EMP: Thank you for this timely reminder Vineeto. I probably mistranslated “appreciate” to a more anaemic word in my mind and then proceeded to run with it for a good 15 years.

VINEETO: Hi Emp,

You very likely did – something like ‘noticing in a positive way’. Never mind you used the anaemic meaning for 15 years – it’s always great to start afresh with a new insight and enjoy that it works.

To emphasize how significant the word "appreciate”/ "appreciation” is, to everyone who had similar misconceptions about it, let me start by saying that it appears five times in the running banners of "This Moment of Being Alive” – the very article that has the succinct instructions how to become free from the human condition –

[Richard]: –

“Consistently enjoying and *appreciating* this moment of being alive is the actualism method.”

“The means to the end – an ongoing enjoyment and *appreciation* – are no different to the end.”

“Enjoyment and *appreciation* are facilitated by feeling as happy and as harmless as possible.”

“A slightest diminishment of enjoyment and *appreciation* automatically activates attentiveness.”

“Attentiveness to the cause of diminished enjoyment and *appreciation* restores felicity/innocuity.”

“Consistently enjoying and *appreciating* this moment of being alive is what the actualism method is.”

Appreciation is the most potent aspect of the actualism method because as I said before – it "is the very key to *exponentially* increase the level of your enjoyment, expand it in scope and depth" […] to the point of excellence being the norm. It is the key to upgrade your "hedonic adaptation set-point" from feeling grumpy, to feeling neutral, to feeling good and to feeling excellent as the new set-point to fall back upon, so that even when ‘you’ come back from a PCE you no longer fall back to feeling neutral, but you ‘fall back’ to feeling excellent. Consistently appreciating the world and people and events around you can and will enable you to reset your genetically/socially inherited hedonic set-point.

EMP: It took me until about a month ago to realize that it’s anything but anaemic. It’s funny how this understanding has leaked through lately even though I’ve been bad at actively engaging it (down to getting comments about how positive I am, which is as close to a personality transplant as you’d get).

VINEETO: It seems to have already worked marvellous for you, Emp – “a personality transplant” is no small thing to bring about. Now when you do it more actively and consciously, perhaps even as a deliberate decision and commitment to feel good/excellent for the rest of your life, it will be even more of a palpable “personality transplant” beyond recognition of the old Emp.

And it is such fun!

Cheers Vineeto

July 29 2024

EMP: Hmm, I really need to get going, don’t I? Don’t wanna be stuck in the bathroom while the rest of you go for destiny. ;-)(If you know, you know). 

VINEETO: Hi Emp,

That is a very good insight and well worth putting into action.

Women can become as easily actually free as men, and given that I am a female myself, who has gone all the way, perhaps Richard’s record of how ‘Vineeto’ went about this may strike a chord with you.

[Richard]: […] As Vineeto’s reports/ descriptions/ explanations of a near-actual caring are scattered throughout her ‘Direct Route Mail-Out’ emails some background details presented numerically will aid clarity in communication.

1. When feeling-being ‘Vineeto’s everyday feeling of caring first shifted into what has since become known as a near-actual caring the qualitative difference was so marked in its effect ‘she’ initially mistook it to be an actual caring (as per ‘her’ memories of PCE’s).

2. This shift occurred when ‘she’ transitioned from ‘her’ pragmatic, methodological virtual freedom into being out-from-control – a dynamic, destinal virtual freedom – for the remaining four-and-a-half weeks of ‘her’ life (albeit with a melodramatic three-day out-of-control interlude towards the end).

3. Due to ‘her’ naďve intent to be as intimate and without prejudice as possible – which, in conjunction with the absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity that is part-and-parcel of being out-from-control had resulted in the actualism method segueing into the actualism process – ‘her’ cheerful and thus willing concurrence allowed pure intent to dynamically pull ‘her’ evermore unto ‘her’ destiny. (Hence the “dynamic, destinal virtual freedom” nomenclature).

4. This moment-to-moment experiencing of a caring which is not self-centred/ self-centric provided ‘her’ with the experiential convincement that actualising such caring, via ‘self’-immolation, was the only solution to the human condition; this ‘hands-on’ understanding as a dynamically present feeling-being – an impressively distinct contrast to having been abeyant during PCE’s – left ‘her’ with absolutely no choice (lest ‘she’ be forever “rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic”).

5. Since a near-actual caring is, of course, epitomised by a vital interest in the suffering of all human beings coming to an end, forever, as a number one priority, then ‘her’ single-minded focus was essentially centred upon the most immediate way of ensuring this long-awaited global event could begin to take effect the soonest ... to wit: bringing ‘her’ own inevitable demise, at physical death, forward into a liminal imminence.

6. Because the means ‘she’ elected to utilise towards these ends was the near-actual intimacy which goes hand-in-hand with a near-actual caring (per favour that afore-mentioned absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity which typifies being out-from-control) it is apposite to defer to what Vineeto herself wrote on the 20th of January 2010, only fifteen days after her pivotal moment/ definitive event, as its refreshingly simple directness speaks for itself.

Viz.:

• [Vineeto]: “(...). Further it was obvious for me that it would be Richard who would facilitate and trigger my transition into an actual freedom because he was the most obvious person with whom a near-actual intimacy would change into an actual intimacy – simply because Richard had been my guide and mentor for the last 13 years and particularly so for the period since I stepped out-from-control.

As I have written to No. 5 recently –

‘The final clue was again about caring, a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster. Only when I cared enough to give all of ‘me’ to another person, to give them what they want most, was I then ready to give it to the one I cared for most, the one I was closest to, and then I was able to leave all remnant concerns and inhibitions of my identity behind.

And that’s what happened”. (Direct Route, No.20, 20 January 2010).

(Incidentally, her words “to give them what they want most” refers to my oft-expressed emphasis on the necessity of a female replicating my condition – for those oh-so-vital ‘core of civilisation itself’ reasons spelled-out elsewhere on my portion of the web site – and it speaks volumes, to those males having reservations about going all the way due to the popular wisdom that what women want is loving relationships, that in the handful of daring pioneers women out-numbered men by a 4-to-1 ratio). (Richard, List D, No. 45a)

December 27, 2024

EMP: Although the more I look at this the more I see that really this is just a self-centred motivation, fuelled by a fear of being a complete outcast, and furthermore fuelled by the fear of no longer ‘being’ at all.

I’ve been having this back and forth quite a bit lately.

VINEETO: Hi Emp,

Welcome back. I always read your words with interest.

I remember this bartering – researches on people close to death found five stages happening for most people – Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance/Resignation.

Here is a bit of ‘Vineeto’s’ writing on the topic from ‘her’ early days of actualism (1998) you might enjoy –

’Vineeto’: “Having decided to go into the face of death, fear arose, big fear. The dormant instinct of survival – now challenged – awoke from sleep and spread fear and doubt all over my body and brain. Everything went on alert to protect what I knew as me. One of those protecting methods was to create doubts, ghosts upon ghosts of doubt. Am I doing the right thing? No one has ever done it before, without going through enlightenment, and won’t I get lost? What if I end up accidentally enlightened? I was dead sure by now that this was a calamity I definitely wanted to avoid. Maybe I am not capable for such an unnatural task? Maybe I am not cleaned up enough and pushing too early? How will I know what is the right direction? And on and on they went in hours of chasing my tail, round in circles without any sensible outcome.

I spent a lot of time in the day to contemplate dying, trying to figure out of what it will consist of, how I will experience it, how it was for Richard. I would call that whole process ‘gathering intent’, adjusting direction, becoming clear that now I was going for the final price. Along with sorting out relationships came hours of deep sorrow, a seemingly endless personal farewell to everything and everyone who I had cherished, held dear, appreciated and felt close to. Well aware that the days of the leisurely ease of virtual freedom lay way behind, with the bridges burnt and no return, now an all-engulfing sadness pervaded me, a bitter-sweet drama that was played out worthy of the supposedly last days of my self. Denial and rejection went hand in hand with ‘pushing the vehicle up the hill’ i.e. contemplating on the extinction of the self. What I found was a repetitive circle of fear – frustration – doubt – fear and the only way out is intent, intent to not stop at second best, whatever happens.

One day, imagining death again, I encountered a rush of glory going all through my belly, filling the chest area and filling my eyes with tears of joy and anticipation. I could see the ‘self’ enjoying the dignity of a willing death, agreeing to the undeniable fact that only the ‘self’ was in the road of experiencing the perfection of the universe. As close as the ‘self’ is able to I stood at the brink of actual freedom. By sheer obvious comparison I had to admit that I would never be able to accomplish or compete with the purity and crystal clear magic of this perfect universe. This glimpse alone was a thousand-fold greater and more magical than any ‘self’ would ever be able to produce, no matter how much I would clean myself up and make myself perfect. This very realization was to be the {temporary} defeat of the ‘self’. But at the same time there was the utter joy and celebration of having seen and experienced what I would be dying for and that it was worth all of ‘me’.” [Emphasis and curly-bracketed insert added]. (Exploring Death and ASCs)

Richard: I am more making the point that only altruism – self-sacrificial humanitarianism – will provide the enormous energy necessary for ‘self’-immolation ... the instinct for individual survival is only exceeded by the instinct for group survival.

It takes a powerful instinct to overcome a powerful instinct. (Richard, List B, No. 39b, 28 Oct 2002a)

Cheers Vineeto 

(If you like to have a private conversation about any issues, you are welcome to message me. I know it is often easier to nut out something when you put it in words.)