 2025

VINEETO: This is excellent. It takes a bit of getting used to it but when you remember Richard’s quote at the end of this message it makes it all so much more obvious that taking anything serious or emotionally urgent, as per the instinctual imperative, is well and truly a waste of time.

CHRONO: I am glad that you pointed this out as an instinctual urgency as framing it this way has helped a lot too. Usually I have approached it as “OCD”. As this way of being does indeed look for problems or create problems (and subsequently try to solve them). The source of which is the “angst and agitation” which I’ve mentioned earlier. I’ve been applying the “it doesn’t really matter basis” to more and more things and it has caused some more ease and enjoyment.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

Remember that it is still the case of what you said before –

Chrono: “everything in the real world is about ‘keeping my head above water’”

And I replied that it was “in line with what Sigmund Freud classified as the aim of psychiatry: to return patients “back to a state of as near-normal functioning as possible (and ‘normal’ is categorised by Mr. Sigmund Freud as ‘common human unhappiness’)” (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 8, #shrinks). As such it is unreasonable to expect any more than keeping your head above water from counsellors and therapists. (Actualism, Actualvineeto, Chrono2, 16 October 2025).

The people who invented and use such labels like “OCD” to ‘diagnose’ various aspects of the human condition can only endeavour to ameliorate the symptoms, if that, but fail to diagnose, let alone treat, the root cause of the problem itself – the instinctual imperative common to all feeling beings. And the cute thing is that the solution to the human condition, an actual freedom, has been “classified as a ‘severe psychotic condition’ in the DSM-IV” by those very same professionals. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 8, #shrinks).

I am well pleased to hear that “applying the “it doesn’t really matter basis” to more and more things […] has caused some more ease and enjoyment”.

CHRONO: This past week I went camping with my partner for the holiday and I noticed that she likes things in a very organized and specific way before she can relax. Otherwise she ends up becoming anxious or antsy. And that caused some frustration on my end as I prefer to do things in a leisurely way. But I saw that that was her way of being and that’s how she deals with it. She also does not readily share how she feels when experiencing a negative feeling as she needs time to process her feelings or she just keeps them bottled inside unless I really ask her. The sour vibe that stems from this causes anxiety on my end as it triggers my urgency to “fix” it. But I’ve already stated my preference to be open about feelings and/or talk through them. And only recently did I see that I’ve been adding fuel to the fire by going along with this way of being. It has been my main obstacle to feeling good now as I feel it to the core. Perhaps all of this is the very instinctual seriousness in action. So putting this on a “it doesn’t really matter basis” has been a huge help. Richard’s quote at the end highlights that I seem to lose sight of this fact of death and thus make everything serious.

VINEETO: Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ noticed early into ‘her’ investigations into male-female relationships that men have the instinctual inclination to fix a problem when presented to them, while females are more instinctually inclined to want sympathy and understanding for their emotional problems (reaffirming ‘me’) rather than solving them.

The only solution actualism has to offer is dissolution, in other words to become autonomous, so that a near-actual intimacy can ensue.

Here are some experiential reports –

‘Vineeto’: What one leaves oneself open to are the myriad psychic tentacles of others in the form of imaginary scenarios and probabilities, not to mention ridicule and threats, to pull one back into the fold … that is until a clear-cut decision is made[1] that I will let go, once and for all, of whatever nonsense I am toying with at the time. [Emphasis added]. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 66b, 24.5.2005).

[1] a clear-cut decision is made –

‘Vineeto’: The method of actualism can bring your attention to your senses, however if you are experiencing an emotion in this moment of being alive, the actualism method is designed to help you identify, label and explore the emotion and trace it back to the part of your identity that produces and maintains it. Once you have found the part of your identity that produces your emotion, you can cut the cord, dissolve the root cause of this particular emotion and return to being happy and harmless. This attentiveness can cut the roots of identity quite quickly for easy issues, but for more difficult deeply rooted issues the process may well take months, if not years – which is why persistence and patience are necessary attributes for an actualist. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, No. 39, 21.5.2002).

*

‘Vineeto’: My experience severing the relationship to my last boyfriend, which had not worked for years, was very different to being with Peter and taking my ‘self’ out of the living together. It took me a lot of determination and utter honesty, examining myself where I had hooks and ties still connected to him. My back-pressure was the thought: ‘What if he dies, what if he walks out on me tomorrow, will I be still happy and free?’ I did not want to wait until that happened to find out. So I ran that question again and again and found one bit of attachment after the other...

One time I remember clearly, the experience was like cutting a thick cord that appeared to run from the bottom of my spine to his, like a telephone cord of sharing delight {and all other affective feelings}. Afterwards it felt like my very bone marrow was being drained out of me, most of my strength, determination and will to ‘fight for freedom’. A very strange experience, I was almost physically curling back into my self and became autonomous, not relying on him. Any need for emotional support vanished with that event. [Curly-bracketed insert added]. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 12.1.1999)

I also found a fitting description from Devika in Richard’s Journal –

Devika: Like a double-bind the defence of my social identity – of my ‘security’ – precluded me from sharing myself intimately with another … unless I was prepared to sacrifice my delicate ‘security’. Thus my emotional intimacies with others had left me bruised and disappointed and more defending of that what I identified with. I have now given up ‘my’ precious independence and its resultant “splendid isolation”. “I no longer have that yearning, gnawing feeling of loneliness and separation which can only conjure up a longing for its opposite. (Richard’s Journal, Article Thirty, p. 218).

CHRONO: Also related, I saw in action how I create ripples by even wanting to share how I feel about my anxiety to her because it in turn activates some feeling for her. Even the very desire to share it is self-centric because if I’m being honest, the main reason I want to share is so that she will alleviate it through some commiseration. It does seem like the center of what a relationship is. But that never eliminates the original feeling. Only covers it up. And I realized that by trying to seek solace in this way, I end up reinforcing my way of being and also contributing to negative vibes.

VINEETO: How right you are – you create/ feed/ multiply those negative feelings and their accompanying vibes by ‘sharing’ – a word highly valued in modern social circles – unless you share delight and appreciation.

*

Richard: ‘The very fact of the propinquity of death became a pivotal element in taking the first step on the wide and wondrous path, back in 1981, when a neighbouring farmer’s fourteen-year old son was killed in a car crash. (…)

I would say to people, then, that were I to live that which the PCE’s had made apparent – as in an irrevocable permanency – for only five minutes I would then happily die. That is how precious an actual freedom from the human condition is. (Richard, List D, No. 7, 16 November 2009).

CHRONO: What I take away from this is how “death was my constant companion; an ever-present reminder that to die without having ever lived fully as in totally fulfilled, completely satisfied, utterly content – was such a waste of a life”. Which perspective seems to be the key.

VINEETO: The propinquity of death is indeed a sobering reminder, whenever you allow it, with the capacity to cut through every subterfuge ‘I’ contrive to stay in existence. But it is also an exquisite reminder how immensely precious an actual freedom from the human condition is.

*

VINEETO: The desire for immortality certainly relates to the “Tried and Failed”, but it also relates to the instinctual programming to survive at any cost and the fact that ‘I’/ ‘me’ have usurped the role of this body’s keeper. Here is a fascinating insight from Richard on the origin of the universal belief in ‘my’ immortality – (…)

CHRONO: Ah yes that makes sense that the “Tried and Failed” itself is a function of the instinctual programming. I remember reading that fascinating quote and it reminded me of the book “The Selfish Gene” but at the time I had never thought of ‘me’ as being the very genetic memory. As for dread, I find that it’s the looking away from that feeling which makes it churn. But I also don’t know how to stop looking away.

VINEETO: Denying, pushing away or fighting fear in any way including being afraid of being afraid always adds fuel to the feeling of fear or dread. Look for the thrill. Here is a little story –

‘Vineeto’ to Alan: It reminds me of a weird and fascinating experience I had just two nights ago. I had had a light smoke, when I suddenly started to feel nauseous and very dizzy in the head. The physical symptoms came along with an acute fear to throw up, to black out, in short, to lose control over my body and my life.

While Peter kept inquiring if there maybe was also some fear involved, not just a physical reaction, I was desperately trying to obtain control over my body. At the same time I was, of course, suspicious that it was all a play up of the ‘self’ trying to survive, but didn’t know how to deal with it.

When I finally laid down on the floor and ‘surrendered’ to the option of being unconscious and was actually getting interested and thrilled by the possibility of observing the experience, it very quickly disappeared like a ghost. It left me astounded about the power of ‘reality’, the vividness of the experience that fear created with all the ingredients of a ‘serious’ disease, becoming unconscious.

Only by accepting it as an adventure and at the same time doubting its actuality it lost its power over me, leaving me battered but proud like after a victorious, well-fought battle. The next night it happened again but was all much less dramatic, the temptation was there to delve into the fear, the physical symptoms were ready to emerge again, but this time I didn’t believe in the actual danger and it quickly went. (Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Alan, 28.7.1998).

*

VINEETO: It is indeed “all-encompassing” and has not just “seeped” in – spirituality is part and parcel of being a ‘being’ because ‘being’ itself is not actual and as such ‘you’ are ‘a spirit being’, so to speak. (…)

Richard: It is the same for a person who does not believe in the spiritualist’s soul, either (and no materialist does believe in one): not believing in a soul does not mean that ‘me’ as soul (aka ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being … which is ‘being’ itself) has become extinct … and that includes an actualist on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27h, 1 April 2004).

CHRONO: It’s very interesting how one can be this spirit being while also denying one is a spirit being. Perhaps some self-survival strategy. I realized this was also the issue with the Buddhist ‘no-self’ crowd. They equate ‘no-self’ with there being no spirit while denying that they are that very spirit which is doing the looking. Once again, all eyes off ‘me’. Richard’s whole exposition of modern and ancient Buddhism was a real eye opener.

There is a useful word for it – cognitive dissonance. It is a most fascinating phenomenon of the instinctual survival passions in that one (unconsciously) will be overlooking, forgetting, disavowing, detaching from information or insight which appears to be threatening ‘my’ existence.

An ever-increasing attentiveness will eventually sweep out all dark corners of one’s psyche and make cognitive dissonance redundant so that naiveté can flourish.

Richard: To enable apperceptiveness to haply occur it is essential to allow a reflective attention – attentiveness – to one’s psychological and psychic world. It is impossible for one to intelligently observe what is going on within if one does not at the same time acknowledge the occurrence of one’s various feeling-tones with attentiveness. (…)

A contemplative attention views all feelings as commensurate – nothing is suppressed and nothing is expressed – as attentiveness does not play favourites.

Attentiveness gets not infatuated with the good feelings nor sidesteps the bad as attentiveness is a non-feeling awareness; a sensuous attention. Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or get hung up on mercurial imaginations and capricious intuitions or ephemeral auguries. Attentiveness does not register feelings and compare the validity of experience according to it ‘feeling right’ or ‘feeling wrong’. (…)

Please note that last point: in attentiveness, there is an observance of the ‘reality’ within, and such attention is the end of its embrace ... finish. Here lies apperception. (Richard’s Journal, Appendix Five).

*

CHRONO: So I decided to turn away from following my usual way of being about intimacy. And I was simply allowing a “what if?”. Like just suspending ‘my’ path temporarily just to see. Then my eyes were seeing into the softness of being here. I became aware of that sweetness. This sweetness was not directional as if for one person. It was here for everyone. It was markedly different from the usual way of being intimate. It didn’t have to be on a special occasion. It’s always here. I am wondering now if I could always be like this. What’s standing in the way?

VINEETO: Ah, this is delicious – it’s the very sweetness of the imminence of pure intent (see Actualvineeto, Articles, Sweetness). It is indeed “always here”, always accessible, whenever you allow it to happen. The only thing standing in the way is any objection to whole-heartedly being here.

CHRONO: I am still reading through this correspondence but I always thought it interesting that words like sweetness, delicious, and ambrosial are used as they seem to be words related to taste or smell. But I see they could be related to “delight”. Initially I couldn’t understand what the word sweetness meant because I can only relate it to tasting something sweet. Also I relate very much with what you wrote here:

Vineeto: … Often I experience it as ambrosial in nature, of a quality that fills me with extraordinary delight and well-being, in a way that it makes every cell in my body hum with fulfilment as if a missing chemical has suddenly been added to each cell’s physical structure. (Sunday, February 20, 2011 5:24 PM).

Although this was after you became actually free, I’ve had a few experiences which I would describe with the exact same words used here. Another word that came to mind was “precious” or “preciosity”.

VINEETO: This sweetness was mainly experienced by feeling being ‘Vineeto’, especially during ‘her’ out-from-control period and later when I endeavoured to become fully free. It is the pure intent – experienced as “an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself”. It is tangible when you experience that you are not alone in this adventure of a lifetime. Follow this ambrosial sweetness and you can’t go wrong.

And as Kuba recently said –

Kuba: As a side note I notice that this wondrous enjoyment and appreciation is anhedonic, which means that it can be completely off the scales and yet it can never be too much. (6.12.2025)

When you say “precious” I am instantly reminded of my all-time favourite piece of writing in Richard’s Journal –

Richard: There is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any “King’s ransom”. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed Blissful States Of ‘Being’ ... ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe … which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. That something precious is me as-I-am ... me as I actually am as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am. I am the universe’s experience of itself. The limpid and lucid perfection and purity of being here now, as-I-am, is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent dew-drop with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with has experienced this impeccable purity and perfection in some way or another at varying stages in their life. Is it not impossible to conceive – and just too difficult to imagine – that this is one’s essential character? One has to be daring enough to live it ... for it is both one’s audacious birth-right and adventurous destiny.

When one lives the magical perfection of this purity twenty-four hours-a-day; when one has ceased being ‘I’ and is being genuine, one can see clearly that there is no separation between me and that something which is precious. The purity of life emerges from the perfection that wells up constantly due to an immense stillness which is utterly immense in its scope and magnitude. This stillness of infinitude is that something which is precious. It is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent. This stillness happens as me. This stillness is my essential disposition, for it is the principle character, the intrinsic basis of everything. It is this universe at its genesis. It is not, as it might commonly be supposed, at the centre of everything ... there is no centre here. This stillness, which is everywhere all at once, is the be all and end all of life itself. I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being. (Richard’s Journal, Article 25, pp. 179f).

Whereas the fervent feeling of one’s ‘precious’ identity is a mere, and troublesome, bauble by comparison.

Cheers Vineeto

December 11 2025

VINEETO: The people who invented and use such labels like “OCD” to ‘diagnose’ various aspects of the human condition can only endeavour to ameliorate the symptoms, if that, but fail to diagnose, let alone treat, the root cause of the problem itself – the instinctual imperative common to all feeling beings. And the cute thing is that the solution to the human condition, an actual freedom, has been “classified as a ‘severe psychotic condition’ in the DSM-IV” by those very same professionals. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 8, #shrinks).

I am well pleased to hear that “applying the “it doesn’t really matter basis” to more and more things […] has caused some more ease and enjoyment”.

I also recommend reading Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Peasant Mentality (2) as you might find a few clues about how you feel and why. And when you think you are “more crazy than the norm” remember that the human condition itself is weird, and getting out of it does at times feel weird and crazy. The other correspondence I can recommend is one about not taking offence, explained in detail (Richard, List D, Rick, 21 January 2016). Mastering this technique will hold you in good stead in any situation in life you described above.

Cheers Vineeto

February 20 2026

CHRONO: Hi Vineeto,

I’ve given another read to (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness) and it’s incredible that despite the amount of times that I’ve read it that each time I gain a new understanding from it and appreciate it much more. Perhaps it will be the case due to how circumscribed thinking itself is due to ‘me’. Something that sticks out for me is how:

Richard: Sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).

I’ve noticed that this occurs to a greater degree when I am able to see that this moment is the only moment of being alive. It is ‘me’ which seems to give the feeling of existing over time. Good and bad feelings block this awareness while felicitous feelings allow it to a greater degree.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono

Indeed, even though it is natural and often unavoidable that feelings are blocking this kind of awareness most of the time, it is very perspicacious to notice it – one needs to experience it enough when it’s not happening in order to see the pattern.

CHRONO: Another thing that I had been doing unwittingly at times is confusing attentiveness with intuition. That is, there will be a feeling that wants to be expressed and I experience it as a visceral squirming and end up giving in. But:

Richard: Attentiveness gets not infatuated with the good feelings nor sidesteps the bad as attentiveness is a non-feeling awareness; a sensuous attention. Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or get hung up on mercurial imaginations and capricious intuitions or ephemeral auguries. (…) (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).

VINEETO: An excellent observation – intuition is a feeling commentary, whereas attentiveness is much more observant, even when observing one’s feelings in action. The above quote from Richard is one of my favourite passages but I’ll cut it short – this post is getting far too long already.

CHRONO: I notice that there’s actually a belief with this way of being in that, to be sincere in the real world is to be “true to one’s feelings” or “being honest” as mentioned already. Which in turn means to be expressing that feeling and so one is said to be being honest with oneself. Which then goes hand in hand with accepting that is “who you are”. And again in turn that acceptance is due to the belief that “you can’t change human nature”. Thus insincerity is being consistently fortified by everyone. I have in the past beat myself up for getting angry in some way because that is “bad”. But now I see more that this being angry and the subsequent judgement (along with many other feelings) is actually what it means to be sane and normal.

VINEETO: Ha, you said it well. I had several conversations with Syd about this. “Being true to one’s feelings” mostly implies to value and express those feelings, whilst “being honest” often involves, and justifies, expressing malice. Don’t you find it more and more fortuitous that you are not as “sane and normal” anymore as when you started out on the actualist adventure?

*

VINEETO: It takes a while to become aware that both ‘good’ and bad feelings are two sides of the same coin. With practice, your attentiveness gets finer and more precise, and one becomes aware of one belief after another. It’s fun, isn’t it.

CHRONO: It is indeed fun when I forgo all real world methods!

VINEETO: Indeed – they would only corrupt and confuse the process of thinning out the identity while having fun and appreciating.

*

VINEETO: I remember ‘Vineeto’ at first being surprised to learn that Richard said he was not a fan of logic or being logical. ‘Vineeto’ had considered logic to be ‘her’ thinking process (when ‘she’ wasn’t being emotional) – if this, then that. However, the more ‘she’ paid attention when applying common sense, ‘she’ came to see that common sense is much more than following the fixed rules of logic but rather choosing what is sensible. ‘I’, the identity, can easily play tricks with logic, it being a rigid system, but with attentiveness one becomes aware of the underlying feelings and thus comes to one’s senses (common sense – down-to-earth facts and actuality – included).

CHRONO: Yes I notice that much of logic is ultimately based on beliefs. It “makes sense” in the world of imagination.

VINEETO: Well, I wouldn’t call it “based on beliefs” as such, even though some of it is. Logic has various meanings, and the definitions are rather confusing or even contradicting –

1. reasoning [the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way], conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity. (whereby: “experience is a better guide to this than deductive logic”)
2. a system or set of principles underlying the arrangements of elements in a computer or electronic device so as to perform a specified task.
Synonym: Rationale: The underlying reason or logical basis for a belief or action. (Oxford Languages).

Hence I prefer to stay on side of common sense because the principles of logic can easily be misappropriated or deliberately perverted for ‘my’ purpose. They work for computers though (2^nd meaning).

*

VINEETO: Have you noticed that whenever you consider some attitude or ‘truth’ or belief no longer worthwhile holding onto, you instantly present yourself with the opposite as negative as possible to prevent ‘you’ from straying off the ‘straight and narrow’ traditional path.
There is of course nothing bland at all about having less and less ‘good’ and bad feelings – being happy and harmless are feelings of the, at times exuberant and vibrant, felicitous variety.

CHRONO: I’ve noticed it on many occasions now and I can see how it is due to my drive to survive.

Writing all of this out definitely brings more clarity and seems to help feeling good.

VINEETO: Again, isn’t it amazing that pointing your attention (attentiveness) to one specific aspect of the human condition, with pure intent operating) reveals the very nature of the underlying feeling and structure and you gradually cease believing in the repeated expressions of ‘your’ “drive to survive”.

*

VINEETO: Ha, Kuba arrived at a similar indignation, describing it in his last post. I understand it well from ‘Vineeto’s experience about the injustice and unfairness happening in the world. However, ‘she’ never found it unjust that ‘she’ had unilaterally decided to rectify this in ‘herself’, after all ‘she’ was one of the fortunate few who knew about the solution which demonstrably worked.

This attitude is indeed born of ‘self’-centredness and ‘me’ defending ‘my’ very existence, as you might feel yourself to be the only one doing something about the mess ‘you’ are and yet know yourself to operate outside the norm of the human condition in many areas. That’s the pioneer’s role and you can rather be appreciative to have the opportunity and the courage to do so.

I also recommend reading Richard’s Selected Correspondence on Peasant Mentality (2) as you might find a few clues about how you feel and why. And when you think you are “more crazy than the norm” remember that the human condition itself is weird, and getting out of it does at times feel weird and crazy. 

CHRONO: That feeling features a lot more nowadays. I can relate to the post and to the feeling of:

Kuba: “meh, everything is stupid”

I’ve mentioned before how at times I imagine some scenario where those who are in power get punished severely due to the “rigged system” that they create and perpetuate. I gave the Peasant Mentality (2 ) correspondence another read (and even read ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’“, and I am able to get a little closer to the heart of the matter:

Richard: Unless this rudimentary feeling of disfranchisement – of feeling somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Social Identity 3)

VINEETO: You are aware that there are two sides to a power structure – those who take power and those who give it willingly in order to benefit from their obedience and loyalty. While I understand your imagination of punishing those in power, it is important to acknowledge that you are as much part creating and perpetuating “the rigged system”, as long as the peasant mentality operates in you. Not that the ‘system’ will disappear when you step out of it but you will no longer be plagued by the lack of justice and fairness.

Especially loyalty, the hallmark of ‘peasant mentality’, is worth looking at (See Basic to Full Freedom 2)

CHRONO: But I have been becoming more aware of where I feel a resentment of having to work at all. Then as I am reflecting on it now, I feel that the resentment is due to the feeling of “being prisoned”. Maybe this impression of a place where I do not feel prisoned (and thus free from the horrors of what I feel the world as) is the fundamental franchise. But I’m not entirely sure. The furthest back this feeling goes is from living with my family as a child. At that time I felt the feeling of being prisoned most acutely as physical and emotional abuse featured a lot both from parental figures, teachers, and other children. It was then that I started imagining that maybe I could be somewhere else. It was the whole reason for my incursion into spirituality. The idea that I could actually be somewhere else appealed to me a lot because that meant the end of those horrors. It was by serendipity that I encountered actualism. I am giving more thought to what it means to enable the ‘already always existing peace on earth’. Anyways as I read further on that correspondence:

Richard: ‘Tis truly a rigged system … rigged to ever-enrich an already obscenely rich elite. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 28 May 2015)

As this is something that many have seen and noted already, there must be something further. I feel an anger towards those people and almost feel that they are the ones perpetuating the wars, murders, etc. It is at this point where I feel that indignation more deeply. I feel myself to be not in support of the system due to this and can see my indignant reaction is a form of rebelling (a case of reaching for the opposite). What I’m coming closer towards though is perhaps seeing that there is no solution (as in even rebelling is pointless in regards to solving the system ultimately).

VINEETO: For a start, to expect to be fed and housed without working is setting yourself up for certain disappointment. It would mean someone else would have to provide for you. So, the “resentment of having to work at all” is possibly a leftover from when you were a child, as well as “the feeling of being prisoned”. I am reminded of this snippet from Richard’s personal web-page regarding childhood hurts, which you might find informative –

Richard: Speaking personally, the feeling-being inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago instantaneously rid ‘himself’ of the bulk of those school-age hurts and slights – whilst sitting out in the sunshine one fine morning, putting pencil to paper in order to finally record those dastardly events for posterity, as per a long-held and cherished ambition to do so at length – via seeing-in-a-flash that, as it was simply not possible to ever physically be a child again (and thus juvenilely susceptible to not only those bully-boys and feisty-femmes but any enabling teachers and principals as well), there was absolutely no need whatsoever to continue nursing them as a carryover grudge. It soon became increasingly apparent, thereafter, how those childhood hurts had been vital to the maintenance of the righteous indignation which fuelled ‘his’ plaints of injustice (a.k.a. ‘unfairness’) and, thus, ‘his’ mission to bring justice (a.k.a. ‘fairness’) to the world. (Richard’s Personal Web-page, Tit-for-Tat Tool-tip).

You see, all the childhood hurts can disappear within the blink of an eye, allowing the penetrating insight that you can never ever be a child again to let all the resent go at once. Then adult sensibility can work out the best solution.

Regarding the “rigged system”, when you comprehensively understand how the peasant mentality is operating in you, then you’ll find it impossible to apportion blame because you can see that everybody is trapped by either loyalty and obedience, fuelled by their wanting to get ahead, or by excessive avarice, driven to accumulate regardless of the consequences. Yes, the system is rigged, but within the human condition every system would be equally rigged by whoever gets to the top because everyone is endowed with the same instinctual passions. There is truly no solution within the human condition.

The key is to unilaterally become happy and harmless, enjoying and appreciating, and as Richard says –

Richard: Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. (Richard’s Journal, Article 20).

CHRONO: Still reading this and will have to reflect on it:

Vineeto: The other correspondence I can recommend is one about not taking offence, explained in detail (Richard, List D, Rick, 21 January 2016). Mastering this technique will hold you in good stead in any situation in life you described above.

VINEETO: Let me know if/when it works for you.

Cheers Vineeto

February 26 2026

VINEETO: Indeed, even though it is natural and often unavoidable that feelings are blocking this kind of awareness most of the time, it is very perspicacious to notice it – one needs to experience it enough when it’s not happening in order to see the pattern.

VINEETO: An excellent observation – intuition is a feeling commentary, whereas attentiveness is much more observant, even when observing one’s feelings in action. The above quote from Richard is one of my favourite passages but I’ll cut it short – this post is getting far too long already.

CHRONO: Something which seems to take me out of the way I usually operate and indulge in is seeing that I am feeling some particular feeling and it seems all the while this moment is happening. It’s like, why would I want to feel bad (or antidotally good) when this moment is happening irregardless? At one point the thought occurred to me “how could any of this be happening without ‘me’?”. It seemed almost disconcerting like there’s a deep feeling of ‘I’ am needed. My mind boggles at the ramifications of the universe happening on its own.

VINEETO: Ha, you said it well. I had several conversations with Syd about this. “Being true to one’s feelings” mostly implies to value and express those feelings, whilst “being honest” often involves, and justifies, expressing malice. Don’t you find it more and more fortuitous that you are not as “sane and normal” anymore as when you started out on the actualist adventure?

CHRONO: Yes as I was on the road to being insane and abnormal otherwise haha.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

I took the liberty to split your post in half as all the topics raised merit responding to.

Given you raised the topic of “on the road to being insane and abnormal” – I highly recommend Richard’s two Selected Correspondences on Sanity, Insanity and the Third Alternative (whichever excerpts tickle your fancy). This correspondence of what sanity really is was a genuine eye-opener for ‘Vineeto’, and it took ‘her’ a while to digest how much “sanity is the problem and insanity is not the solution” –

Richard: Moreover, as I clearly state that it is sanity which is the problem (and that insanity is not the solution), the entire email exchange starting at ... (Richard, List B, No. 19 l, 12 April 2003) ... and going on for 9-10 emails is well worth a read.

Here are a few excerpts. Viz.:

• [Respondent]: ‘Are you telling me that when I see bombs dropping and people with their limbs blown off that what I am seeing is sane ...

• [Richard]: ‘Yes ... the bombs dropping, and people with their limbs blown off, is nothing other than sanity in action. And sanity prevails all over the world: for instance an estimated 2.5 million [currently 5.0 million] sane peoples have been killed in the civil war in the Congo (aka Zaire) by their sane fellow human beings ... perhaps it is because it is not being displayed 24/7 on television screens there seems to be very little outrage. Or maybe it is because without the good ol’ US of A to yet again mercilessly whip around the block there is no outlet for the outrage

It is sanity which is the problem world-wide ... it is what you are seeing when observing the world (peoples in general) and yourself’. (Richard, List B, No. 19 l, 13 April 2003b)

(…)

• [Richard]: (...). Here in this actual world all is salubrious and irreprehensible ... just consider, for a moment if you will, that it is only a sanity-based analysis which would determine that permanent happiness and harmlessness be insanity (it speaks volumes about the nature of sanity that it does so). I know I have said it many times before but I will say it again for emphasis: I do find it cute that peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, be considered a chronic and incurable psychotic mental disorder’. (Richard, List B, No. 19 l, 18 April 2003).

Richard, AF List, No. 29, 10 Jan 2013).

*

VINEETO: I remember ‘Vineeto’ at first being surprised to learn that Richard said he was not a fan of logic or being logical. ‘Vineeto’ had considered logic to be ‘her’ thinking process (when ‘she’ wasn’t being emotional) – if this, then that. However, the more ‘she’ paid attention when applying common sense, ‘she’ came to see that common sense is much more than following the fixed rules of logic but rather choosing what is sensible. ‘I’, the identity, can easily play tricks with logic, it being a rigid system, but with attentiveness one becomes aware of the underlying feelings and thus comes to one’s senses (common sense – down-to-earth facts and actuality – included).

CHRONO: Yes I notice that much of logic is ultimately based on beliefs. It “makes sense” in the world of imagination.

VINEETO: Well, I wouldn’t call it “based on beliefs” as such, even though some of it is. Logic has various meanings, and the definitions are rather confusing or even contradicting –

1. reasoning [the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way], conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity. (whereby: “experience is a better guide to this than deductive logic”)
2. a system or set of principles underlying the arrangements of elements in a computer or electronic device so as to perform a specified task.
Synonym: Rationale: The underlying reason or logical basis for a belief or action. (Oxford Languages).

Hence I prefer to stay on side of common sense because the principles of logic can easily be misappropriated or deliberately perverted for ‘my’ purpose. They work for computers though (2^nd meaning).

CHRONO: Ah yes I can I see I was being sloppy with my writing and will try to refer to the dictionary definitions. The word logic seems to me to be co-opted. The reason I had phrased it as such was because I have heard the word ‘logical’ being used a few times by people (including me) to describe themselves and show how their way of thinking is “superior” to others who are being “illogical” via following their feelings or utilizing intuition. But nonetheless both are circumscribed by ‘me’.

VINEETO: You weren’t necessarily sloppy because this is the way you “have heard the word ‘logical’ being used” being the common understanding, and this kind of ‘logic’ has a high currency as being “superior”. It is nevertheless not all it’s made out to be because logic is very often used to just win an argument, or ‘prove’ something nonsensical or non-beneficial, and it is, as you say, “circumscribed by ‘me’”.

As such I prefer the word sensible, which is more comprehensive to describe a way of thinking governed by common sense and rationality, not depending on one’s feelings, when seeking to find a beneficial conclusion for all concerned according to the facts.

*

VINEETO: Again, isn’t it amazing that pointing your attention (attentiveness) to one specific aspect of the human condition, with pure intent operating) reveals the very nature of the underlying feeling and structure, and you gradually cease believing in the repeated expressions of ‘your’ “drive to survive”.

CHRONO: Yes and I find that the genuine intent to be happy and harmless is very key. Actually I’m feeling very good right now as I write this and I chose to feel good.

VINEETO: It is a delight to hear you say that “the genuine intent to be happy and harmless is very key”. It is indeed the key, and remembering to add appreciation will open the world of naiveté to you, where you can marvel and be amazed by, to the point of it taking your breath away.

Cheers Vineeto

February 26 2026

VINEETO: (…) Regarding the “rigged system”, when you comprehensively understand how the peasant mentality is operating in you, then you’ll find it impossible to apportion blame because you can see that everybody is trapped by either loyalty and obedience, fuelled by their wanting to get ahead, or by excessive avarice, driven to accumulate regardless of the consequences. Yes, the system is rigged, but within the human condition every system would be equally rigged by whoever gets to the top because everyone is endowed with the same instinctual passions. There is truly no solution within the human condition.

CHRONO: In regards the feeling of ‘being prisoned’, I notice that it activates more so when it feels like others are mad or not in a good mood around me. Perhaps that does more relate to childhood hurts or to being a victim. Actually I notice a common thread underneath all this is that there’s a feeling as if someone is making me feel bad or forcing me to. And maybe that was the case when I was a child that I took all of those hurts into myself uncritically but now I can just choose to feel good irregardless of what others feel.

VINEETO: Hi Chrono,

I deleted a lot of the previous post so this one doesn’t get too long. As a child you have had no other choice as to take “all of those hurts into myself uncritically” or unsuccessfully rebel. It is excellent that you now “I can just choose to feel good irregardless of what others feel”. You are probably aware that you as a feeling being live within a psychic web, those vibes and psychic currents, which are automatically emanated by everyone, including yourself, when experiencing any affective feeling. As such it is beneficial for everyone when you succeed in unilaterally minimizing your own ‘good’ and bad feelings and be (contagiously) felicitous “irregardless of what others feel”.

CHRONO: For the feeling of resentment at having to work at all, I do have the belief in an ideal operating [society] where with more and more work being automated then that should be freeing up people to have more free time instead. Again seems to go back to it being ‘unfair’ that the ‘few’ reap the rewards of that automation and the ‘many’ suffer. But now as I think on it, that feeling is not factually true. Here I can see that I am identifying again with the ‘many’ and all that that entails (resentment, indignation, obedience, etc).

VINEETO: Well, you not only identify with the ‘many’ who suffer but you also describe/ imagine a compassionate ideal how society should be organized instead, for yourself and others. As each and everyone can only change one person, themselves, the only way you can actually do something beneficial is to change yourself and become free from the human condition for everyone’s benefit.

As a suggestion – instead of only looking at the negative feelings of “resentment, indignation, obedience, etc” only, check out which ‘good’ feelings keep this resentment in place. There could be compassion, which you alleviate with virtuous high morals/ethics, and/or the feeling of belonging to the ‘many’ who suffer. Perhaps you find some other ‘brownie points’ which presently keep you trapped.

I am reminded of the brilliant way Richard parsed compassion in two of the Audio-taped Dialogues –

R: Years ago I had some religious people bail me up and attempt to convert me to their belief – it would often happen in those days – and they were saying that I should always help people; that that is what we are all here for is to help other people; to put the other person before oneself. I said to them: ‘Who are these people to be helped? Who are these ‘others’? What is going to happen to them?’ I would ask this because if one does do all this – only help others and never oneself – then one goes into an After-Life of some description. I said: ‘What about those people who are being helped? Where are they going to go to?’

Q: (Laughing) Oh! I like that question!

Q(1): Good question!

R: Well, if one wants to be a helper – a ‘good’ person – one needs a ready supply of victims, of helpless people. And where are those helpless people going to go to after they die? They are not going to go into some glorious After-Life because they have not been helping people ... in fact, they have been sucking upon the helpers. So ‘do-gooders’ need a steady supply of victims in order to reach their After-Life of Rapturous Bliss.

And then I would say to them ... because they would tell me I was being selfish ... I would say to them: ‘But you want to go to your heaven when you die?’ And they would say: ‘Yes’. And I would say: ‘You are only helping other people in order for yourself to attain your After-Life of Heavenly Bliss. And is this not selfish?’ They would not like that one. The whole structure of morality hangs upon stuff like this ... that is why there is something really going wrong within society. The whole morality is back-to-front.

But, please, do not take me wrong. I do not mean by this to be self-centred. The whole thrust of examining these morals is to eliminate the self. Do you see that all of the wars and the rapes and the murders and the tortures and the corruptions and domestic violence that is going on in the human world is caused by the sense of identity and the self? From being self-centred? And do you see that the ways that people have devised – which is well-meant but fatally flawed – are not able to work?

Q(2): It supports the status-quo. It creates victims ... the other half of humanity.

R: It has been around for thousands of years. This morality has had plenty of time to prove itself successful – and it has not. There is just as many wars, rapes, murders, tortures, domestic violence and corruption now as there was then ... if not more so. That was three thousand or more years ago! So ... it just has not worked and it never will. Why not try something entirely new?

That was my whole approach back when I was a normal human being with a sense of identity and self. (Richard, Audio-taped Dialogues, Putting The Other Before Oneself)

This is certainly thinking outside of the box! The other sequence on compassion starts here –

Q(1): That was the whole thing about being the ‘Compassionate One’. He wouldn’t go through the gates until the very last person had come through.

R: That is it. They fully acknowledge that he had not gone all the way ... they have made a virtue out of it. That is where I had to dig into what I then called ‘The trap of Compassion’. Compassion was keeping me trapped in the world of enlightenment. From that position it seemed utterly selfish to go all the way. That is what I had to wrestle with over the years ... that if I went that way, I would be doing it only for me. Finally, having the courage of my convictions, having taken that last step, I can sit here right now and experience myself as being with other people one hundred per cent. It is the very best thing one can do for others ... not to mention oneself.

Mr. Gotama the Sakyan should not have dawdled, tarried ... because there has been untold suffering since then that has been all unnecessary. Wars, rapes, murders, tortures, corruption ... the list is endless. If he had gone all the way there would probably be peace on earth by now. That was two and a half thousand years ago, remember. Plenty of time for everyone to become free.

Q(1): So by his act of Compassion, it proved to be, in the end, to ...

R: To perpetuate all the suffering and sorrow ... and all the bloodshed. (Richard, Audio-taped Dialogues, Compassion Perpetuates Sorrow)

CHRONO: I can also see how there seems to be the feeling that one would “escape” that rigged system by trying to become one of the ‘few’. So the belief operating is that only the ‘few’ have what the many are disfranchised from. And even further to that, the feeling is that by being at the top, I would be able to somehow evince an equitable society (which quest for equity in regards everyone and myself has become more clear for me as one of the main driving factors for an actual freedom). But this comes to mind:

Richard: Fortunately, for yours truly and any body whose resident identity is taking notice of these words, ‘he’ had absorbed the hard-won revelations of one of the peasants who, having sought fame and fortune to escape a working-class childhood, had achieved a considerable degree of success in that enterprise (becoming a member of the world’s pecuniary super-elite, those 200,000-odd persons known to be of $30 million net-worth and above, who constitute something like 0.003% of the population by some accounts).
Viz.:
• [Richard]: ‘As for your query about the identity who used to inhabit this flesh and blood body all those years ago: the ego-self (aka ‘the thinker’) had a brief flirtation with ‘illusions of grandeur’ whilst a practising artist in the late 70’s until ‘he’ read an interview with Mr. John Lennon who, to put it as briefly as possible, reported that there was nothing ‘at the top’ and that fame [and fortune] had no intrinsic worth (…)’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53c, 30 March 2004).

VINEETO: Yes, this is an excellent quote to demonstrate that there is no intrinsic value in climbing to the top of the social ladder other than doing something to have enough to provide for life’s necessities. And once you eliminate/ abandon the resentment of having to work, perhaps you start enjoying what you do for earning a living, so that enjoying and appreciating being alive is not interrupted every time you go to work.

Here is a story I found in a tool-tip on Richard’s Personal web-page –

Richard: It is a Saturday morning in the early summer of my sixth year on this planet and my siblings are outside the kitchen window, while I am stuck here washing an enormous stack of greasy breakfast dishes, all running excitedly about and laughing merrily in the brilliant morning sunshine. My mood is despondent as the morning will have lost its sunlit sparkle before that endless pile is washed.

My maternal grandmother (my paternal grandmother died five years before I was born), who is here on her annual two-week visit from the big city I have never been to, has just come into the kitchen. Seeing me drooping listlessly over the sink with a woebegone expression on my face, distractedly swishing the by-now lukewarm dishwater around in a lack-lustre manner, she enquired as to just what it was I thought I was achieving. Manfully fighting back tears of utter despondency—and failing miserably in the process—I sobbed-out my desolation.

“Well, there’s two ways of getting yourself outside where all the fun is”, she remarked. “you can drag it out until lunchtime and beyond the way you’ve been going about it, all while feeling really miserable, or you can get stuck into it, have it finished in five minutes flat, and be outside in a trice!”

Bustling about the kitchen she moved the kettle to the hottest part of the hob, opened the fire door and stirred the slumbering fire into life, adding some kindling to encourage it to flame soonest, whilst I stood there dumbfounded, labouring to digest what she had just said. “Come along”, she added, briskly. “Pull the plug on that cold water and start afresh; look lively, young laddie, and you’ll be finished before you know it”.

And with that she left the kitchen.

I dutifully pulled the plug out and mechanically lifted the small, circular hot-plate out from beneath the kettle with its special lifting-tool so as to have the flame impinge directly onto its cast-iron base. And as I hung the tool back on its hook above the stove, all-of-a-sudden the full import of her homespun truth dawned upon me. Almost needless is it to add how I set to with a will, and, within a remarkably short while (which may well have been more than her five-minute guesstimate but who was counting by then), the dishes were done, finished, and I was heading for the back door of the old farmhouse. (Richard’s Personal web-page, 2^nd tool-tip after “and always would be, perfect”).

CHRONO: As I reflect on this it seems that it’s peasants [mentality] all the way to the top. I can see how what I feel and believe is nothing new. I am no special than the rest in this regard. This was very eye-opening now as I read it in regards the origins of that deeply held feeling of disfranchisement:

Srinath: Hunter-gatherer tribes in the Amazon had to be quite careful about the territory they were permitted to forage in and were subject to brutal raids by other tribes.

Richard: The fact that hunter-gatherers, being driven by the same instinctual passion of territoriality modern day feeling-beings are, were thereby subject to territorial warfare is beside the point insofar as to ‘forage’ – as in, ‘to wander in search of food or provisions’ (American Heritage Dictionary), for instance – in that manner (i.e., within any such tribal territory as was thus forcefully demarcated) was not a matter of theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera, but rather a case of, basically, just helping themselves to whatever was available therein.

So there be no misunderstanding: nowhere have I suggested the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is one of peace and harmony (either personal peace or communal harmony) or that it be preferable over capitalistic enterprise (be it privately-owned or publicly-owned capitalistic enterprise).

Indeed, the ability to generate capital – so essential for the elimination of poverty, for the maximisation of health and safety, for release from debilitating manual labour (from having to ‘earn the daily bread by the sweat of the brow’), for the proliferation of the arts and sciences, and so on – is of inestimable benefit.

(…) (Richard, List D, Srinath, 9 June 2015).

And further in the “tropical seashore tale”:

Richard: So, given that everybody alive today has a stone-age ancestry – there is simply no other way of arriving here on this planet as human beings other than as descendents of ‘hunter-gatherer’ lifestyle ancestors (be they of the far-past or near-past) – the transition to the prevailing ‘property-rights’ way of life is an ancestral legacy to be atavistically addressed as the beneficence accruing via the ability to generate capital (so essential for the elimination of poverty, for the maximisation of health and safety, for release from debilitating manual labour, for the proliferation of the arts and sciences, and so on) is inestimably superior to the beneficence accrued in any pre-pecuniary lifestyle. (Richard, List D, 32a, 19 June 2015).

For now my mind is quiet, but will see what comes up. This would be life-changing if I could come up on it experientially:

• [Richard]: Astonishingly, I find that social change is unnecessary; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. [endquote]. (Richard’s Journal, Article 20)

VINEETO: Having the mind quiet the perfect start to eventually actualise the insights you gained. Give it some time to gestate and germinate – it is a big shift compared to your previous thinking. This theme has been bugging you for a long time.

*

CHRONO: Still reading this and will have to reflect on it:

Vineeto: The other correspondence I can recommend is one about not taking offence, explained in detail (Richard, List D, Rick, 21 January 2016). Mastering this technique will hold you in good stead in any situation in life you described above.

VINEETO: Let me know if/when it works for you.

CHRONO: I am reminded of this Spongebob episode when I think of conceiving myself akin to a sponge. But with that said my initial hurdle is this feeling that I am responsible for others giving offense in the first place. Like I am putting something out there for others to react to. I feel guilty for not being “squeaky clean”. But actually as I am writing this while feeling good, I think that if I was feeling good in the first place, I wouldn’t be putting something out there that would elicit such a reaction. The word harmless is at the forefront of my mind. But nonetheless others may still give offense or take offense so there’s no need to feel guilty or take and give offense in turn when I can be happy and harmless.

VINEETO: Ah well, this comic-strip video is a very crude, and inaccurate, representation of what Richard is talking about. Richard is not talking about physical violence as presented in that video. He is referring to verbal affective (and psychic) insults, which are quite consequential in the real world to start a heavy brawl or a never-ending feud or the massive sexual molestation/ harassment of women in public in Cologne, Germany, in December 2010, originating from that giving offence/ taking offence phenomenon by a 26-year-old male street vendor of fruit and vegetables in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia and his ‘mates’, given him by a 45-year-old female municipal official who (allegedly) made a slur against his deceased father, and more. (Further information if needed: ). Talk about the gender war stretched over two continents!

Here is some additional information on the meaning of “absorbing” insults. For instance, from the first tool-tip in that above quote –

• [Respondent № 32]: ‘Hi Claudiu, aah go it, thanks... Indeed I missed that *never necessary* part. It makes perfect sense now – if one is applying the third alternative correctly (as [№ 40] pointed out), then there won’t be any need, because there won’t be any accumulation... just that one won’t exactly be a sponge in such a case but rather like the other one that Richard spoke about – a ‘proverbial water off a duck’s back’. I’m gonna actualize the proverbial duck way all the way now :)’. [Emphasis added]. [Message № 215xx].

And:

• [Rick]: ‘Hi Richard, Do you by chance recall the specific way in which ‘he’ conceived to ‘wring out’ all that offense being absorbed?’ [Message № 21618].

• [Claudiu]: ‘Hi Rick, You must have missed it, but the quote you provided already answers your question, to wit, the parenthetical (bolded above in blue): ‘which latter ploy [duly ‘wringing it out’, if necessary, form time-to-time were ‘he’ ever to become too full to absorb anymore] was, curiously enough, *never necessary*’. [emphasis added]. [Message № 21659].

Cheers Vineeto