January 5 2026

SYD: I had an opportunity to put Grace’s scale in practice back in November but (contrary to my confident expectations at start) I failed miserably at it, because I was so oblivious to my ‘bifurcation points’.

Not that one can “decline” libido as a feeling-being (not possible). So, I wonder how one would “handle” it? How does naiveté come into picture here? How does this all translate to actual experience between a man and a woman?

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

As you say that you “developed a seeking [desire] to make them permanent” I would not call this merely a “miniscule-bifurcation” but the major reason why it slipped in unnoticed in the first place despite your best intentions. Again, it is the hope I wrote to Kuba about (Actualvineeto, Kuba12, 5 January 2026) which, unrecognised at the start, spoils the possible intimacy because, when hope is present ‘I’ am taking centre stage. Hence your best option is become aware of and fully acknowledge the hopeful expectation. It is far more than just “libido” or a minor slip-up. At the start of a new acquaintance-ship it is more often than not an occasion for all the hopes and dreams to slowly come to the surface, which now gives you the opportunity to examine those ‘good’ feelings of hopes and dreams as they unfold. Don’t let the expectation or ambition of quickly establishing grades of intimacy interfere with acknowledging the feelings which occur. Those investigations are all part and parcel of recognizing and dismantling the obstacles to less ‘self’-centric closeness. Nothing, but nothing can be swept under the carpet, or else it will crop up sooner or later –

Richard: It is the quality of pure intent which pulls one forward with impunity ... pure intent transforms into action one’s determination to live a life full of gladness, peace and harmony with oneself, with a person of the other gender, and with all peoples. Pure intent produces total dedication – it is experienced as an irresistible enticement – and it makes it impossible not to do what is required (or to sweep an issue under the carpet and to let sleeping dogs lie) and to continue to conform to the long-failed dictates of the status-quo. Pure intent is not to be confused with being a ‘do-gooder’, or being full of ‘righteousness’, or being ‘moralistic’ or being ‘principled’. Pure intent is the quality that encompasses what morals and ethics aspire to but never reach. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-a, 16 September 1999).

The way “naiveté come[s] into picture” is that with sincerity and naiveté you apply no moral or ethical or ‘actualistic’ judgements as to what feeling is occurring and therefore can apply unrestricted attentiveness –

Richard: All affective feelings are – quite simply – an hereditary occurrence, an inborn factor to be acutely aware of. No pride, no shame, nothing personal at stake ... what is there, is naturally there. There is no clinging to the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and no fleeing from the hostile and invidious, either (those that are hateful and fearful). 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’. Attentiveness is an aesthetic alertness that takes place with minimised reference to self. With attentiveness one sees the internal world with blameless references to concepts like ‘my’ or ‘mine’. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).

Cheers Vineeto

January 6 2026

VINEETO: The way “naiveté come[s] into picture” is that with sincerity and naiveté you apply no moral or ethical or ‘actualistic’ judgements as to what feeling is occurring and therefore can apply unrestricted attentiveness – (…) (Actualvineeto to Syd, 5 January 2026).

SYD [Log]:

1. A few hours after having emailed her, I began despairing ‘She would not respond at all’ (rejection).
2. This lead me to consider the likely possibility of going about it on my own.
3. Which had me wonder about the actual meaning of Vineeto’s word “closeness” in that post linked above
4. Then, I checked out my honest motivations behind wanting to getting back with her

5. Finally, I wondered what this actual ‘closeness’ would be like with her (if I were to get back), concomitant to wondering how it will be for Vineeto if she were to interact with a man. It hit me right there: there would be no affections at all (I felt a tiny sense of sadness at loss, here). How can that be! Seems like a freaking huge sacrifice! It would instead be a … umm … sensate closeness. In other words, an immediacy with her. Physical and sensate immediacy. No affectionate experiencing.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

To answer your question regarding “the actual meaning of Vineeto’s word “closeness”” – it is the same meaning as in Richard’s description of Grace’s scale, which has been recently mentioned by you and others several times –

Richard: A closeness is where the personal boundaries are expanded to include the other into one’s own space; this is a normal type of intimacy. (Richard, Abditorium, Intimacy, #Intimacy)

By putting your own interpretation on it (perhaps because you regard yourself not like “normal” people) makes communication rather difficult and is, of course, misleading yourself. Here is where I perceived that you may regard yourself not like “normal” people –

Syd: I recognize this to be a common ‘cycle’ I tend to go through – swinging between two extremes (hope & despair) much more than a normal person would. (inserted comment to point 1. in Syd’s PCE log 7)

Syd: Once I stayed with despair, I was able to pinpoint the exact beliefs involved. I located two of them: a) woman is attracted to man => woman ‘values’ man => man feels ‘valued’. This intuited ‘value’ was the source of my ‘self-worth’ (incidentally, this is a common experience for normal men too). [Emphases added]. (Syd’s PCE Log 5, inserted comment)

I only mention this because if you to consider yourself better or worse than “normal people” (btw, from what I observed, most people class themselves on a hierarchy scale) – the fact remains that you are endowed with the same instinctual passions as everyone else. To feel yourself other than “normal people” only creates/ maintains yet another layer of a superior/ inferior identity.

Just out of curiosity, do you know how a “normal” person would be “swinging between two extremes” so as to be able to say you are doing it “much more”?

You said in another inserted comment –

Syd: While I can’t speak for others, I consider words like ‘intimacy’ to be counterproductive to me as I tend to immediately (no pun intended) associate affectionate factors with it. (third insert in Syd’s PCE Log 7)

Just to clarify, the word intimacy means affective/ affectionate intimacy unless otherwise specified. Below Richard goes into great detail what the word ‘intimacy’ means – no different to the normal dictionary meaning –

Richard: Therefore, what you are effectively asking – via your “is ‘real intimacy’ the same as ‘the affective intimacy of love’ mentioned below?” wording – is whether or not intimacy, for feeling-beings, is the same as the intimacy of love.

Yet, because intimacy can be referred in several ways (i.e., via its denotation, its connotations, and its consuetude) by feeling-beings – as indicated by those quick dictionary definitions you provided – then your query makes about as much sense as its obverse would (i.e., whether or not the intimacy of love is the same as intimacy).

As the word ‘intimacy’ refers to the state or condition of being intimate – a word which comes from Latin intimātus, ‘to make familiar with’, past participle of intimāre, intimāt-, ‘to make known’, from Latin intimus, ‘innermost’, ‘deepest’; from intus, ‘within’ – perhaps some more extensive dictionary entries than those quick ones will throw some light upon what it is you are wanting to know about intimacy per se and the intimacy of love. Viz:

(extensive dictionary definitions and more details in (Richard, List D, No. 46, 7 February 2016).

Hence there is no need to create your own vocabulary. It only interferes with clarity in communication. When Richard is referring to non-affective intimacy, he specifies it as actual intimacy.

There is more information both on affective intimacy as well as actual intimacy in Richard’s Selected Correspondence.

SYD: PCE (sensate reality)

A strong golden clew has been established.

VINEETO: This short experience appears to have more the elements of a genuine PCE than the one you described before. You headed the last experience as “EE (center-less)” and said “even though I couldn’t tell if it was PCE” but then proceeded to call it a PCE in your most recent reply to me, “(this was a few days before the PCE on post #5)”. It is indeed vital to have a clear, clean memory of a definite experience of a PCE to establish “a strong golden clew”.

Your follow-up ruminations, which obviously happened after the PCE had ended, thinking “it is just a matter of staying in it, leaving “me” behind in the process” need some clarifications.

Richard: I will take this opportunity to add that an as-fully-informed-as-possible identity is vital to the whole process as only an identity, and no-one else, can set its host free. For instance:

• [Richard]: ‘... you have a vital role to play, not only in regards peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as that flesh and blood body, but in enabling the already always existing meaning of life (or ‘the purpose of the universe’ or ‘the reason for existence’ or however one’s quest may be described) into becoming apparent.
In short: your freedom, or lack thereof, is in your hands and your hands alone’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 80, 28 December 2004).

Another way of putting it is that identity has a job to do. Viz.:

• [Gary]: ‘Is it correct to say that ‘I’ am in abeyance during the PCE?
• [Richard]: ‘That was the word that occurred to me to describe the experience ... ‘suspended’, maybe (as in ‘the operation has been suspended until further notice’)?
• [Gary]: ‘Or is it more accurate to say that ‘I’ have vacated the scene completely and totally?
• [Richard]: ‘Oh, yes, there is a marked absence of ‘me’ during the experience ... perhaps it is more correct to say that it is after the experience, when ‘I’ reappear, that in hindsight it becomes obvious that ‘I’ was in abeyance?
• [Gary]: ‘What causes ‘me’ to return?
• [Richard]: ‘Because *‘I’ have a job to do*: ‘I’ am going to make the most noble sacrifice that ‘I’ can make for this body and that body and every body ... for ‘I’ am what ‘I’ hold most dear. It is ‘my’ moment of glory. It is ‘my’ crowning achievement ... it makes ‘my’ petty life all worth while. It is not an event to be missed ... to physically die without having experienced what it is like to become dead is such a waste of a life’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Gary, 15 August 2000).

(Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 74e, 28 December 2005).

In short, there is no way to proceed from a PCE into an actual freedom because the very process of “leaving “me” behind” requires ‘my’ action and ultimately ‘my’ full acquiescence, which cannot happen whilst ‘I’ am in abeyance or suspense.

Again, it is worthwhile noticing the many and various cunning tricks ‘I’ employ to stay in existence. It is quite amusing once you discover them.

Cheers Vineeto

January 8 2026

SYD: Hi Vineeto!

VINEETO: By putting your own interpretation on it [the word closeness] (perhaps because you regard yourself not like “normal” people) makes communication rather difficult and is, of course, misleading yourself.

SYD: I understood the word cognitively. So it was not misinterpretation per se (and certainly nothing to do with me thinking myself to be “abnormal”). But an affective investment in the ‘good feelings’ that had me arrogate what you said for ‘my’ own purposes. Wouldn’t you agree that it happens all too common among feeling-beings? Speaking of which (I was searching this forum for ‘intimacy’), I came across: “Sweetness in the arms of the other”.

I misled myself not because of not understanding the word; I misled myself because I was oblivious to the ‘good feelings’ (plus hope) operating underneath to arrogate it. You may remember that back in Ballina I did it even with “happy and harmless”! Which is but yet another reason why I’m so keen on PCEs and establishing golden clew. The actual freedom vocabulary is excellent, but “I” am way too cunning especially if left on “my” own.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

I appreciate your recognition that you arrogated what I said “for ‘my’ own purposes”. You are correct, it happens quite often and I am pleased it is cleared up now. Your most recent PCE is certainly a valuable guide – and ‘my’ cunning needs to be discovered and thus disarmed one trick at a time.

SYD: (Regarding the word ‘intimacy’ I will perhaps start a separate top-level post. And I’ll try to be more careful in my choice of words, and even more so when it comes to an expressed appraisal of them so as to not unwittingly mislead others.)

VINEETO: It is a very informative thread and perhaps more experiential reports will follow.

*

VINEETO: there is no need to create your own vocabulary. It only interferes with clarity in communication.

SYD: I agree with you! I have no intention to create my own vocabulary. The word ‘immediacy’ in fact is already used by Richard and a few others (including yourself to Chrono), and it is in that sense I’ve always used it.

Regarding the “EE (center-less)” I had come to accept it as a PCE later on, but now with the clear PCE of yesterday, I reject that acceptance. In particular, a definitive sign for me is the quality of the sensate experiencing of this only moment, which makes both the 2008 ‘Microsoft PCE’ and yesterday’s one clear PCEs.

VINEETO: I appreciate you have no intention to create your own vocabulary and also that you now recognize your EE as such, and not as a PCE.

I did find a quote from Richard on List D, where he used the word ‘immediacy’ as how the psychic network operates amongst all feeling beings –

Richard: Third, (the point you left unspoken): there already exists a world-wide network – requiring neither technological wizz-bangs nor competency in the English language – which has a truly global reach (inherently connecting every single man, woman and child alive today no matter what their age) and is instantaneous in its effect.

And, most importantly, it is where the real power-play takes place anyway – given that it by-passes both the cognitive and the affective filters – as its operation has the immediacy of ‘being’ to ‘being’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) directivity. (Richard, List D, James, 2 July 2013).

This general psychic kind of immediacy would always apply for all interactions amongst feeling beings. Also, there is the dictionary definition – “the quality of bringing one into direct and instant involvement with something, giving rise to a sense of urgency or excitement.” (Oxford Dictionary).

Most other of Richard’s quotes refer to the immediacy of being the flesh-and-blood body only, being actually free or in a PCE, Viz.:

Richard: One walks in wide-eyed wonder through this veritable paradise simply marvelling in immediacy. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12k, 26 July 2001c)

Richard: Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the immediacy of the actual world – the world as-it-is – and the propinquity of ‘my’ fellow human being – people as-they-are – by ‘my’ very presence. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-b, 13 December 1999)

Richard: I have generally found that, when the direct experience (actual intimacy) of being here now (pure consciousness experiencing) diminishes and one reverts to normal, the immediacy of being this flesh and blood body only, in infinite space and eternal time as the universe’s experience of itself, vanishes completely ... and one (strangely) starts to settle for second-best. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Alan-a, 31 August 1999)

The quote I used in Chrono’s correspondence refers to living the “cutting edge of reality”.

Richard: I would say to myself: ‘This is my only moment of being alive ... I am actually here doing this reading of these words now’. The past – although it was actual whilst it was happening – is not happening now ... and never will again. A past peak experience can never be repeated ... it is useful inasmuch as it bestows the requisite confidence that it is possible to experience the purity of the perfection of life here and now ... but that is it, finish. One slips into this moment in time and this place in space by being aware that all this that is happening is happening for the very first time and that I have never been here before doing this. In fact: I have never been here before. In everyday terminology this moment in time is the ‘cutting-edge of reality’. Who knows what will happen next as ‘the future’ does not exist until this moment happens.

If this realisation is not thrilling I would like to know what is! (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Vineeto, 5 August 1998).

As there are several distinct meanings, perhaps when you use it to describe your own experience in lieu of intimacy or near-actual intimacy it might need a qualifier or sufficient context for clarity.

*

VINEETO: Your follow-up ruminations, which obviously happened after the PCE had ended, thinking “it is just a matter of staying in it, leaving “me” behind in the process” need some clarifications.

SYD: They happened so naturally as the PCE ended. A few hours later (so, perhaps you have not seen my edit) upon realizing how it could be misinterpreted, I did clarify them in the footnote (inserted comment) added at the end of it, right after the “This is the sacrifice involved”. It will look like this:

[From here, I have come to understand the difference between PCEs & AF. The PCE happens spontaneously when the self goes into abeyance; it cannot be made permanent, because the self, which wasn’t fully gone, will come back in full force anyway. For AF to happen, the self – whilst still being in situ (albeit as ‘beer’?) – needs to willingly (cheerful concurrence) die such that the actual world as experienced in the PCE can eventuate irrevocably, experienced as this flesh and blood body only.] (inserted comment)

VINEETO: I was more interested that you don’t misinterpret your own ruminations, especially because they happened immediately after your short PCE. I am pleased you fully understand what I had reiterated for clarity.

SYD: That said, I’m not yet considering self-immolation. My focus currently is in consistently having the golden clew derived from the PCE inform me as to how I experience this moment of being alive (which naturally does mean practicing the actualism method, wordlessly).

VINEETO: That is good to hear.

Cheers Vineeto

January 13 2026

SYD: Well, that was just a misunderstanding (I truly seem to be oblivious to the social signals in this context), and we will indeed be getting together in about 3 days time (I’ll be occupied during the next two days, and she wants to see me before going on vacation for the weekend).

Have said all that (and I’m being as sincerely aware of this affectionality as I can), I’m also ‘brushing up’ on my understanding of what near-actual intimacy means when put into practice. I wish to put into words what I understand so far, mainly so others can point to any errors or anything I’ve overlooked, which would indeed be beneficial for me such that I don’t go astray on Thursday night. There seems to be two components to near-actual intimacy:

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

While you say yourself that you don’t know what “this ”near-innocent intimacy of naïveté“ with a person of opposite sex yet, I nevertheless I experienced something of how actual intimacy is described”, you are nevertheless theoretical planning your upcoming meeting with ‘her’ in terms of “near-actual intimacy” even though you haven’t yet mentioned having experiences with the preceding scales of intimacy with a person of the other gender, with varying degrees of affections “sexual desire, fear, etc.” or love –

Richard: She has a scale of quality in regards sexual experience: good, very good, great, excellent and magical. (…)

To explain: togetherness is the companionship of doing things together – be it shopping, cooking, having sex, whatever – and pertains to the willingness to be and act in concert with another.

A closeness is where the personal boundaries are expanded to include the other into one’s own space; this is a normal type of intimacy.

A sweetness is when closeness entrées a lovely delight at the proximity of the other (although it can veer off into affection, ardency, love, oneness).

A richness (aka an excellence experience) is where sweetness segues into a near-absence of agency via letting-go of control and one is the sex and sexuality (the beer and not the doer).

Magical sex is where sex and sexuality are happening of their own accord – neither beer nor doer extant – and pristine purity abounds (an immaculate perfection). (Richard, List D, No. 6, 10 November 2009).

It is the third stage where Grace reported the “bifurcation manifesting where the instinctual tendency/ temptation was to veer off in the direction of love and its affectuous intimacy”. So your anticipation of what you are describing below is merely based on what you have read on the Actual Freedom website, particular from Richard and Vineeto describing their own experience in the actual world and how it may (or may not) eventuate when you meet up with ‘her’.

SYD: There seems to be two components to near-actual intimacy:

Even sexual desire (as distinct from the sensuality of sexual arousal) would have naturally given way to the current-time awareness with increased sensuosity / closeness.

VINEETO: At this stage this is mere wishful thinking because in your “honest description of my emotional state” you said “it brought back the old set of feelings albeit not at the same intensity. Stemming from the ‘being-to-being passions’ I wrote of above, there was also sexual desire, possessiveness, fear, etc. as part of it. I explored it all by staying with the feelings wherever those day-dreams took me.”

How do you envision these “‘being-to-being passions’” suddenly transforming into “not-affectional” “near-actual intimacy”?

SYD: 2. In lieu of such affectionality, and in conjunction with the supplanted sensuosity, the experience/ awareness is (will be) such that there is an immanence-in-consciousness of the other.

So, that’s where I’m. This letting myself go into ‘common consciousness’, while seems to be a delightful way of being to the nth degree, is also a bit … disconcerting at times, mainly because of unfamiliarity, and also because of the temptations of affectionality.

VINEETO: In high-flying word-formations such as “mutual physicality of immanence-in-consciousness” and the arrogation and appropriation of descriptions such as “‘common consciousness’ being ‘genderless, formless, ageless and vast’” and “fixed physicality falling apart” – as if this will miraculous happen to you because you read about fully actually free people reporting it – you may have forgotten that you are still a passionate feeling being, experiencing “‘being-to-being passions’”, which when ignored for what they are, easily give rise to such unrealistic anticipation cloaked in ‘actualistic’ phrases.

Richard: Thus I do know it is possible to slip into a hypomanic state whilst illuding oneself that it fits the criterion for ‘out-from-control’ as per actualism lingo – and I especially know this via gradually talking a person so afflicted back out of it over time – and one of the hallmarks is the initial difficulty in ‘reaching’ such a person (they are ‘out of reach’ of normal discourse) due to the certitude such a state imbues. (Richard, Abditorium, Hypomania).

Perhaps this excerpt is also informative as a cautionary note so as to assist in providing yourself with an “honest description of my emotional state” –

Richard:

• [Respondent № 27]: “I have similar questions about the distinction between ‘feeling intimacy’ and ‘actual intimacy’. Could you define exactly what you mean by those terms – as well as just exactly what you would say is going on when there is a ‘feeling intimacy’?”

• [Richard]: “So as to circumvent coining new words I chose to make a distinct difference between the word ‘actual’ and the word ‘real’ (plus the word ‘fact’ and the word ‘true’) whereas the dictionaries do not: thus when I talk of the actual world, as contrasted to the real world, whilst both words refer to the physical world I am making an experiential distinction (a distinction in experience).

I usually put it this way: what one is (what not who) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) inside the body means no separation whatsoever – whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose.

*This entity, or being, residing in the body is forever cut-off from the actual – from the world as-it-is – because its inner world reality is pasted as a veneer over the actual world, thus creating the outer world reality known as the real world, and experiences an affective intimacy (oneness, union, unity, wholeness) wherein the separation is bridged by love and compassion ... instead of an actual intimacy (direct, instant, immediate, absolute) where there is no separation whatsoever*.

In other words, no separative identity in the first place means no division exists to be transcended”.

• [Respondent № 27]: “Is there no intimacy in feeling intimacy?”

• [Richard]: “Yes, there is the feeling of being intimate”.

• [Respondent № 27]: “If that’s the case, why do you call it feeling ‘intimacy’?”

• [Richard]: “Because that is what it is ... the feeling of being intimate”. [emphasis in original]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 18 November 2002).

(…)

Perhaps if I were to put it this way: a feeling-being, residing as they do in their ‘self’-created ‘inner world’, feels separated from other feeling-beings as a matter of course (who, whilst similarly residing in their own ‘self’-created ‘inner worlds’, nevertheless manifest as residing in that feeling-being’s ‘self’-created ‘outer world’) and seeks to bridge that ‘self’-generated separation in the only way a feeling-being can – affectively and psychically – such as to experience a feeling of being intimate (i.e., a feeling intimacy a.k.a. an affective intimacy), when successful, and even unto an affective-psychic union, a ‘oneness’ experience, when that feeling of being intimate, through having become a loving intimacy, then transforms itself, via what is known as “falling in love”, into a state of being called “being in love” (i.e., being love itself as “a state of ‘being’”). (Richard, List D, No. 46, #intimacy2)

In other words, as long as strong passions, waxing and waning in intensity, as described by you, are operating, a near-actual intimacy is not yet possible. Your description of “great sense of control” indicates rather the beginning stage of falling in love. A near-actual intimacy can only be experienced in an ongoing excellence experience, also known as the state of being out-from-under-control.

For a collection of experiential descriptions of the feelings and results of being in love see (Richard, List D, James, 8 August 2015).

Cheers Vineeto

January 21 2026

‘Vineeto’ to Gary: When Peter and I met, he had grasped enough from Richard’s radical discovery to not want to fall in love again. And yet, as he has described it in his Journal,, falling in love happened despite all good intentions, inevitably unfolding all the typical emotions between man and woman within the Human Condition. To get a handle on the overwhelming impact of my tender emotions, I had to feel, experience, acknowledge, label and investigate each and every single emotion of the bundle called love in order to understand what love consists of. There was sexual attraction, fear of loneliness, my personal dreams and fantasies, my emotional dependency, my expectations of the other, the male and female conditioning, constant mistrust, fear, jealousy, worry and feelings of inadequacy that I tried to overcome by anticipating, attempting to interpret and empathizing with the other’s moods and feelings. (…)

As I successively became aware of and understood one feeling after the other, I first had glimpses and then increasingly longer periods where neither tender nor savage emotions would interfere in the delightful magic of a direct unimpeded peaceful interaction with another human being. It became more and more obvious that love is nothing but a shield of ‘my’ projected feelings that act to keep me at a safe distance and therefore love only stands in the way of intimate interaction with others. (Actualism, Vineeto, Actual Freedom List, Gary-c, 23.3.2001).

SYD: Thank you, Vineeto.

I’ve been reading what other actualists have written of love. And it is quite amazing to discover how much we all have in common (I can recognize myself in their words), in regards to how love ‘operates’. Love, which resumed upon re-establishing contact, is finally leaving my system again. Oh boy, I don’t think I want to go through this again … all the more reason to be watchful of the ‘bi-furcation’ … and prioritize near-actual intimacy from the get go for future acquaintances (speaking of which I did speak to someone briefly today and I’m pretty satisfied with how I handled it overall).

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

So you had your first encounter with the beginnings of falling in love as an adult – and conclude that reading what other actualists say about love gives you enough theoretical knowledge to “be watchful of the ‘bi-furcation’”. With such high expectations don’t let yourself be discouraged when romantic feelings mixed with sexual desire strike again. As ‘Vineeto’ reported, ‘she’ had to become “aware of and understood one feeling after the other” until eventually, after many investigations, “neither tender nor savage emotions would interfere”.

One experience, by your reports, mixed with some detachment, rejection and suppression of your ‘tender’ feelings, lots of hope and high-flying intentions, is most likely not enough to overall, experientially and affectively, understand how you operate. Hence I suggest to be more realistic, down-to-earth, and patient in order that you can be naïvely interested and genuinely attentive (possibly as in “attentiveness does not play favourites”) about what is happening when the cocktail of what is called “falling in love” starts setting in the next time.

Only by allowing to let the experience itself unfold can you learn about its intricacies, the hopes, dreams and beliefs it all entails, its unspoken assumptions on both sides, the psychic push and pull, the interactive power dynamic and the very cunning mechanism of ‘you’ to ‘get out of here as fast as possible’, or, as you say “I don’t think I want to go through this again”.

Rejection and resentment of the topic you want to experientially research interfere with a thorough and possibly enjoyable inquiry where you can be confident about the results you get. So perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why.

Kuba gave you an insightful and excellent suggestion how to proceed from there –

Kuba: It seems you have got down to some of the nitty-gritty of what is going on. I remember some years ago having this realisation, that it was my desire which was keeping me a slave. Initially it seemed like it was the woman who was at fault, after-all she had the power over me, the power to affect my self-worth etc. But then it was so clear that I was a self-made slave, it was my desire which made it possible for women to dangle various glittering carrots in front of me, and for me to mindlessly follow.

This is nothing new, that men desire sex and women can and do exploit this… Blind-spot. The game-changing thing with actualism is that I can unilaterally step out of this power game. However, it does require attending to the fundamental fact – it is my desire which is keeping me a slave.

Plenty to explore – don’t forget to enjoy and deeply appreciate solving the puzzle that is one of the top mysteries of the human condition.

Cheers Vineeto

January 22 2026

VINEETO: Only by allowing to let the experience itself unfold can you learn about its intricacies, the hopes, dreams and beliefs it all entails, its unspoken assumptions on both sides, the psychic push and pull, the interactive power dynamic and the very cunning mechanism of ‘you’ to ‘get out of here as fast as possible’, or, as you say “I don’t think I want to go through this again”.

Rejection and resentment of the topic you want to experientially research interfere with a thorough and possibly enjoyable inquiry where you can be confident about the results you get. So perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why.

SYD: Hi Vineeto,

Syd: (…) The message I sent was something along the lines of asking for FWB arrangement:

Gotta be honest: while the emotional heaviness is gone, the sexual desire is very much still there. I’m not looking for strictly friendship. I enjoy our conversations, I want us to be physical too. Is that something you want too?

I really fought tooth and nail with the actualist because I was afraid of directly asking her this. In the end, I decided to just ask and see what happens – both from her standpoint and my own reaction to it.

Trigger: She basically vanished from that point – no response. This caused a surge of fear, and I was no longer feeling good. (Just feel good, bro)

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

I guess I have to spell it out fully what I mean by “perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why”. The investigation into this topic needs to go further than merely re-stating that your past experiences with women did not result in the outcome that you wanted, mainly the inclusion of having sex. “She basically vanished from that point” you say and that is the end of your explanation of you “no longer feeling good”. In short, the way you portray it that it was her fault (and all the others), end of story.

But this is not the end of story for an actualist style investigation – to start with, in actualism you acknowledge that you are the only person you can change, and if your contemplation don’t yet reveal where and how you need to change, what lies underneath this present attitude and outcome of situations like this, then you need to dig deeper in your understanding.

Simply resolving to be naïve instead, to rememorate a PCE or “by-pass” or “re-channel” your feelings and passions has not worked and will not work. As Richard put it in the excellent quote Pelagash just posted today –

Richard: Is not ‘understanding’ something the same thing as ‘analysing’ something? To understand something is to intellectually grasp a concept successfully. This may be the activity of ‘I’ thinking as clearly as ‘I’ can possibly think, yet it is not the same clarity as the clear seeing obtained in an insight … and an insight is seeing the fact.

When one sees the fact there is action … and this action is the actualising of the insight so that one’s personality is changed, irrevocably. (…) (Richard, List B, No. 12, 16 February 1998a)

You are looking for an actual change, a change in attitude, a change in the originally always ‘self’-centric perspective, a change that originates at the core of your ‘being’, where you are able to be naïve. Richard has described the process to you in detail –

Richard: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself).

Now, having located ‘being’ itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/ just before and almost touching on the sex centre).

Here you will find yourself both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity/ naiveté).

Here is where you can, finally, like yourself (very important) no matter what.

Here is the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’.

Here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness.

Here is where it is possible to be the key. (Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009).

In order to “go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings … into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings” you first need to stop ignoring, objecting to, pushing away, or ‘setting aside’ or by-pass any ‘inappropriate’ of those superficial and profound passions until you can recognize and fully acknowledge them as ‘you’. Only then will you be able to discover there is something further, “where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself”.

If that discovery is genuine (and not a superficial change of wording, which neither changes your underlying feeling nor the vibes you automatically emanate) then you will experience a change in the way you feel, in your attitude and general outlook, where, for instance, women are no longer prey or objects of sexual desire but likeable fellow human beings to enjoy their company whatever form that may take. Until that change in your ‘being’ happens and can be repeated until it becomes your new way of being, your investigations into “what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why” have barely scratched the surface.

Here is Kuba’s post again for further, perhaps deeper, appreciation and understanding –

Kuba: This is nothing new, that men desire sex and women can and do exploit this… Blind-spot. The game-changing thing with actualism is that I can unilaterally step out of this power game. However it does require attending to the fundamental fact – it is my desire which is keeping me a slave.

There was something very nice though that came along with stepping out of this game, which was that I was more able to experience women as fellow human beings, and weirdly enough they also appreciate the fact that it is not possible to make me a slave. After-all that very game which women play is part of the instinctual programming, it does not care for their happiness and deep down they yearn to be free from it also.

Sooo, to cut a long story short, by attending to the fact that one is a puppet to one’s own passionate drives one can find not only greater freedom for oneself but also a greater intimacy with the person of the other gender – how neat!

SYD: I was investigating along tangential lines recently. I saw that the various feelings mentioned here all stem from the instinctual passion of desire – not just sexual desire but also the desires ‘stuck atop’ it. Instead of sidestepping or reducing this desire, I can channel[1] it towards beneficial means (…), and this makes those other feelings pretty redundant.

[1]channel: So no longer wasting the instinctual energy on the thing being desired (in the real-world) … be it sexual ‘conquest’, validation (aka. emotional/ identity conquest), possession, a prop for one’s self-worth, an other-person derived source of meaning in life, or whatever. The “energy” of that desire is now freed for other purposes.

VINEETO: Your tool-tip explanation of what you mean by “channel” is typical buddhistic detachment – reject all worldly desires and desire something else instead. It merely changes the name of the goalpost, not your being. It has nothing to do with what can actually happen, with tangible results, when sincerely being attentive, fully investigating and comprehending the issue at hand. You might want to check out feeling-being ‘Vineeto’s’ detailed writing on (Actualism, Vineeto, Selected Writings, Investigate Feelings.

*

VINEETO: Plenty to explore – don’t forget to enjoy and deeply appreciate solving the puzzle that is one of the top mysteries of the human condition.

SYD: Speaking of which, right after sending that last message, I discovered the value of feeling good as baseline (feeling good feels so good compared to what happened before!). I decided to maintain the baseline of feeling good (and everything else – PCEs/ rememoration/ contemplation/… – can happen on the bedrock of feeling good). I’ll write about it after I get to play with it sufficiently over the next few days.

VINEETO: It’s good to have a sound feeling-good base when planning to exchange your face-mask and snorkel for deep-sea diving with a scuba outfit ... deep into the human condition. Full text on Richard’s Homepage.

Cheers Vineeto

January 23 2026

SYD: Thank you for the “change in your ‘being’” explanation; I hadn’t seen that way. This is something to keep in mind, certainly.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

Here is the relevant part of the quote from Richard I posted –

Richard: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009).

Instead of “change in your ‘being’” I should have more precisely said change in the perception of your ‘being’ as I laid it out in the beginning of the sentence – “you will experience a change in the way you feel, in your attitude and general outlook, where, for instance, women are no longer prey or objects of sexual desire but likeable fellow human beings to enjoy their company whatever form that may take”. As you have reported yourself on occasion, when naiveté operates there is an immense tangible change in how you are.

SYD: Regarding your reiteration of Kuba’s posts, what I’ve always found odd is that nobody has so far given a detailed report of this ‘desire’ and the various forms it takes.

VINEETO: Why do you need others’ “detailed report” to know how to proceed? Richard, Peter, Vineeto, Geoffrey and others proceeded to dive into their psyche without such reports, guided by pure intent, the intent to leave no stone unturned with the overriding aim to actualise what the PCE revealed to be possible. Actualism is something you do by yourself, a unilateral change for the benefit of you and every body.

Here is a useful insight from Adam –

ADAM-H: (…) I see again that the key is the genuine willingness/ readiness, it makes total sense to me and fits with my past intermittent experiences. When that willingness/ readiness is there, the practice is hardly even a practice, it’s effortless. But again it feels like this is just saying “here is what it is like when it works.” How does one make an identity… (end of initial reaction)

VINEETO: Hi Adam,

This is a very insightful post and well worth keeping for future references. When the readiness is there then there is no conflict, not one side trying and the other side resisting.

ADAM-H: While writing that phrase out I had this thought “wait, I am that identity, I don’t have to ‘make’ it do anything I can just do it.” I can see how I reacted to bad feelings – by becoming a virtuously impatient identity whose narrative is a story about being special for wanting to feel good. As soon as I saw that, there was a feeling of having my ‘split’ self fuse back together with my relatively more naive but stressed self. This consolidated ‘me’ was able to then instantly go back to feeling good because it saw that it was silly to feel good when it was entirely up to me how to feel. I think this is the clearest I’ve ever been on the point that sincerity can unlock naivety.

VINEETO: Excellent – when you had the realisation that “wait, I am that identity” that is the same as realising that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’ – no conflict, simply the choice to be whatever feeling you prefer to be. It’s great, isn’t it, when you discover some of the tricks ‘I’ get up to – and once you see it, the trick no longer works and you do feel good. And this is the key to sincerity.

So should you ever struggle to get out of feeling bad, look for this sincerity, the “willingness/ readiness” and see what happens.

(…)

Richard: Indeed it is ... so in order to successfully escape one needs to abandon the known path, the familiar path, the path that does not deliver the goods, so that the energy one is frittering away fruitlessly is available for the unknown path, the unfamiliar path, the path that does deliver the goods. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, James3, 1 November 2002)

(Actualvineeto, Adam-H, 8 January 2026).

If you can clearly see the point Kuba is making that “that it was my desire which was keeping me a slave” and when you have the readiness to no longer follow the demands of this passion, this cause of your slavery, then it can happen in an instant – if “that willingness/ readiness is there”. If it is not there (yet), then one is often easily diverted in to all sorts of ‘trying’ by asking more questions, analysing one’s ever-changing kaleidoscope of feelings, finding fault with others and similar tricks of ‘me’ to keep the standard quo.

This early description from Peter might also be relevant, if only to recognize any emotional patterns –

Peter to Alan: Thus it was that I actively practiced denial and transcendence – new tricks to add to the denial and repression of ‘bothersome’ feelings and emotions that I had been taught as a child. Transcendence is such a wonderfully seductive option, for one gets to swan along, literally with one’s head in the clouds, literally above it all. The real world problems of money, relationship, corruption and greed, and the feelings of anger, sorrow and melancholy were still around but ‘I’ was not part of it. The ‘real’ world became a tolerable nuisance – I was not going to let it bother me – the new spiritual ‘me’. (Peter, Actual Freedom List, Alan-d, 19.3.2000).

It describes how the mechanism of the old paradigm operated, nowadays further disguised by cloaking those “clouds” in new words gleaned from reports of fully free people such as “common consciousness”, “immanence-in-consciousness”, “being genderless, formless, ageless and vast”, “sense of fixed physicality falling apart” (see ) and ‘transcendence’ renamed as “channelling into”, “by-passing” or simply ignoring uncomfortable feelings.

I am not suggesting you are still doing all this but the old paradigm has been operating for thousands of years and hence appears to be the first measure to take when in an emotional crisis. Actualism is not about controlling the feelings but by recognizing and looking at them you eventually get an insight into the pattern of the workings of your identity and see how silly it is to keep doing what you have been programmed to do. And if you first don’t succeed, keep looking (after getting back to feeling good, of course).

From another thread –

SYD: (…) I simply decided to give up those post-arousal mechanisms; they are just not worth holding on to. Simple as!

I now see what Vineeto means by “[enjoying] their company whatever form that may take”. And more importantly, I rediscovered my autonomy.

VINEETO: This is an excellent practical example of what I was describing above – “when you have the readiness to no longer follow the demands of this passion, this cause of your slavery, then it can happen in an instant”.

Cheers Vineeto

January 25 2026

SYD: Hi Vineeto,

VINEETO: So perhaps your first inquiry is about what was so terrible, so frightful in this past experience, and why.

SYD: I think I can respond to this now. In the other topic, I already talked about the various feelings regarding women in general and how, upon meeting her back in November, all those feelings “coalesced and focused themselves unilaterally on her and her alone”. So basically it were the same feelings but focused and intensified (as if burning an ant with a magnifying glass) on one person; putting all my eggs on the same basket so to speak. This was the beginning of falling in love.

(…) Rejection meant that separation is validated, highlighted and brought to fore, and because ‘I’ coalesced all of ‘myself’ onto ‘her’ … her rejection meant … well … death.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

You say that your “desire had no other acceptable outlet” but falling in love to the point where “her rejection meant … well … death”. It’s good to know, and remember, that your love-feelings disappeared and turned into fear and panic, the moment your expectation of a sexual connection was declined, and also how strongly your desire is experienced as love (and possessiveness) and as such, like Kuba said, “it was my desire which was keeping me a slave”.

I am also highlighting this because love is not always described or experienced in the same way. Viz.:

Love (Chemistry of Love):

“Love can be distilled into three categories: lust, attraction, and attachment; though there are overlaps and subtleties to each, each type is characterised by its own set of hormones; testosterone and oestrogen drive lust; dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin create attraction; and oxytocin and vasopressin mediate attachment (...); the testes and ovaries secrete the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen, driving sexual desire; dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin are all made in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain which controls many vital functions as well as emotion; lust and attraction shut off the prefrontal cortex of the brain, *which includes rational behaviour*...”. [emphasis added].
[https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/love-actually-science-behind-lust-attraction-companionship/]. (Richard, Abditorium, Love).

The very intensity of your feelings, both euphoria (hope) and deathly panic (despair) are well worth your decision to change your perspective and keep practicing autonomy as you described further down.

*

VINEETO: Instead of “change in your ‘being’” I should have more precisely said change in the perception of your ‘being’ as I laid it out in the beginning of the sentence – “you will experience a change in the way you feel, in your attitude and general outlook, where, for instance, women are no longer prey or objects of sexual desire but likeable fellow human beings to enjoy their company whatever form that may take”. As you have reported yourself on occasion, when naiveté operates there is an immense tangible change in how you are.

SYD: Is there a significant difference between saying “change in your ‘being’” and “change in the perception of your ‘being’”? Once I so-willingly decline all these desire-expressions (I’m still exploring some subtle ones), seriousness basically goes out of the window, and the near-innocence of naiveté becomes accessible. Being coy, for one example, instead of being nervous. And there is a general lightness and cheerfulness regardless of other people’s modus operandi. I quite like it, already.

VINEETO: I have noticed a tendency when having one experiential success, to swing into overconfidence and exaggerated hope, only to then fall back into the previous pattern. Given that you only quoted “change in your ‘being’” and overlooked the first explanatory part of that same sentence of mine, I found it important to emphasize that one’s ‘being’ does not change when you occasionally “reach down inside of yourself intuitively” to the core of your ‘being’.

Richard: Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself). [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009).

In other words, it helps to be realistic and honest with oneself in order that imagination is not fuelling further escalation of hope and despair.

*

VINEETO: Why do you need others’ “detailed report” to know how to proceed?

SYD: I guess I was looking for a ‘template’ to follow, but you are right, it is actually way more fun (and authentic) to find out for myself. Besides, only I get know all of my idiosyncrasies and intricacies; the same goes for others. Autonomy is operating at levels higher than before.

VINEETO: I am pleased you can see that.

*

VINEETO: It [practicing denial and transcendence] describes how the mechanism of the old paradigm operated, nowadays further disguised by cloaking those “clouds” in new words gleaned from reports of fully free people such as “common consciousness”, “immanence-in-consciousness”, “being genderless, formless, ageless and vast”, “sense of fixed physicality falling apart” (see ) and ‘transcendence’ renamed as “channelling into”, “by-passing” or simply ignoring uncomfortable feelings.

SYD: Ha, good ol’ bag of tricks I now thankfully no longer needed.

VINEETO: See what I mean by swinging into overconfidence and exaggerated hope, as if those mechanisms have disappeared forever without a trace from one instance of recognition. But denial and transcendence are part of ‘your’ “tricks” of ‘being’ and often habitual, appearing as the twins of despair and hope, rejection and euphoria. It takes ongoing attentiveness in various situations to suss out how you affectively experience yourself, recognizing them in action, again and again, and decline as quickly as you can.

Sometimes I get the impression that for some people actualism is like an exam where one needs to know the right answers, tick the right boxes, follow the right concepts, in order to ‘level up’ – akin to a religious concept like the Buddha’s “eightfold path” of “right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration”. (see Mahasatipatthana Sutta (d), Richard, List B, No. 13, 8 Jun 1999). It is quite amazing how old habits can sneakily reappear in a new outfit.

Actualism is none of this. There are no levels, no badges of honour, no marks to be earned, no conditions at all.

James: What will it take for me to go the rest of the way to af?

Dona: Richard was confused by this question, as it sounds like you think there are steps, or “a way”.
Actual freedom from the human condition is a pivotal/ decisive moment. You are either actually free or you are not (full stop). It is not possible to go “the rest of the way”. (Dona and Alan’s Report, 4 Oct 2017).

*

SYD: (…) I simply decided to give up those post-arousal mechanisms; they are just not worth holding on to. Simple as!

I now see what Vineeto means by “[enjoying] their company whatever form that may take”. And more importantly, I rediscovered my autonomy.

VINEETO: This is an excellent practical example of what I was describing above – “when you have the readiness to no longer follow the demands of this passion, this cause of your slavery, then it can happen in an instant”.

SYD: Yes, this was my first practical demonstration of it. Not only did it begin to free me up from lifetime of misery, but it also laid the initial confidence to tackle other issues similarly.

What you said above (as quoted here and the post above) was seminal in getting me to directly face all these feelings for the first time. I have immense appreciation for it!

VINEETO: Good. Perhaps you understand now experientially why it is important to keep your feet on the ground, stay down to earth, and avoid feeding one or both of the emotional twins of dramatic high and low feelings but instead get back to feeling good as soon as possible. From there, aim to evince a clear decision to decline “post-arousal mechanisms” or any other harmful mechanisms you encounter/ discover, and thus slowly become more and more autonomous.

Again, for emphasis, facing the particular feelings means you deprive them of additional emotional-psychic energy by neither reacting with fight or flight. You can then see them for what they are – “not worth holding on to”.

Now that you know that it works, and how it works, you might want more of it.

Cheers Vineeto

January 29 2026

SYD:

Richard: Bullying in childhood is all-too-common—the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago fell victim to the bully-boys and feisty-femmes due in no small degree to being a particularly sensitive feeling-being—incurring all manner of childhood hurts. Yet, even so, anyone who carries those hurt feelings, no matter how deeply felt, over into adulthood (and stubbornly nurses them in their adult bosom) is surely yet to have earned the title ‘mature adult’.

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.

Also, with the dissolution of those childhood hurts the (deeply felt) need for any aggressive tit-for-tat modus vivendi also vanishes—leaving one free to treat all others as fellow human beings rather than as adversaries to gain dominion over. (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression and Anger).

In addition to this, I thought it is worth posting something Richard told me in person back in 2024. Copy-paste from my notes:

4/23/2024

Syd: In regard to bullies in general, Richard recounted a past incident to illustrate the fact that behind the bully’s aggression lies their fear. They have learned to channel the fear towards aggression. And, if you learn to respond directly to their fear (rather than aggression) and call their bluff, it would diffuse the bully-victim dynamics. I hope I’m representing Richard’s words faithfully here. I’d like to understand this point a bit, actually; might revisit it.

Private Correspondent: Regarding the last bit about bullies channelling fear into aggression, it’s spot on. I managed to do this very thing when 11/12 years old and it was invigorating/a relief. Deep seated fears vanished into hostility which was a far better subjective experience. It even marked a 3 year streak of some of the happiest days of my life, which was due to being free from these fears. On the downside, it ruined the middle school experience of another kid who was subjected to bullying, and, eventually, those fears I had managed to dodge through aggression continued to compound behind the scenes and returned 3-4 years later with an absolute vengeance, bigger and badder than ever.

With the return of fear’s dominance, I lost the knack for channelling fears into naked aggression, and became once again timid and meek. This marked the start of a depressive period for which I am yet to recover.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

I don’t remember Richard telling this story in my presence and I have no way of finding the correspondence you quoted if it exists at all. Richard wrote no private emails in 2024.

Cheers Vineeto

*

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

After you just had your own name changed for privacy reasons it’s incongruous and presumptuous, to say the least, that you would publicly write about something Richard supposedly told you in person in a private conversation, without even asking for the permission of the directors of the Actual Freedom Trust.

I remind you of the Directors Correspondence “A Matter of Style” in May 2008 where you had similarly ignored what is not yours to publish in favour of your own stylistic preference.

Regards Vineeto

*

SYD: Hi Vineeto,

I’ll take it down. I’d also be okay with deleting this entire topic (cc: claudiu).

*

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

Instead of “my apologies”, which sounds rather glib, I suggest a more comprehensive understanding about the difference of private and public conversation and a possibly growing consideration for anything outside of your personal emotional interest. Some contemplation on what being less ‘self’-centric and more considerate of your fellow human beings is might be fruitful?

What you had already published in a private blog on Zulip does not make what Richard supposedly said public. Besides, I read that alleged conversation again and particularly the last sentence makes me sure that Richard never said anything of the kind.

Regards Vineeto

January 29 2026 

VINEETO: Instead of “my apologies”, which sounds rather glib, I suggest a more comprehensive understanding about the difference of private and public conversation and …

SYD: I would never publish private conversation as attributed to that person without consulting with them.

In this case, I was already writing publicly on our Zulip all the while I was meeting Richard & Vineeto during those six weeks in Ballina. However, since Rick and I decided not to communicate publicly anymore, I took the whole Zulip private and made it inactive (no one’s participating). So, this one case didn’t seem very clear-cut to me. What do you all think?

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

Well, you did “publish private conversation as attributed to that person” – twice. First on your Zulip blog, now inactive, without first gaining consent or consulting “that person” about the accuracy of your report, and then on the ‘Discuss Actualism’ forum two days ago. See below –

In addition to this, I thought it is worth posting something Richard told me in person back in 2024. Copy-paste from my notes:

4/23/2024

Syd: In regard to bullies in general, Richard recounted a past incident to illustrate the fact that behind the bully’s aggression lies their fear. They have learned to channel the fear towards aggression. And, if you learn to respond directly to their fear (rather than aggression) and call their bluff, it would diffuse the bully-victim dynamics. I hope I’m representing Richard’s words faithfully here. I’d like to understand this point a bit, actually; might revisit it.

Private Correspondent: Regarding the last bit about bullies channelling fear into aggression, it’s spot on. I managed to do this very thing when 11/12 years old and it was invigorating/a relief. Deep seated fears vanished into hostility which was a far better subjective experience. It even marked a 3 year streak of some of the happiest days of my life, which was due to being free from these fears. On the downside, it ruined the middle school experience of another kid who was subjected to bullying, and, eventually, those fears I had managed to dodge through aggression continued to compound behind the scenes and returned 3-4 years later with an absolute vengeance, bigger and badder than ever.

With the return of fear’s dominance, I lost the knack for channelling fears into naked aggression, and became once again timid and meek. This marked the start of a depressive period for which I am yet to recover.

VINEETO: It seems very clear-cut to me. Having deleted the evidence after feedback does not mean it did not happen. What else is required for you to sit up and take notice?

Besides the last sentence of that supposed correspondent – “This marked the start of a depressive period for which I am yet to recover” makes it clear that whatever you remembered is not what Richard could have possibly said.

*

VINEETO: … a possibly growing consideration for anything outside of your personal emotional interest. Some contemplation on what being less ‘self’-centric and more considerate of your fellow human beings is might be fruitful?

What you had already published in a private blog on Zulip does not make what Richard supposedly said public. Besides, I read that alleged conversation again and particularly the last sentence makes me sure that Richard never said anything of the kind.

SYD: You are quite right. In fact, a common feedback my Quebecois landlord (who welcomes French students, with whom I often socialize from time to time) gives me is that I’m too focused on my own perspective in life, instead of, say, taking genuine interest in other people (she had this to say, primarily, in response to my falling-in-love back in December).

I can’t moralistically force my way into being less ‘self’-centric, can I? I will nevertheless keep this in mind as I go about everyday interactions. Getting outside of my ‘personal emotional interest’ is … well … umm … kinda scary-seeming at first. But … I can dimly see a great sense of freedom too. I will play with it!

VINEETO: Ah, another diversion – calling the aim of “being less ‘self’-centric” “moralistic” and then interpreting that you should “force my way” – and this only three days after you had eloquently waxed about “Once I so-willingly decline all these desire-expressions (I’m still exploring some subtle ones), seriousness basically goes out of the window, and the near-innocence of naiveté becomes accessible”.

Oh, what a tangled web they weave … (Richard, List D, Syd, 7 December 2012, Footnote 1)

Again, your focus shifts from possibly considering the impact of your words and actions on others, i.e. not being harmless, to your personal emotional interest – “scary-seeming at first” to a possible “great sense of freedom”.

I am reminded of what Richard wrote to another correspondent regarding ‘self’-centredness, albeit on the topic of affective vibes –

Respondent: But hey, if you’d rather take the easy path and assume your own feelings originate from others and not yourself, ultimately it’s your business. This fellow traveller is just advising differently in my experience is all. 

(…)

Re: denying affective vibes I don’t deny aliens either... Just haven’t seen any evidence for them yet.

RICHARD: Ha ... what you are ‘just advising’ fellow travellers (further above) reminds me of the ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ hit of the 1960’s ‘I am a rock’. Apart from being damn’ good music, with exquisite lyrical over-tones, the lyrics speak well of more than just a few human being’s experience such as you describe.

For instance:

‘I am shielded in my armour;
Hiding in my room,
Safe within my womb,
I touch no one;
And no one touches me ...
I am a rock,
I am an island ...
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries’.

(Richard, List D, No. 15, 5 August 2013).

Cheers Vineeto

January 30 2026 

SYD: Richard was reading that Zulip blog often prior to my meeting you both in the houseboat, do you remember? See also: Syd is currently visiting Richard and Vineeto and journaling it. I took that as a sign that he implicitly consented to my publishing the meeting reports on Zulip, else surely Richard would have asked me not to do so any time during that 6 weeks period, no? Thus, I believe, what you are saying is that it would been considerate of me to explicitly gain Richard’s consent anyway, before publishing the meeting reports publicly in Zulip. If so, I actually see your point now. Not checking the accuracy with Richard was also my mistake. If I’m missing something here, please say so explicitly.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

Now that you reminded me of the context, I remember it well. Both Richard and myself read the blog, each day prior to your visit, and if Richard had any corrections he would have told you so when something was to be corrected.

As such there was no need to ask for my confirmation/ correction about the summary you made of the article in the you quoted at the beginning of this thread (now deleted). Viz.:

Richard: Bullying in childhood is all-too-common – the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago fell victim to the bully-boys and feisty-femmes due in no small degree to being a particularly sensitive feeling-being – incurring all manner of childhood hurts. Yet, even so, anyone who carries those hurt feelings, no matter how deeply felt, over into adulthood (and stubbornly nurses them in their adult bosom) is surely yet to have earned the title ‘mature adult’. (…) (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Aggression and Anger).

SYD: In addition to this, I thought it is worth posting something Richard told me in person back in 2024. Copy-paste from my notes:

4/23/2024

Syd: In regard to bullies in general, Richard recounted a past incident to illustrate the fact that behind the bully’s aggression lies their fear. They have learned to channel the fear towards aggression. And, if you learn to respond directly to their fear (rather than aggression) and call their bluff, it would diffuse the bully-victim dynamics. I hope I’m representing Richard’s words faithfully here. I’d like to understand this point a bit, actually; might revisit it.

Vineeto, please correct me of I’ve misremembered it; I’ll be happy to correct this post.

VINEETO: As I could not see that there would be anything to correct in this highlighted summary of yours – in fact Richard would have done so at the time as explained above. Hence I looked for the reason of your request in the second part, you labelled “Private Correspondent”, also guided by your introduction to it saying “I’d like to understand this point a bit, actually; might revisit it”.

And because it was public knowledge that you corresponded with Rick as the only member on this Zulip thread, and large parts of your correspondence at the time was published on this forum in the “Burnt Toast” thread on April 24-25, 2024, with both yours and Rick’s name, I automatically assumed (my big mistake), that you had renamed something Richard wrote as “Private Correspondent” waiting for my confirmation/ correction. Well, this is where this thread derailed and I apologize for my mistaken assumption. In hindsight, I should have inquired who this “private correspondent” referred to.

*

VINEETO: Besides, the last sentence of that supposed correspondent – “This marked the start of a depressive period for which I am yet to recover” makes it clear that whatever you remembered is not what Richard could have possibly said.

SYD: Oh, I didn’t realize this could have been misinterpreted! The ‘private correspondent’ was not Richard, of course (it is the other participant in the Zulip who replied to what I had to report).

CLAUDIU: Yes this is what I was attempting to clarify – for what it’s worth, it also had a tooltip containing a recounting of a story Richard told you (in case this was missed which I did miss at first)

VINEETO: Claudiu, by tool tip did you mean the link to Richard’s article or was there another one?

Thank you both, Claudiu and Syd, for clearing up this to-me-mind-boggling mystery.

Cheers Vineeto

February 9 2026

SYD to Vineeto: I can’t moralistically force my way into being less ‘self’-centric, can I? I will nevertheless keep this in mind as I go about everyday interactions. Getting outside of my ‘personal emotional interest’ is … well … umm … kinda scary-seeming at first. But … I can dimly see a great sense of freedom too. I will play with it! (29 January 2026)

SYD to Andrew: If we don’t care naturally, isn’t ‘choosing’ to care just another moralistic strategy to avoid the raw fact of my self-centeredness? I’m not interested in moralistic forcing. I’d rather be sincere about who I actually am than force a version of caring that serves as a spanner in the works. (9 February 2026)

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

This red herring you have been presenting for a nearly two weeks now is nothing but a furphy, nobody every suggested a “moralistic strategy” except yourself. I explained to you how it works in detail in my post from January 5 this year –

Vineeto: The way “naiveté come[s] into picture” is that with sincerity and naiveté you apply no moral or ethical or ‘actualistic’ judgements as to what feeling is occurring and therefore can apply unrestricted attentiveness (…) [Emphasis added]. (Actualvineeto, Syd, 5 January 2026).

With further detailed explanations on January 22 –

Vineeto: (snip Richard’s quote from Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009). In order to “go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings … into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings” you first need to stop ignoring, objecting to, pushing away, or ‘setting aside’ or by-pass any ‘inappropriate’ of those superficial and profound passions until you can recognize and fully acknowledge them as ‘you’. Only then will you be able to discover there is something further, “where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself”.

If that discovery is genuine (and not a superficial change of wording, which neither changes your underlying feeling nor the vibes you automatically emanate) then you will experience a change in the way you feel, in your attitude and general outlook, where, for instance, women are no longer prey or objects of sexual desire but likeable fellow human beings to enjoy their company whatever form that may take. (Actualvineeto, Syd, 22 January 2026).

You decided to forgo this “scary-seeming” exploration and chose to instead to have a combative tit-for-tat, I-am-bigger-than-you intermezzo with Andrew.

SYD to Andrew: What I’m interested in here is sincere and clear communication, not “more chats” or to “talk more”. (…)

My standards for engaging someone here is very simple: they need to, at minimum, care enough to respond directly to what I actually write or say.

VINEETO: You are probably not familiar with the flavour of the word “chat” when used in Australia –

Richard: And speaking of youthful dreams it is appropriate to mention how, around the time of puberty onwards, adolescents become increasingly serious and childhood fun gives way to societally-inculcated obligations and responsibility. As these are embedded into an instinctually affective programme (I have seen many a frisky lamb turn into a sedate sheep, and frolicsome calves into sombre cattle, as maturity takes its toll) they turn into having the appearance of being innate ... when they are not.

Life here in this actual world – the world of sensuous delight – is akin to being a child again but with the undeniable advantage of adult sensibilities; when the occasion calls for it I can adopt a suitably solemn expression, nod sagely as appropriate, and get away with being just a big kid having a ball in the otherwise grim and glum land of the grown-ups; indeed, I can even tell them how much fun I am having – that I am just a big kid – and yet they are so serious they assume me to be making some kind of obscure or idiosyncratic joke. (Richard, List D, No. 6, 14 December 2009).

*

Anyway, what I am finally succeeding in doing is seducing some of my fellow humans – those who have not lost the plot totally – to come out and play, now, as we are all but a missed heartbeat or two away from physical death each day again. Being retired, with more than sufficient means for the rest of my life, is nowadays to my advantage, of course, yet there is simply no reason at all why gainful employment need be anything other than fun.

For instance, all my best work (back when supporting both a wife and a family) always happened when I was having the most fun; in fact I have some very blurry black and white ‘home movie’ type footage of myself, circa March 1981, which ends with ‘me’ saying: ‘Do your own thing ... but have fun; if you’re not having fun then, hell, stop doing it, something is wrong; if you’re not having fun, if you have to force yourself to go to work, if you’re unhappy, something is wrong’. Within weeks ‘he’ was carted off to a hospital emergency care unit in a catatonic state and ... and here we are today having this illuminating chat about our fancy dreams.

Who else can be enticed to come out and play – to join me here in this actual world – and live life where all is fun yet where everything which needs to be done does get done (albeit playfully) because of those oh-so-vital adult sensibilities? ‘Tis yours for the asking, so to speak, as no one is stopping you but yourself; no time is the right time to make it all happen as the right time only comes about when you have it happen; it is not a case of being ready for it as being ready only occurs when you have it occur; all you get by waiting is more waiting as now is the moment where it all happens; everything which happens only ever happens now. Actuality is where more than your fancy dreams can come true – much, much more – as life itself, here, is beyond even any of your most absolutely wild fantasies.
This is what is actually better than best. [Emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, No. 4, 14 December 2009)

You see, a chat can be a bit different to your idea of communication –

SYD to Andrew: My standards for engaging someone here is very simple: they need to, at minimum, care enough to respond directly to what I actually write or say.

VINEETO: Your standards, and the way they are presented, remind me of a previous conversation Richard had with you about your Gitter-chat –

Richard: It appears that it has not occurred to you how this aggressive attitude/ approach of yours – your tit-for-tat modus vivendi – is in lieu of dissolving those childhood hurts you stubbornly nurse in your adult bosom.

(…)

In other words, with the dissolution of those childhood hurts the (deeply felt) need for your aggressive tit-for-tat modus vivendi will also vanish ... leaving you free to treat ...um... the ‘other’ as a fellow human being (rather than as an adversary to gain dominion over).

(...)

It is no wonder you (hedonically) feel pleasant – as per your footnoted ‘in order to consistently feel pleasant’ words as quoted further above – upon channelling that police-force calibre ‘power’ (so as to obtain dominion over those ‘run-of-the-mill’ citizens, colleagues, and etcetera), eh? (Richard, List D, Syd2, 14 January 2016)

Isn’t it time to put “those childhood hurts” and the resulting “police-force calibre ‘power’” and “aggressive attitude/ approach of yours” behind you and start naïvely playing rather than endeavouring to impose your serious/ sophisticate standards on others?

You could instead re-awaken your dormant naiveté (being like a child but with adult sensibilities) and keep ‘thinning’ your identity to the point that it becomes more and more insubstantial. When you start naïvely liking yourself, then liking your fellow human beings will happen of its own accord.

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)

Cheers Vineeto

February 13 2026

Kuba: It looks like I have projected this ‘inner mother’ onto you Vineeto, an authority still

SYD: Funny you say that because this is also what I did, in the last two years in particular, and it all came crashing down recently. Then I learned to think for myself, and I quite like it. I still value Vineeto’s perspective, of course, but at the same time independent intelligent thinking has begun replacing authority/ trust/ faith/ belief.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

To give you the benefit of “Vineeto’s perspective”, you might find this informative –

Jonathan: You mention authority and the fear of punishment (...). I think that autonomy plays a big part in dismantling these things. Richard, in particular, was so adept at getting me to begin thinking for myself. It started towards the end of the first trip when he sat down and poked a hole in my superiority complex. And it continued to the very last night of the final trip when he talked about a peasant mentality. (...). (Message № 19410).
(…)
Richard: (…) Of course, going by what you later wrote in Message № 19554 – which I will respond to in its chronological order – it might be that ‘a peasant mentality’ was not really a topic you thought worthy of elaborating on despite having introduced it.

I raise this ‘might be’ hypothesis because the following is how you finished-off that paragraph of yours to your co-respondent (partly re-presented near the top of this page).

Viz.:

• [Jonathan]: (...). There are so many things that Richard said, which I wasn’t even able to respond to because, to me, they were so far out in left field. But after many months, I find that he was just thinking for himself. And I can do that same thing. (Message № 19410).

Would it be impertinent of me to suggest that your ascription of that adverbial diminisher in your [quote] ‘he was *just* thinking for himself’ [emphasis added] explanatory note which, you add, you can do [quote] ‘that *same* thing’ [emphasis added] yourself, is an instance of your self-acknowledged ‘superiority complex’ in action? (Richard, List D, Jonathan2, 1 June 2012).

The rest of this conversation illuminates how Jon’s ‘thinking for himself’ in this instance is littered with misunderstandings.

Now this may not be the situation in your case but your recent reposting of a quote from Claudiu seems to be an example of a misunderstanding I like to straighten out –

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).

Claudiu: (…) It helped me to think of ‘sensuousness’ as more of a quality or type of ‘me’ being aware, as opposed to being a quality or type of sensing or way or manner in which the senses operate. It’s when ‘I’ am aware of what ‘I’ am seeing in a delighted/ wondrous/ thoroughly enjoying-of-the-senses manner. It doesn’t matter per se if what I am looking at is visually stunning… it’s about how ‘I’ am relating to what ‘I’ am seeing, not about what I am seeing per se.

Of course when I am wondrously aware in such a manner I am naturally drawn to visually appealing things (if what I am seeing is most appealing at the time).

Your reposting of this one particular section is an approval/ a highlighting of what Claudiu wrote. However, I noticed how Richard’s statement is miraculously transmogrified into making sensuousness all about ‘me’ – how “‘I’ am seeing in a delighted/ wondrous/ thoroughly enjoying-of-the-senses manner”. Even though Claudiu says “It doesn’t matter per se if what I am looking at is visually stunning” he nevertheless is “naturally drawn to visually appealing things”, which again emphasises ‘me’, “how ‘I’ am relating to what ‘I’ am seeing, not about what I am seeing per se”.

You could have easily chosen the follow-up section of Claudiu’s post which is more true to the facts and actuality of Richard’s quote –

Claudiu: I suggest to then find a way for yourself to wonder and marvel at that, as it will really ratchet up your enjoyment and appreciation! When being particularly sensuous at one point I was nearly overwhelmed at how delightful it was simply to exist, to the point where I even experienced the act of breathing as a ‘bonus’ of something to be doing to enjoy, on top of the fact that I was simply existing and being alive!

By choosing to highlight the first section, which emphasis ‘me’ your presentation is diametrically opposite to Richard’s statement that “sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space.” The interpretation is making sensuousness all about ‘me’ rather than emphasising “the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space”, which is applying one’s attentiveness to the already always existing perfection of “being here now at this moment in time and this place in space.” It is expanding one’s awareness and wondrous attention beyond one’s favourite “visually appealing things” from which self-less awareness – apperceptiveness – can occur.

Richard: Sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space. Attentiveness is the fascination of the reflective contemplation that this moment is one’s only moment of being alive – and one is never alive at any other time than now. Wherever one is ... now ... one is always here ... now ... even if one starts walking over to ‘there’ ... now ... along the way to ‘there’ ... now ... one is always here ... now ... and when one arrives ‘there’ ... now ... it too is here ... now. Thus attentiveness is an attraction to the fact that one is always here – and it is already now – and as one is already here and it is always now then one has arrived before one starts. This delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence) the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. The potent combination of attentiveness – fascinated reflective contemplation – and sensuousness produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. One is intimately aware that this physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal ... thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to. We are nowhere in particular ... which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute.

In other words: One is already here as it is always now.

(…)

Apperceptiveness is sensuous awareness of only what is currently occurring and in precisely the way it is happening now – there is neither tolerance nor intolerance – with no acceptance or prejudice. Apperceptiveness is non-predictive observation in that it is this ability of the mind to regard experience without fault-finding feelings. With this ability, one sees things without assumption or opprobrium ... and one is surprised by everything being extraordinarily ordinary. In apperceptiveness everything is in equipoise and one’s interest in things is for them to be exactly as they are in their actual condition. One does not have to estimate or establish ... one totally acknowledges with delight. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).

Cheers Vineeto

February 14 2026

VINEETO: By choosing to highlight the first section, which emphasis ‘me’, your presentation is diametrically opposite to Richard’s statement that “sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space.” [highlighted] The interpretation is making sensuousness all about ‘me’ rather than emphasising “the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space”, which is applying one’s attentiveness to the already always existing perfection of “being here now at this moment in time and this place in space.” It is expanding one’s awareness and wondrous attention beyond one’s favourite “visually appealing things” from which self-less awareness – apperceptiveness – can occur. [end highlight by Syd].

SYD: Thanks a good pointer, Vineeto, thank you.

When Richard uses ‘sensuousness’ he is referring to either experiencing it in a PCE or actual freedom. Basically, for him (and you?), there’s no ‘feeling-being version’ of sensuousness – even though this is what Claudiu and others were talking about in the posts above,

VINEETO: I understood why you highlighted it, that’s why I commented on it, so you are not mislead by this snippet of a quote. I pointed out that when you focus your attention on ‘me’ being sensuous you may be reinforcing ‘me’ rather than allowing sensuousness to experience “the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space”.

Why do you say “and you?” – I experience no “‘feeling-being version’ of sensuousness”, ever since have become actually free.

Claudiu: But in any case the key for me was thinking of ‘me’ being sensuous as a feeling-based thing, it’s what ‘I’ do as a feeling being. Before I got that part, I was trying to ‘pay attention to the senses’ in order to imitate actuality, as I thought it had something to do with sensory perception. But it’s not that, it’s that it has to do with enjoyment and appreciation of the senses – so it’s something ‘I’ do not something the senses do. But I also came at it from a muddled affer/ spiritual/ buddhistic background which is probably why the distinction was important for me.

(snipped quotes)

SYD: What I take from all of this is that, for a feeling-being – sensuousness is not about paying attention to the senses in a dry way whilst retaining ‘my’ modus-operandi. Rather, it automatically involves thinning ‘me’ (with cheerful concurrence) sufficiently enough so that ‘I’ now have the space, so to speak, to be able to simply enjoy & appreciate all that which is unfolding sensately or proprioceptively in this only moment of being alive. I believe this understanding is in line with the yellow-highlighted part of your response above. Or maybe I’m still missing something …

VINEETO: Claudiu’s emphasis on clarifying that any sensuousness “has to do with enjoyment and appreciation of the senses” was very apt, and you also have “a muddled affer/ spiritual/ buddhistic background” from years of practicing Vipassana, where senses are considered symptoms of “dukkha” (falsely translated as unsatisfactory or suffering) –

Richard: For instance: the key Pali word dukkha – usually translated as ‘suffering’ or something similar – is a compound word (as in du + kha) where, etymologically, the du- prefix – an antithetic prefix, generally opposed to the su- prefix, such as in sukha – has connotations of ‘asunder, apart, away from’, and the kha syllable/ ending, which functions also as root, has the meaning ākāsa (pronounced a-cash-a). (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 11 February 2012)

I recommend the above link and other selected correspondence from Richard on Buddhism (+2) and Vipassana as well as Richard’s Pali Studies, Introduction in order to fully understand what you have been practicing and how to comprehensively extricate yourself from any remaining habits of this period). This “muddled affer/ spiritual/ buddhistic background” may also be reason why you are approaching so many aspects of actualism in an analytic and conceptual way rather than experiential. It also explains why you consider sensuousness being “paying attention to the senses in a dry way”, which is exactly what for instance Satya Goenka’s practice of Vipassana is all about.

You already had a long discussion with Richard on this very topic in December 2012 –

Syd: No. 19, Richard is not ‘emphasizing’ feelings here (he umabiguously reports that a feeling is not a fact); rather *you*, by your watered-down rephrasing, are de-emphasizing feelings by insincerely mixing in thoughts into the illusory/ actual distinction. no thanks, i’d rather have someone call a spade a spade instead of twisting a potentially offensive fact only to go astray on the practice for years (your watered-down rephrasing could easily make an actualist reading it go lax on investigating feelings because he ‘readily agrees’ that thoughts and feelings are not part of the physical/ corporeal world; duh!).

Richard: G’day Syd, Whilst on the subject of ‘better phrasings’ (as in the ‘I-Know-Better-Than-Richard’ titling of this thread), and the topic of there being no feelings in actuality, it has been brought to my attention that you recently posted three (unreferenced) quotes on another forum, written by feeling-being ‘Peter’ back in 2003, so as to provide ‘food for thought’ ... namely:

1. That those quotes bring up some parallel with Mr. Satya Goenka’s ‘equanimity towards all physical sensations’ practice.

2. That what those quotes say is that the ‘instinctual reactions’ trigger hormones (which are experienced as physical sensations) in the body which are almost instantaneously ‘felt’ as the instinctual passions.

3. That those quotes also raise the question of whether AF [sic] people only remain blind to ‘instinctual reactions’ – i.e. have they cut the chain right where these reactions are ‘felt’ (which feelings form themselves into ‘being’)?

4. That those quotes also raise the question that while even a shadowy feeling being can give off vibes, what of a body with instinctual reactions?

5. That those quotes conflict with Richard’s report of him not experiencing any bodily symptoms associated with fear (for instance).
(dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message _boards/message/3694814#_19_message_3694814).

[emphasis added]. (Richard, List D, Syd, 7 December 2012)

That you only now discover, from Claudiu’s report, that sensuousness is something different to “paying attention to the senses in a dry way” means that this chapter of your habitual way of paying attention to your senses needs a whole new assessment. It will also have significant ramifications on your practical understanding of the actualism method of enjoyment and appreciation in general and the word intimacy in particular (having aimed for something akin to ‘equanimity’ perhaps?). I only mention this because I know from ‘Vineeto’s’ experience that habitual thought and behavioural patterns persist unless specific attention is applied to them.

Cheers Vineeto

February 14 2026

Claudiu: at the very least, something ‘I’ allow to happen (analogous to allowing pure intent to increase in its potency for action).

… something ‘I’ do for the purpose of tilting towards actuality, i.e. of allowing pure intent, allowing ‘myself’ to marvel at this wonder of being alive …

… think of sensuousness as more analogous to pure intent … [Emphases added].

SYD: This is more or less what I had in mind when I wrote “thinning ‘me’ … have the space … simply enjoy & appreciate” … and even more specifically I was thinking of rememoration of my PCEs (how else can that “beyond one’s favourite” come about?) … and rememoration and pure intent seems inextricably linked per this discussion: Connection with Pure Intent = Rememoration

VINEETO: Whilst you only focus on the words “allow to” I also saw the word “analogous”, (i.e. not exactly, comparable, similar, related) – and so the watering-down process happens. Your analytical, singling-out process does not do you any service when it comes to understanding pure intent, which is always outside of ‘me’. Nothing an identity can experience is in any way comparable to the actual world. It is a different paradigm. A feeling being can only ever lean into the direction of imitating actuality, being well aware that, except in a PCE, it is never the same to the feeling being’s experience. Hence my suggestion below to start by living the sincere intent to become harmless (and thus genuinely happy).

When you look closely at the thread you provided for your definition of what pure intent is, here is how you started –

SYD: Per Miguel’s paraphrasing, Geoffrey defines [the connection to] Pure Intent as the very “revival” (rememoration) of one’s PCE in this moment right now.

VINEETO: Whereas Miguel correctly said – “That “revival” would be the connection with pure intent, the ‘golden thread’ mentioned by Richard.”

Be careful not to water down the meaning of pure intent for yourself – from revival (rememoration) being “the connection” to pure intent, by putting “[the connection to]” in square brackets. From there it is easy (for the cunningness that one’s identity is) to forget the words in square brackets and equate “the connection” with pure intent itself.

Firstly, I recommend to take your understanding of what pure intent actually is from the source, reading it over and over with you whole being, until you experientially get it, and not other people’s rephrasing or paraphrasing from what Geoffrey said in a video meeting. They could be correct but they could also not be. The very fact that you presently cobble together your understanding from many different quotes speak for the fact that you do not experience pure intent yourself. The acknowledgement of this fact is vital to not settle for any certitude until you unambiguously experience it for yourself.

Here is the original definition of pure intent – don’t forget to access the tool-tips as well –

Richard: Pure intent is a manifest life-force; a genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe. (Actual Freedom Library, Pure Intent).

When you read the article, don’t pick out phrases to memorize but rather immerse yourself experientially in the flavour of what Richard is conveying. Once you get the knack, it might help you having an excellence experience or a PCE.

Secondly, I also recommend before trying to genuinely experience pure intent to first aim for understanding, and living, sincere intent, which is to be harmless and happy as much as humanly possible. I put ‘harmless’ first, because for many it is the more difficult aspect of an actualist’s sincere intent. (Btw, sincere, as used on the website, does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts).

When this intent is firmly imbedded and actualised, i.e. apparent to yourself and others in your daily actions you are in a much better position to grasp the experiential meaning of pure intent. In other words, you can only experience this “genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity” when in your daily life you are as benevolent and benign as a feeling being can be – because that “genuinely occurring stream” is always outside of ‘you’.

Cheers Vineeto

February 15 2026

SYD: I. I’ve been looking into what it means to be ‘happy and harmless’ when the rubber meets the road.

Onfray’s Solar Erotics perfectly captures this. So, I thought, if there’s no ‘mutual attraction’ (which is what I’d want, normally) from the get go, we can just go our ways.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

I cannot help but comment on your latest plan after “looking into what it means to be ‘happy and harmless’ when the rubber meets the road”, especially since at least one other person wholehearted approved of your choice of proceeding.

From the AI summary you provided of the philosophy of this obscure French philosopher Michael Onfray –

“Michel Onfray mounts a vigorous defense of hedonism” -
“Drawing from Epicurus and Lucretius, Onfray suggests that we should treat sexual encounters as the meeting of  “atoms” seeking equilibrium and joy.”
“… we must strip away the “priestly” guilt that teaches us to be ashamed of our skin and our senses”
“To love is to give what one has (pleasure) to someone who gives it back”
“Onfray argues for a ‘Reasoned Hedonism’”.

Michael Onfray, in his various suggestions, stays true to the “reasoned hedonism”, in particular the stripping away of guilt – the conscience put in place by society to curb the excesses of the animal instinctual passions.

Regarding stripping away of guilt –

Richard: Warning: It is an utterly fundamental proviso that pure intent be dedicatorily in place – as an overriding/ overarching life-devotional goal which takes absolute precedence over all else – before any such whittling away of the otherwise essential societal/ cultural conditioning be undertaken. (Actual Freedom Library, Topics, Social Identity)

Here is what Richard has to say to someone equating the actualism method (feeling good) with hedonism. (The respondent’s elder brother was by disposition an unapologetic narcissist, hence his own strong objection to feeling good) –

Respondent: ‘(...) In my personal experience: having ‘feeling good’ as an aim – and then trying to feel good – sucks. But having an aim that does feel good, and then using ‘feeling good’ as a guide to whether or not one is on track with that aim, doesn’t suck, and makes sense’. (…)

Richard: [...] It is pertinent to note, at this point, that the root cause of sorrow – and, hence, malice (e.g., the ‘basic resentment’ above) – is being forever locked-out of paradise. (…)

Not surprisingly, the word innocent (as in, ‘harmless’, ‘innoxious’; ‘sinless’, ‘guiltless’; ‘artless’, ‘naive’; ‘simple’, &c.) stems from the same root as the word nocent (as in, ‘harmful’, ‘hurtful’, ‘injurious’; ‘guilty’, ‘criminal’, &c.) does ... namely: the Latin nocēns, nocent-, pres. part. of nocēre, ‘to harm’, ‘hurt’, ‘injure’, with the privative ‘in-‘ affixed as a prefix (i.e., in- + nocent).

Viz.:

• innocent (in′ȱ-sënt), a. and n. [‹ ME. innocent, innosent, ‹ OF. (also F.) innocent = It. innocente, ‹ L. innocen(t-)s, harmless, blameless, upright, disinterested, ‹ in- priv. + nocen(t-)s, ppr. of nocere, harm, hurt: see nocent]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).

• nocent (nō′sënt), a. and n. [‹ L. nocen(t-)s, ppr. of nocere, harm, hurt, injure]. I. a. 1. hurtful; mischievous; injurious; doing hurt: as, ‘nocent qualities’. 2. guilty; criminal; nocently (adv.): in a nocent manner; hurtfully; injuriously [rare]. ~ (Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia).

(Richard, List D, No. 4b, 4 July 2015)

SYD: III. But Onfray’s Solar Erotics overlooks the ‘happy and harmless’ part. By playing the Solar Erotics game, I’m still be operating under the paradigm of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings, and in particular the ‘good’ feeling of (unilateral) attraction, which doesn’t feel good at all.

VINEETO: Indeed, Michael Onfray does not only overlook “the ‘happy and harmless’ part”, he rejects it altogether by suggesting “stripping away of guilt” which disregards the other person as a fellow human being – they are to be merely business partners in a negotiated contract of exchanging goods.

SYD: This attraction (an instant hedonic pleasure) is one final aspect of the socialized desire I had been holding on to, and now – with the sincere intent to be happy and harmless (because duh) – I’m ready and willing to decline it once and for all.

VINEETO: Do I understand you correctly that you are saying that you now disregard the hedonistic contracts à la Onfray? So is the ‘French Cuisine’ is not all it’s made out to be?

However, your theoretical summary and ‘plan’ makes no sense because you are not merely “operating under the paradigm of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings” – you are your feelings, both ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and remain so unless/ until you are actually free. Hence you cannot merely rationally decide to stop doing it. How do you ‘plan’, “once and for all” to decline attraction, i.e. your sexual desire, without repressing it – it is an instinctual feeling after all?

SYD: And open myself to intimacy aka ‘closeness’ akin to the immediacy of my PCEs.

VINEETO: How will you open yourself “to intimacy aka ‘closeness’ akin to the immediacy of my PCEs” when you haven’t experienced any ‘closeness’ with another person in your PCEs. You were on your own in your room when they happened. I distinctly remember that you reported about the first ‘Microsoft PCE’ that you left the house for a short period and the PCE stopped, and then started again when you returned home. Hence you have no experiential information regarding “intimacy aka ‘closeness’” so far, only an “immediacy experience” with the objects in the room (syds-pce-logs).

SYD: I quite like all of this. Contrary to what I had thought, it is radical … and I like being radical..

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

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

Cheers Vineeto

February 16 2026

SYD: Also, I’ll use this opportunity to directly respond to Vineeto’s question since I forgot to include it before:

VINEETO: Do I understand you correctly that you are saying that you now disregard the hedonistic contracts à la Onfray?

SYD: Yes.

If I descend once again into ‘love’, I’ll find my way back to happiness and harmless as swiftly as possible (assuming I haven’t yet developed the knack for becoming aware of the ‘bifurcation’ yet). Just being happy and harmless obviate many of these ‘tactics’.

VINEETO: Hi Syd,

Thank you for the clarification. A few things regarding your previous post I will mention –

SYD: … surely don’t consider sexual freedom to be harmful?

VINEETO: Such generalisation is just an undergraduate debating ploy.

There is a world of difference, literally, in what you consider “sexual freedom” and what I call have experienced for many years as an actual intimacy with a fellow human being which may, or may not, involve sexual play. Here is how Richard described it –

Richard: Now, the way to have intimacy unfold, in all its luscious wonder, is to be aware all the while (with that unique human ability to be conscious of being sentient) that your sexual partner likes being with you so much that they are willing to spend their most valuable asset – their time – not only being with you but having you inside them/ having them inside you (dependent upon gender) for this most physically intimate way of associating possible.
In other words one is always aware, with that second-level awareness, all the while primary consciousness is sexually engrossed, just how precious this opportunity is as – out of all 3.0 billion women/ out of all 3.0 billion men (dependent upon gender) – this fellow human being has chosen you, and only you, to be so intimately entwined with. In short: having sex/ being intimate with her/ with him (dependent upon gender) is very special – so special as to be precious – and this very preciosity readily enables giving oneself completely to one’s partner – totally and utterly – during sexual congress. (...). (Richard, List D, No. 20, 9 December 2009).

SYD: In regards to “disregard the other person as a fellow human being”, what I find interesting is that my modus operandi with the WomanFromNov largely operated as that (disregard her as a fellow human being) the moment those love feelings usurped, as I was solely focused on my own feelings.

VINEETO: Indeed, already the designation “WomanFromNov” is depersonalised, like a faceless woman known only by the time of her appearance. Will the next one be called WomanFrom… March or May?

Besides, as Claudiu already explained to you , the first spanner in the works (as in “usurped”) is lust, before love even appears on the horizon.

SYD: “I can’t say if I would have wanted to go as far as to establish a ‘contract’.”

VINEETO: When I wrote ‘contract’ I meant a “mutual arrangement, deal, settlement, undertaking”.

SYD: In regards to “[sincerity] does not mean ‘true to your feelings’ but true to facts and actuality – and feelings are not facts”, what does that mean in detail? Are you referring to rememorating one’s PCEs (else why use ‘facts and actuality’)?

VINEETO:

Richard: Sincere/Sincerity:

The word ‘sincere’ can be traced back to the Latin sincerus, meaning ‘whole’ or ‘pure’ or ‘sound’, and which is arguably derived from the roots ‘sin-’ (one) and ‘crescere’ (to grow) in that the Latin ‘sincerus’ originally referred to a plant which was of pure stock – not a mixture or hybrid – and thus came to mean anything which was genuine (as in ‘true’ or ‘correct’) and not falsified, adulterated, contaminated.

Sincerity is to be in accord with the fact/ being aligned with factuality/ staying true to facticity (as in being authentic/ guileless, genuine/ artless, straightforward/ ingenuous).

To Be Sincerity: (snipped correspondence with Syd, Richard, List D, Syd, 26 May 2009).

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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).

(Richard, Abditorium, Innocence, #Sincere)

There is also a page in Richard’s Catalogue where on the page for ‘sincere’ you find a whole collection of quotes where he talked about being ‘sincere’ with links you can look up for context.

*

As both Kuba and Claudiu have already answered your queries brilliantly I see no need to continue my own involvement in the matter.

Cheers Vineeto