# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On People RESPONDENT: [...]. In my (considerable!) experience, the two biggest obstacles to fruitful conversation are ‘team spirit’/ ‘us vs them’ attitudes and aggressive/ defensive emotional reactions. Re the latter, I know actualist culture tends to regard other people’s feelings as their problem – but in practice it still makes sense not to needlessly trigger them; and when they are trigged, not to use it against them but to be considerate, to step back, to look for a *mutually* beneficial way forward. RICHARD: You delineate the two biggest obstacles to fruitful conversation, in your experience, as follows: 1. ‘team spirit’/ ‘us vs them’ attitudes. 2. aggressive/ defensive emotional reactions. You then immediately go on to say, regarding Item No. 2, that you know ‘actualist culture’ (whatever that is) ‘tends to regard other people’s feelings as their problem’. Do you not see the following? 1. You immediately launch into an Item No. 1 mode (that is, you versus a phantasm you call ‘actualist culture’). 2. You impute a fallacy (the tendency ‘to regard other’s feelings as their problem’) as pertaining to that phantasm. 3. You impugn that fallacy (‘in practice it still makes sense not to *needlessly* trigger them’) which you imputed as pertaining to that phantasm. 4. You then posit an issue (‘when they are trigged’) in order to preach (‘not to use it against them but to *be considerate*’) and propose the solution (‘to step back, to look for a *mutually beneficial* way forward’). Here is an exchange I had, around 8 & 1/2 years ago (13 July 2004), with someone who specifically asked me two questions which elicited quite a comprehensive response. Viz.: • [Respondent]: Richard, when you engage in these discussions do you anticipate the kind of emotional effect your words might elicit and try to avoid provoking malice and sorrow in your correspondent, or do you simply say what you have to say, and leave it up to the reader to deal with any feelings that might arise? Do you ever *intentionally* provoke malice and/or sorrow in your correspondents? • [Richard]: I have located the following passage: • [Richard]: ‘I have over a decade’s experience of interacting with people replete with feelings and am well aware they can cause them to do all manner of things – up to and including possible and probable homicide – and thus always take into consideration that their rationality can be cast aside in an instant’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 49, 23 January 2004). Furthermore, in regards to your comments in another e-mail on this topic, I am incapable of both derision – ‘the action of deriding [‘laughing contemptuously or scornfully at’]; ridicule, mockery’ ~ (Oxford Dictionary) – and mockery – ‘derision, ridicule [‘subjection to mocking and dismissive language’]; a derisive utterance’ (Oxford Dictionary) – nor can I either chide – ‘quarrel or dispute angrily with; give loud and angry expression to dissatisfaction; scold; rail at’~ (Oxford Dictionary) – or toy with – ‘deal lightly or frivolously with; trifle, amuse oneself with a person’ ~ (Oxford Dictionary) – my fellow human being as there is no affective faculty in this flesh and blood body. (Richard to Respondent, Actual Freedom List, No. 60, 13 July 2004). (Richard, List D, No. 4, 9 January 2013b). RESPONDENT: Yes. I deleted that message shortly before you responded, mainly because of that expression ‘actualist culture’. What I was mainly suggesting in that article (or ‘preaching’ as you put it) was (1) applying the principle of charity: basically assuming that a correspondent is reasonable (willing and able to be reasoned with) unless proven otherwise, and (2) being considerate of their feelings, and willing to make some effort not to (a) not antagonise them needlessly in the first place, and (b) back up and be willing to be find a constructive way forward once antagonism does arise. And yes, I can see how associating the lack of either of those characteristics with an ‘actualist culture’ wasn’t reasonable. RICHARD: The reason why I selected that particular paragraph – indeed the reason why I responded at all – was it neatly encapsulated, as a microcosm, the entire issue at large (the macrocosm) ... to wit: retaining/ maintaining the human condition versus freedom from the human condition. Thus when I wrote Points 1-to-4, above, I had in mind what you called ‘some research material’ in Message No. 126xx and used those 1-to-4 points as a demonstration of how the ‘team spirit’/ ‘us vs them’ attitude operates in reality, in action, in real-time. Now, whilst I was well aware that the ‘us’ you were referring to, verbally, was actualists (and the ‘them’ non-actualists), the reality was you immediately launching into Item No. 1 mode (as per my Point No. 1 above) whereby the ‘us’ in reality, in real-time action, is non-actualists and the ‘them’ actualists. Ergo, conjure phantasm –> impute a fallacy –> impugn the fallacy –> preach morality/ ethicality –> propose the solution. (And this has been going on, and on, for around 8 & 1/2 years). Speaking personally, there is no ‘us vs them’ operating here – here in actuality – as we all fellow human beings here (in actuality). Regards, Richard. * RESPONDENT No. 5 (Sock Puppet ‘H’): sure the ‘principle of charity is great policy [...] but it won’t work here because; the culture Richard is inculcating assumes by default that your correspondent is NOT reasonable or willing to be reasonable, or able to be reasoned with, as Richard proposes that the whole human condition (meaning all human beings) are deemed ‘stupid, aggressive and false’. RESPONDENT: [...]. You and I have been seeing this sadistic, manipulative, pedantic, cruelly derisive arse-hole that I wrote about last night for many years, whereas in person he (truly) was nothing like that. I still don’t quite have a handle on what that means, other than the obvious projection factor. [...]. One of the most striking things about meeting Richard in person was his lightness of touch. He’s actually very easy to get along with, very reasonable (in the sense that we’ve used in this thread – flexible in the way he converses about stuff, willing and able to be reasoned with), and he doesn’t have the above qualities that mar so much online communication. I’m still not really able to pin down the exact reasons for the differences. I can find naive explanations, and I can find cynical ones. But I seem to understand him best – as in, get the flavour of the Richard that I met in person – when I adopt the attitude of, like him for whatever he is. And I understand him least, and dislike him most, when I try to see him as the best that humankind can possibly ever aspire to. [...]. God I’m stupid. There are two psychic projections onto Richard here. There’s the flawed, malicious, sarcastic, pedantic, fucked-up unit. And there’s the actually free exemplar of the best that is humanly possible. They’re *both* psychic projections; and as is the nature of psychic projections, they come in pairs. Fuck. [...]. One creates the other. No wonder the chronic ambivalence. [Richard]: ‘I am still right here, where I have been all along, and always will be’ [endquote]. Indeed. Got it. RICHARD: [...] whilst I was well aware that the ‘us’ you were referring to, verbally, was actualists (and the ‘them’ non-actualists), the reality was you immediately launching into Item No. 1 mode (as per my Point No. 1 above) whereby the ‘us’ in reality, in real-time action, is non-actualists and the ‘them’ actualists. Ergo, conjure phantasm –> impute a fallacy –> impugn the fallacy –> preach morality/ ethicality –> propose the solution. (And this has been going on, and on, for around 8 & 1/2 years). Speaking personally, there is no ‘us vs them’ operating here – here in actuality – as we are all fellow human beings here (in actuality). (Richard, List D, No. 4, 9 January 2013c). RESPONDENT: Yep. Things are falling into place nicely now. Thank you. I’m only now beginning to see how many of the negative impressions I had of you are actually inseparable from the positive ones. The more I tried to escape the ambivalence by validating either one of the projections, the more it reinforced the other, and made my stuckness between the two poles inescapable. (Psychically inescapable anyhow). Much becoming clear. Wow. RICHARD: G’day [No. 4 (real name)], Yes, there is neither saint nor sinner (aka ‘the lotus has its roots in mud’) here – here in actuality – where 7+ billion flesh-and-blood bodies are already living, and any ascribing of (idealistic) saintly qualities onto an actually free flesh-and-blood body stems from attempting to counteract the imputed sinner qualities (i.e. automorphically imputed). RESPONDENT: [...]. While it’s still fresh, here’s what kick-started the end of this 8-year process. A conversation with someone last night ended with us reaching a similar conclusion that Richard is fucked-up, but we can like him and wish him well anyway, and put an end to all the animosity forever. The polarity was not escaped by validating/ embracing either of its poles and rejecting the other. All attempts to see the perfect ‘Richard’ as perfect had failed. It’s only when the animosity toward the flawed ‘Richard’ was released that the energy maintaining the polarity was dealt a fatal blow. Wow, this is really interesting. RICHARD: It appears that an often-overlooked feature of the actualism method – neither suppressing nor expressing both the positive *and* the negative emotions/ passions (both the good *and* bad affective feelings) so that the third alternative may hove into view – has finally worked for you. Viz.: [Respondent]: ‘I’m only now beginning to see how many of the negative impressions I had of you are actually inseparable from the positive ones’. [endquote]. [Editorial Note: all impressions for a feeling-being are, by default (i.e. auto-centrically), emotionally-based/ passionally-backed impressions]. Vineeto recently spoke of this feature of the actualism method as being essential for feeling-being ‘Vineeto’, when ‘her’ out-*from*-control virtual freedom turned into an out-*of*-control panic mode (in Message No. 12614). Viz.: [Vineeto]: ‘This second panic only lasted for 3 days but because it happened during the out-from-control virtual freedom it turned into an out-of-control panic mode. Only ‘her’ decade-long training in keeping ‘her’ hands in ‘her’ pockets and *neither repress nor express* the intense feelings racing through ‘her’ allowed the extreme situation to subside so soon afterwards ... and look where I am today’. [emphasis added]. (Actualism, ActualVineeto, No. 4, 7 January 2013) And, once the third alternative hove into view for ‘her’, ‘she’ was once again tapping into pure intent personified – per favour ‘the quickening’ – and thereby got back to being (safely) out-*from*-control once more. RESPONDENT to Claudiu: [...]. And the key point is that that animosity was not released by embracing the perfect ‘Richard’ instead. That had been tried and failed a thousand times. And now it’s obvious why. CLAUDIU: So, how do you consider Richard now, sans polarity & animosity? RESPONDENT: I like how you’ve phrased the question ‘*how* do I consider him’... because this isn’t about him as such; it’s more an insight into the ‘Richard’ I’ve been dealing with and how I’ve been relating to it. RICHARD: It is indeed an insight – a valuable insight – into how *your* phantom ‘Richard’ is conjured into ‘being’. (Each person – each feeling-being – conjures up, via their own imaginative facility, their own phantom ‘Richard’; you may have noticed that no two phantom ‘Richards’ are identical). RESPONDENT to Claudiu: The answer to that ‘how’ (now) is: take him as he comes. The notion that he’s someone I’m impelled to attack or defend, criticise or justify, embrace or reject, has had all the energy taken out of it. The process of figuring out where to stand and how to position oneself in relation to Richard has started to look pretty funny, because that’s part of the very process that creates a ‘Richard’ (or rather, several of them). I’ve mainly been dealing with: ‘Richard-the-fucked-up-and-unknowingly-malicious’ vs ‘Richard-the-actually-innocent-and-benign’. While I’ve often suspected either one of them of being a fabrication or phantom, it has never really *hit home* to me that they both are. [...]. The notion that he’s someone I’m impelled to attack or defend, criticise or justify, embrace or reject, has had all the energy taken out of it. Without all that other stuff, I can just read what he’s saying, and take it from there. RICHARD: And it will be very interesting to see just where you ‘take it from there’ to because the ‘[No. 4]’ identity has been notorious for switching back-and-forth. Regards, Richard. P.S.: You will have noticed that I have taken you literally when you said you were going to drop all the personae. Viz.: [quote]: ‘I’m going to drop all the personae and speak to you frankly ...’. (Message No. 126xx). Is it indeed correct to assume that you have finally ditched the ‘[No. 4]’ identity? Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘There have been many times when I wanted to ditch the ‘[No. 4]’ identity and come back as someone else, someone new, to make a fresh start without the weight of the past. But each time, I decided it would be a disservice to the people I had been writing to if ‘[No. 4’ stalked off to forge his own destiny, and then a different, trouble-free, actualism-friendly identity emerged in his place. Better for the historical record to show what really happened’. (Message No. 8129). * RICHARD: [...]. Ergo, conjure phantasm –> impute a fallacy –> impugn the fallacy–> preach morality/ ethicality –> propose the solution. (And this has been going on, and on, for around 8 & 1/2 years). Speaking personally, there is no ‘us vs them’ operating here – here in actuality – as we are all fellow human beings here (in actuality). (Richard, List D, No. 4, 9 January 2013c). RESPONDENT: Yep. Things are falling into place nicely now. Thank you. I’m only now beginning to see how many of the negative impressions I had of you are actually inseparable from the positive ones. The more I tried to escape the ambivalence by validating either one of the projections, the more it reinforced the other, and made my stuckness between the two poles inescapable. (Psychically inescapable anyhow). Much becoming clear. Wow. RICHARD: Yes, there is neither saint nor sinner (aka ‘the lotus has its roots in mud’) here – here in actuality – where 7+ billion flesh-and-blood bodies are already living, and any ascribing of (idealistic) saintly qualities onto an actually free flesh-and-blood body stems from attempting to counteract the imputed sinner qualities (i.e. automorphically imputed). (Richard, List D, No. 4, 10 January 2013). RESPONDENT: And even the ‘third alternative’ (neither sinner nor saint) had been misappropriated as yet another psychic image/ entity: A heartless/ soulless identity that lacked the endearing human traits and, due to lack of an intuitive faculty, wasn’t able to properly understand itself. It’s basically another way of inadvertently turning a what into a ‘who’. And no surprise that the result doesn’t come close to capturing the innocence of a PCE. RICHARD: G’day [No. 4 (real name)], Whilst none too sure precisely what you had in mind when you wrote that as such descriptive words, as a ‘heartless/ soulless identity that lacked the endearing human traits’, and ‘due to lack of an intuitive faculty’ was not able to ‘properly understand itself’, do read as if it is an ascription of androidic/ robotic qualities onto an actually free flesh-and-blood body. The ascription of androidic/ robotic qualities is already featured, on more than a few occasions, in my archived correspondence on The Actual Freedom Trust website. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: Richard, I should like to ask the simple question ‘In which way one person that lost his being and ego, is different than a robot?’ • [Richard]: Just because a person actually free of the human condition has no identity whatsoever (neither ego-self nor soul-self/ spirit-self) parasitically residing inside the flesh and blood body – and therefore no affective feelings – this absence of identity and its precious feelings does not thus make that person a machine, an automaton, an android (a robot, somewhat resembling a human being in appearance, designed to function in place of a living organism and carrying out a variety of tasks mechanically in accord with a pre-programmed circuitry). I do not read/ watch science fiction but as I get these type of questions from time to time I have gradually been made aware of various ‘Star Trek’ characters, for instance, and it is pertinent to point out that the stuff of science fiction (creations of imagination) is entirely different to actuality ... a writer replete with identity/ feelings trying to visualise life sans identity/ feelings can, apparently, only conceive of a robotic-like creature speaking in a flat, monotone voice, and devoid of a sense of humour. I am yet to hear of a robot that experiences life like this, for example: • [Richard]: ‘I live in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world where, with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity, everything and everybody has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything ‘alive’ and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence ... the actualness of everything and everybody. We do not live in an inert universe’. In fact a robot, being a machine, does not experience anything at all. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 10 July 2003). As well as that, the ascription of anosognosia type qualities also already features, on several occasions, on the website. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: I am exploring into the issue of whether one can experience anything without knowing that one is experiencing it. So for example, there may be anger, emotional pain etc, and one does not know that. • [Richard]: The medical term, for the symptoms you describe here, has popularly become known as anosognosia. However, the people observing such a person, who does have this disorder, can vouch for displays of [quote] ‘anger, emotional pain etc.’ [endquote] whilst the person in question is not personally feeling them ... needless is to say that no such displays of [quote] ‘anger, emotional pain etc.’ [endquote] have been detected by anybody who has contact with me? And I have been scrutinised closely by many, many people over the last nine years. (Richard, List B, No. 31d, 16 May 2002). If what you had in mind was the ascription of, say, sociopathic personality disorder type qualities (or some-such dissociative/ repressive attributes) it would be a sub-set of the imputed ‘sinner qualities’ – i.e. automorphically imputed – already canvassed, much further above now, in the earlier part of this exchange. Regards, Richard. TARIN: From actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf68b.htm#06May05a. [Richard]: ‘For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion. At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection’. [endquote]. Can you elaborate on this? RICHARD: I have already elaborated (in the original e-mail exchange which that above quote was excerpted from). Viz.: [Richard]: ‘For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion. At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘And what might that legacy be? • [Richard]: ‘A sense of mission to search for The Absolute (or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on), which is exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which is a peace that passeth all understanding, of course. The powerful influence of such intense affection in a child’s formative years takes some shaking off ... it almost amounts to an imprinting’. (Richard, List B, No. 19l, instituionalised). TARIN: What was the influence/ effect of your parenting during that era on the child you mention? RICHARD: As mentioned at the beginning of that e-mail you found the above quote in the relationship had changed, during that era, from one of parentage to one of friendship ... and (as also mentioned in that same e-mail) at age twenty two or thereabouts she said that she sometimes wished she had had a normal child/ father relationship as, unlike her then girlfriends who were getting married and having children of their own, she had ‘inherited’ a quest to pursue and could not settle down. That was about nine-ten years ago ... she has since then married (a couple of years ago). * TARIN: What was the influence/ effect of your parenting during that era on the child you mention? RICHARD: As mentioned at the beginning of that e-mail you found the above quote in the relationship had changed, during that era, from one of parentage to one of friendship ... TARIN: Do you think this change benefited your children ... RICHARD: No, I know that it did ... if nothing else it was much more fun. Essentially, all what is required of any progenitor is to ensure that their off-spring are adequately equipped for adulthood (are able to effectively operate and function independently in the environment they are born into). TARIN: ... is it any better to be a friend to one’s child than a parent? RICHARD: It certainly is ... just for starters: being much more fun it readily promotes open learning (children are congenitally curious). TARIN: If so, in what ways? I have already read this part: [quote] ‘(and they all appreciated that immensely ... as exemplified by the youngest often saying how glad she was that the ‘bossy-boots dad’ was gone)’ [endquote]. RICHARD: By not being either authoritarian (as distinct from authoritative) or disciplinarian a child’s innate inquisitiveness is not stifled – and many such educators have bemoaned the lack of motivation in their subject students – inasmuch curiosity’s concomitant keenness for discovery provides more than enough incentive. Apart from being innately curious children are also inherently imitative – as indicated by the term ‘role-model’ – and it should not take genius to suss out the advantages friendship has over parentship (or any other form of kinship for that matter). * RICHARD: ... and (as also mentioned in that same e-mail) at age twenty two or thereabouts she said that she sometimes wished she had had a normal child/ father relationship as, unlike her then girlfriends who were getting married and having children of their own, she had ‘inherited’ a quest to pursue and could not settle down. TARIN: Do you know what happened to the quest she inherited, presumably, from your enlightened years? RICHARD: Having openly and frankly discussed the events of her formative years on both that occasion and another a year or two later – plus having given her a copy of ‘Richard’s Journal’ and the address of The Actual Freedom Trust web site – there is every possibility that it has been shaken off. TARIN: What has that drive led her to investigate? RICHARD: I do not know – being now an adult for many years she lives her own life completely independent of her erstwhile father – but going by what I recall, from the age twenty two or thereabouts conversation, she had investigated what some spiritual/ mystical peoples have had to report ... specifically, and not surprisingly, where it pertained to love (in all its forms and variations). TARIN: The reason I ask is because the three people I know of that have achieved either an actual or a virtual freedom – yourself, Peter, and Vineeto – all went through a spiritual period. Do you find this to be merely coincidental ... RICHARD: Yes and no ... yes, it is coincidental insofar as spirituality/ mysticality has been the only alternative to materialism (up until now) and no, it is not, because the drive which has (previously) led to that is, fundamentally, the same intrinsic urge which inspires investigation into the third alternative. TARIN: ... or is there some significance in it – such that would suggest that an inclination towards actualism is not likely if not preceded by an inclination towards spiritualism ... RICHARD: It is the inclination to know, to find out once and for all, the meaning of life which precedes any such proclivity. TARIN: ... or that a prior interest in and pursuit of spiritualism has – even if by example of what not to do – been helpful in the practise of actualism? RICHARD: Not specifically ... no; parenthetically ... yes, of course. TARIN: Do you know of anyone who has achieved a virtual freedom who has never had an interest in spirituality or held spiritual beliefs? RICHARD: I am yet to come across anyone who has never had an interest in spirituality, in some form or another, or has never held spiritual beliefs (no matter how attenuated they might be). TARIN: Are there any practising actualists who have never had an interest in spirituality or held spiritual beliefs? RICHARD: You might as well ask whether there has been any practicing materialists who have never had or held same ... religiosity/ spirituality/ mysticality/ metaphysicality, of some type or degree, is as ubiquitous as the human condition itself. RESPONDENT: On a more practical and personal note, throughout this winter I’ve been applying your method with encouraging results. Mainly :- 1) I’m no longer blindly bouncing back and forth between the ‘bad’ feelings and their ‘good’ pacifiers. At first I found it hard to sit with the ‘bad’ feelings without immediately running into the waiting, welcoming arms of the ‘good’, but now I can understand how vitally important this is if one wants to cure the underlying condition instead of just treating the symptoms. I look for the ‘third alternative’ all the time now. RICHARD: Excellent ... although it is quite simple in hindsight to understand, that for the ‘bad’ feelings to cease their polar opposites the ‘good’ feelings must similarly come to an end, it can be rather difficult to initially comprehend that it is indeed as simple as that. RESPONDENT: 2) I’ve given up blaming other people for my feelings, no matter what the situation. Looking back it seems such a simple and obvious thing to do but it had escaped me. On the flipside I decline to make myself responsible for other people’s emotional hurts (unless I’m hurting them intentionally). RICHARD: Yes ... the reproachful ‘you have hurt my feelings’ works both ways. For instance: • [Richard]: ‘... many years ago the identity inhabiting this body was conversing with ‘his’ then mother-in-law, painstakingly explaining why’ he’ was no longer able to do something – something which eludes memory nowadays – and was both surprised and pleased to hear the following words ‘he’ spoke in response to her reproachful ‘oh, you have hurt my feelings’ (manipulative) reply to ‘his’ carefully explicated account: • ‘Then why carry [harbour/ nurse] such feelings ... surely you leave yourself open to all manner of hurt by doing so?’ Needless is it to add that ‘he’ was to ask himself that very question on many an occasion from that day forwards?’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 83, 10 February 2005). RESPONDENT: 3) I’ve become very conscious of how people are enslaved by the need to belong, and how it is impossible to be unconditionally happy and harmless while we harbour this need. Consequently, I’ve begun to withdraw my psychic/ social/ emotional tentacles, replacing emotional demands/ dependencies with a friendly, commonsense, ‘live and let live’ attitude most of the time. There is a long way to go along this path, and there are some daunting prospects ahead, but I am emboldened by the results of the first steps. RICHARD: Further to the ‘live and let live’ attitude ... the following may be of assistance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... because there is no ‘I’ in you, there is nobody to worry about anything or correct, improve anything? • [Richard]: ‘There is no worry, no, but I am not too sure that this is because there is no ‘I’ ... it is simply silly to worry as worrying does nothing whatsoever to get an event changed. I correct – and thus improve – what can be corrected ... according to a preference for creature comforts and ease of life-style. For example: if I can sit upon a cushion instead of the brick pavers of the patio I will ... that is a preference. But if a cushion is not available it does not matter ... I thoroughly enjoy being alive at this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space irregardless of what is happening. I could be just as happy and harmless on bread and water in solitary confinement in some insalubrious penitentiary ... but I would be pretty silly to act or behave in such a way as to occasion that outcome! The ‘I’ that used to inhabit this body did everything possible that ‘I’ could do to blatantly imitate the actual in that ‘I’ endeavoured to be happy and harmless for as much as is humanly possible. This was achieved by putting everything on a ‘it doesn’t really matter’ basis. That is, ‘I’ would prefer people, things and events to be a particular way, but if it did not turn out like that ... it did not really matter for it was only a preference. ‘I’ chose to no longer give other people – or the weather – the power to make ‘me’ angry ... or irritated ... or even peeved, if that was possible. It was great fun and very, very rewarding along the way. ‘My’ life became cleaner and clearer and more and more pure as each habitual way of living life was consciously eliminated through constant exposure. Finally ‘I’ invited the actual by letting go of the controls and letting this moment live ‘me’. ‘I’ became the experience of the doing of this business of being alive ... no longer the ‘do-er’. Thus ‘my’ days were numbered ... ‘I’ could hardly maintain ‘myself’ ... soon ‘my’ time would come to an end. An inevitability set in and a thrilling momentum took over ... ‘my’ demise became imminent’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 27 January 1999). RESPONDENT: 4) I’m learning how to be friends with myself. The very idea once struck me as corny and wishy-washy on a superficial level, and on a deeper level quite impossible because of my intimate familiarity with all the filth and scum in ‘me’. But after overcoming those initial reactions I’ve found out just how much and how often I persecute myself, and how self-defeating it is. There is only ‘me’ in here, and whatever is done to ‘me’ is ‘me’ doing it to myself. RICHARD: Indeed so. There is, however, an aspect of ‘me’ which is virtually unaffected by both ‘my’ vile and virtuous aspects ... and sincerity is the key to accessing it: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘If I could move on to the question of being ‘Happy and Harmless’; I guess that the main difficulty I am having is in understanding that one can be happy without ‘feeling’ happy but I will persevere with the actual freedom web site, which I am finding fascinating, until this becomes clear to me. • [Richard]: ‘Okay ... it may be worthwhile bearing in mind that it is impossible to be happy (be happy as in being carefree), as distinct from feeling happy, without being harmless (being harmless as in being innocuous), as distinct from feeling harmless, and to be happy *and* harmless is to be unable to induce suffering – etymologically the word ‘harmless’ (harm + less) comes from the Old Norse ‘harmr’ (meaning grief, sorrow) – either in oneself or another. Thus the means of comprehending the distinction lies in understanding the nature of innocence – something entirely new to human experience – and the nearest one can come to being innocent whilst being an identity is to be naïve (not to be confused with being gullible). And the key to naïveté (usually locked away in childhood) is sincerity’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 62, 26 March 2004). RESPONDENT: I’m sure there will be plenty more to come. RICHARD: That is for sure ... simply being alive is an adventure in itself. RESPONDENT: Richard, another question thread from same friend: 1) How old were your children when you became enlightened and how did that event affect them and their/ your relationship? RICHARD: The eldest was around fourteen years old, the second eldest thirteen, the second youngest six years old, and the youngest five; at the time they were all affected differently, and to varying degrees, ranging from incomprehension to indifference; my relationship changed from one of parentage to one of friendship (and they all appreciated that immensely ... as exemplified by the youngest often saying how glad she was that the ‘bossy-boots dad’ was gone). RESPONDENT: 2) How old were your children when you became actually free and how did that event affect them and their/ your relationship? RICHARD: They would have been, respectively, about twenty five years of age, twenty four, eighteen and seventeen; at the time none of them were affected as they were not around to notice anything (they were all scattered far and wide living their own lives); my association – there is no relationship in actuality – with them is no different than with any other fellow human being ... and which fellowship regard they all have, to varying degrees, had some perplexity in accommodating themselves to (as exemplified by the second-youngest saying, at age twenty two or thereabouts, that she sometimes wished she had had a normal father as, unlike her then girlfriends who were getting married and having children of their own, she had ‘inherited’ a quest to pursue and could not settle down). RESPONDENT: 3) What is your current involvement with your offspring? RICHARD: The same as with any other of my fellow human beings. To explain: when a person – any person – no longer has familial ties or kinship bonds to pull or be pulled by then any interaction, if there be any, is a freely made choice arising out of common interests ... indeed, even though my own progenitors are both still alive I never have reason to call them by telephone nor ever go to visit. There is nothing mysterious about it ... it is more or less the same as not interacting with that elderly couple Mr./Ms. Smith, of High Street, Any-Town, with whom I also have no interests in common with. RESPONDENT: 4) If someone were to ask your offspring about you, what might they say? RICHARD: I really do not know ... plus it would depend upon which one of them it was who was asked (and, quite possibly, on how they were feeling about me at the time). RESPONDENT: How do they view you and an actual freedom from the human condition? RICHARD: I have neither asked how they (any of them) view me nor how they (any of them) view an actual freedom from the human condition. RESPONDENT: I remember a correspondence where you said something like: ‘it took 5 years to unravel the legacy of Richard the identity in relation to ‘his’ family’. RICHARD: I found two references to my then-children which include the word ‘legacy’ ... here is the one you are referring to: • [Richard]: ‘Speaking personally, ‘I’ lost everything: ‘my’ wife, ‘my’ children, ‘my’ business, ‘my’ house, ‘my’ car ... the lot. But, most importantly, I lost ‘me’ ... and they were ‘his’ wife, children, business, house, car and so on, anyway ... not mine. I inherited all ‘his’ stuff when ‘he’ disappeared, and I took five years to taper-off all of ‘his’ legacy. Nowadays, being me as-I-am, I have an entirely new life that is infinitely better ... vastly superior. That lifestyle was ‘his’ choice, not mine, and suited ‘his’ temperament only’. (Richard, General Correspondence, Alan, #children). And here is the other one ... perhaps more relevant to what your female friend is enquiring about: • [Richard]: ‘... for the first 34 years of my life I was sane (the ordinary, normal, common, or everyday sanity of people in general all over the world) and peace-on-earth was nowhere to be found; for the next 11 years I was in a transformed state of being (which I gradually came to realise was an institutionalised insanity) called The Absolute or Truth, God, Being, Presence, Self, and so on, which was exemplified by love – Love Agapé – compassion, bliss, rapture, ecstasy, euphoria, goodness, beauty, oneness, unity, wholeness and a timeless, spaceless, formless immortal otherness which was a peace that passeth all understanding ... yet all the while peace-on-earth was still nowhere to be found. By ‘institutionalised’ I mean altered states of consciousness that have become institutions over the aeons: instituted as being states of consciousness which are universally accepted as the summum bonum of human existence ... a model to either live by, aspire to, become, or be. • [Co-Respondent]: ‘(...) How are you with children, after you became insane? • [Richard]: ‘For most of the 11 years I was more than loving with children, more than compassionate, as I was love, I was compassion ... or, better put, there was only love, there was only compassion. At least one of the children in my care, custody and control at the time (I was a single parent for a number of years) bears the legacy of that era to this very day due to the powerful influence of such intense affection. (...) These days children are, like everybody else, my fellow human beings and fellowship regard epitomises all interaction: with the cessation of the institutionalised insanity, and its pathetic intimacy, an actual intimacy lies open all around. It is impossible to not like somebody, whatever the mischief is they get up to, as an actual intimacy does not switch on and off and operates unilaterally in regards every man, woman and child without exception ... nobody is special because everybody is special simply by being alive as a flesh and blood body’. (Richard, List B, No. 19l, #sane). RESPONDENT: I am interested in a more in-depth explanation of this topic by yourself. RICHARD: Okay ... nationalism, and thus patriotism with all its heroic evils, is an amplified form of tribalism: tribalism is an augmentation of clanism; clanism, being familistical, is but a much larger extension of the extended-family; and the extended-family stems, of course, from where blood is the thickest it can ever possibly be than water ... to wit: the core family group itself. Now, although the root cause of war itself is the instinctual passions in action, the primary impulse for warfare at large is, more often than not, none other than kinship bonds (or any extension thereof no matter how attenuated in modern-day nations) and yet the ties of consanguinity are widely held in high esteem, almost to the point of being subject to taboo, and thus generally exempt from an investigation into the human condition (as is evidenced from time-to-time both on this mailing list and others, for example, by derogatory comments about the way I interact with the fellow human beings who happen to be my progeny). Here in this actual world, where everybody is special simply by being alive as a flesh and blood body, kinship ties/ family bonds are nowhere to be found ... which means that, not only is the root cause of war eliminated, the fundamental impulse for warfare at large, generally speaking, has been similarly eradicated. It is all so simple, here. RESPONDENT: Richard, on www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf44a.htm, you write the following: • [Respondent]: ‘Why you have a companion and you don’t change one every day? • [Richard]: ‘Primarily because of fellowship regard ... and specifically because of how my current companion is. • [Respondent]: ‘You don’t have any feelings for her, so what a difference makes? • [Richard]: ‘A whole lot of difference ... just for starters I actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, and thus have genuine consideration for her integrity. Plus I have no interest whatsoever in toying with my fellow human being, anyway, no matter who they are’. [endquote]. Can you explain further? RICHARD: Sure ... I was responding an e-mail which started with the following question: • ‘In which way one person that lost his being and ego, is different than a robot?’ (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44a, 10 July 2003). I do not read/ watch science fiction but as I get these type of questions from time to time, from peoples who either conveniently overlook or are oblivious to what is known as ‘theory of mind’, I have gradually been made aware of various ‘Star Trek’ characters, for instance, and it is pertinent to point out that the stuff of science fiction (creations of imagination) is entirely different to actuality ... a writer replete with identity/ feelings trying to visualise life sans identity/ feelings can, it would seem, only conceive of a robotic/ automated android-like organism speaking in a flat, monotone voice and devoid of both a sense of humour and any caring/ consideration for other sentient creatures (aka fellowship regard). To ask why not change companions every day, as if by having no affective feelings it makes no difference just who it is, is to cavalierly disregard the integrity (aka the soundness of character, the honesty, the sincerity) of, not only my current companion, but each and every one of those (365 per year) fellow human beings ... adroitly assuming, of course, as my co-respondent presumably did, that a steady stream of females would indeed be knocking on my door each morning wanting admission as soon as the previous day’s female-in-residence departed for places unknown (an instinctually-driven archetypal male-fantasy if there ever was). Not to mention, of course, the (presumed) total lack of integrity on my part ... but, then again, a robotic-like automaton would be devoid of same anyway, eh? RESPONDENT: In what way does her integrity suffer if you change your partner? RICHARD: It is not case of having another’s integrity suffer – it is a case of (presumably) having so little regard/ no regard at all for another’s integrity that they could be changed daily – and it speaks volumes for the parlous state of the human condition that such a scenario would even be entertained for a moment ... let alone typed-out and sent to me. RESPONDENT: Also, how would you changing your partner ‘toy’ with your fellow human being? RICHARD: The part of the exchange you quoted at the top of this page followed immediately on from this: • [Respondent]: ‘I have two parrots in a cage home, and I see them flirting and playing. You said that you are not able for flirting but able for sex. • [Richard]: ‘You must be referring to this: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you joke, laugh, flirt (...)? • [Richard]: ‘I like to joke, yes and I laugh a lot ... there is so much that is irrepressibly funny about life itself. I have no ability to flirt, however, as my libido is nil and void ... yet I have an active sexual life (...)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 24 January 1999). • [Respondent]: ‘I can’t understand that. I really can’t. • [Richard]: ‘The word ‘libido’ (Latin meaning ‘desire’, ‘lust’) is the psychiatric/ psychoanalytic term for the instinctual sex drive, urge, or impulse, and the word ‘flirt’ refers to behaving in a superficially amorous manner, to dally sexually with another ... what is so difficult about understanding that, sans the instinctual passion to procreate (and nurture) the species, the ability to be sexually amorous (either superficially or deeply) ceases to exist? With no passions driving behaviour one is able to treat the other as a fellow human being ... and not a sex-object’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, 44a, 10 July 2003). Here is what a dictionary has to say about flirting: • ‘flirt: behave in a superficially amorous manner, dally; she’s always flirting with the boys, toy with, trifle with, make eyes at, ogle, lead on; philander with, dally with’. (Oxford Dictionary). For one to actually care, rather than merely feel that one cares, means that one is incapable of toying with/ trifling with/ dallying with one’s fellow human being ... let alone one’s live-in companion. RESPONDENT: I wonder if I could go back there [move back in with my parents] and practice the AF method so that by changing myself and myself only that would automatically lead to alleviating my parents’ emotional issues. RICHARD: Given that your original plan, prior to coming across The Actual Freedom Trust web site a couple of days before posting your initial e-mail at 2:20 PM on Wednesday 2/02/2005 AEDST – which is six days before posting this e-mail – was to move back in with your parents and ‘help’ them free themselves of their interpersonal obstructions by serving as an example of spiritualist practice (via having had meditation practices/ buddhistic beliefs and having lived in a monastery/ sat four hours day) there is a distinct possibility that your current plan is an accommodation to your original motivation (filial/ tribal duty), non? RESPONDENT: That’s one of the issues I’ve been mulling over. I don’t feel attached to my parents in any filial sense, but I suppose the socially conditioned ‘ethic’ of keeping my promise to move back is what I need to examine more closely. RICHARD: As your promise was to move back in with your parents as an example of spiritualist practice (via having had meditation practices/ buddhistic beliefs and having lived in a monastery/ sat four hours day) – and not as a practitioner of the actualism method – is it not more a case of no longer subscribing to their beliefs and practices that is the issue ... rather than anything else? RESPONDENT: When I originally told my mom, she was ecstatic, and if I were to tell her that I changed my mind, I fear that I would cause harm, which goes against being ‘harmless.’ RICHARD: What the word ‘harmless’ refers to, on both The Actual Freedom Trust web site and mailing list, is being sans malice – just as being happy refers to being without sorrow – thus provided there be no malice generating/ driving/ motivating one’s thoughts, words, or actions, being no longer capable of fulfilling a previously made pledge can in no way be going against being harmless. None of this is to deny that another’s feelings may, and can be, self-induced to feel hurt as a result ... the simple fact of the matter is that if they choose to harbour such feelings that is their business. Put simply: one does not become either actually or virtually free of the human condition just to be guided by and/or run by other people’s feelings ... here is a classic example: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Fallacy are you man. Go to fuck with a duck and don’t bother me, idiot. My feelings are not extinct, as yours, and listening you is bringing to my ego a strong sense of repugnance. Is it clear, big sod? (...) You are a malicious sod, a repulsive cyber guru that gets me nausea because my feelings are not extinct and listening your shit is too much for my ego. Was not clear that you are a pure fallacy, was not clear my meaning? • [Richard]: ‘Am I to take it that, because you feel nausea (and, previously, repugnance) when reading my words, these feelings then prove that I am ‘a pure fallacy’? In other words, your feelings are to be taken as being the arbiter of what I am? Are you really telling me that I am to be guided by your feelings? I did not spend eleven years, delving deep into the depths of ‘my’ psyche (which is the ‘human’ psyche) exposing, and thus eliminating through the exposure, anything whatsoever that was insalubrious ... only to be run by your feelings when I came onto the internet to share my discoveries with my fellow human being. Look, it is this simple: for as long as you continue to be as you currently are then I am sure you will find, as a consequence, that other people’s responses will have the self-induced effect on you of you feeling nausea, repugnance or whatever other feeling that you may thus activate in that entire repertoire of feelings you nurse to your bosom’. (Richard, List B, No. 53, 17 May 2001). RESPONDENT: Is this fear part of the social conditioning package? RICHARD: Aye ... many years ago the identity inhabiting this body was conversing with ‘his’ then mother-in-law, painstakingly explaining why’ he’ was no longer able to do something – something which eludes memory nowadays – and was both surprised and pleased to hear the following words ‘he’ spoke in response to her reproachful ‘oh, you have hurt my feelings’ (manipulative) reply to ‘his’ carefully explicated account: • ‘Then why carry [harbour/ nurse] such feelings ... surely you leave yourself open to all manner of hurt by doing so?’ Needless is it to add that ‘he’ was to ask himself that very question on many an occasion from that day forwards? * RICHARD: Incidentally, and also given you said you are now not sure what your agenda is, does living with your parents whilst pursuing just the masters in physics (instead of the previously intended PhD) have anything to do with the convenience of ready-made board and lodging – aka the basic necessities of life – just as currently living in a monastery does? RESPONDENT: I won’t move back until I’m done with the masters, and living in the monastery right now isn’t really like how most people live in monasteries. I’m in my office at university all day (besides for surfing) and then I just go back to the monastery to sleep. So, moving back to my parents’ would be more convenient, but this wasn’t ever a big issue for me, because I’ve been on my own (necessities-wise) for 5 years and I do enjoy the independence. So this is minor compared to the aforementioned issue of benefiting my parents. RICHARD: In which case, then, that brings it all back to the issue of filial/ tribal duty ... because otherwise it would matter not whom you move in with (along with the intention of automatically leading to an alleviation of their emotional issues by practicing the actualism method in order to change yourself and yourself only). In other words, why not move in with Mr./Ms. Smith, of High Street, Any-Town with that intention? RESPONDENT No. 25: Richard, if I were to knock-knock on your brain there will be no-one to answer, let alone your heart? RICHARD: My previous companion would oft-times say ‘there is no-one in there’ or ‘there is no-one home’ when feeling me out whilst looking at me quizzically ... she also would explain to others that, contrary to expectation, it was sometimes difficult to live with Richard (it could be said that living with some body that is not self-centred would always be easy) as it was impossible for her to have a relationship because there was no-one to make a connection with. She would also say that Richard does not support her, as an identity that is, at all ... which lack of (affective) caring was disconcerting for her, to say the least, and my current companion has also (correctly) reported this absence of consideration. Put simply: I am unable to support some-one who does not exist (I only get to meet flesh and blood bodies here in this actual world). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 10 June 2003) GARY: One of the most striking things to happen to me since I started practising Actualism is the diminishment of emotional connections to other human beings. I cannot say that there are absolutely no connections to others, as it is obvious to me in my relationship with my partner that a sense of connectedness comes up from time to time in various ways. And no doubt this happens with other people as well. However, I have noticed for a long period that when people want to be ‘friends’ with me, for instance, and make certain friendly overtures, these are generally not at all reciprocated on my part. In other words, the offer to ‘make a friend’ or ‘be a friend’ or such similar things as happen in the social world usually fall completely flat on my part. I have sometimes gotten the impression, gleaned from body language and other cues, that this irritates people. Overtures of this type just do not seem to ‘take’ with me. It is difficult to describe but I am sure that the other practiced Actualists on this list know what I am talking about. RICHARD: Given that the primary basis of a meaningful friendship is an affectionate attachment, a tie or a bond based upon one identity making an affective connection with another identity, it speaks volumes about the underlying nature of relationship that a proposition of that ilk deemed to be spurned incurs chagrin. A succinct description of this core nature can be as follows: • ‘friend: a person joined by affection and intimacy to another, independently of sexual or family love’. (Oxford Dictionary). • ‘friend: one attached to another by affection or esteem’. (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary). • ‘friend: a person you know well and regard with affection and trust’. (WordNet 1.6). • ‘friend (word history): a friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin amicus ‘friend’ and amos ‘I love’ is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos ‘friend’ and phileo ‘I love’. In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, freond, the Old English word for ‘friend,’ was simply the present participle of the verb freon, ‘to love’. The Germanic root behind this verb is fri–, which meant ‘to like, love, be friendly to’. (The American Heritage® Dictionary). Of course the words ‘friendly’ and ‘friendliness’ have different connotations to the root meanings of ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’ ... such connotations as amity, affability, amiability, geniality, cordiality, courtesy, civility, helpfulness, kindliness, gentleness, benevolence, and so on. The need for a friend, and to be a friend, is an urge for an affectuous coupling based upon separation ... an identity is alone and/or lonely and longs for the union that is evidenced in a relationship. When both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul become extinct there is no need – and no capacity – for such unity: the expression ‘life is a movement in relationship’ applies only to a psychological and/or psychic entity who wants the feeling of oneness – a synthetic intimacy per favour the bridge of affection/ love – which manifests the deception that separation has ended. And if human relationship does not produce the desired result, then one will project a god or a goddess – a ‘super-friend’ not dissimilar to the imaginary playmates of childhood – to love and be loved by. The ridiculous part in all this is that we are fellow human beings anyway (like species recognise like species) and to seek to impose friendship over the top of fellowship is, as someone once said in another context, like painting red ink on a red rose ... a garish redundancy. GARY: Another obvious sign of the diminishment of emotional connections is in the ‘need’ to affiliate. I seem to have no need to affiliate with others, in the sense that that word is commonly used. This is not to say that I am rude or inconsiderate towards others, but as I feel little need or drive to ‘socialize’, pair off with, or otherwise ‘bond’ with others, there is little in an active social sense that is going on with me. RICHARD: Yes, the need (as in drive or urge) to belong can, and does, vanish completely. GARY: Which brings me to a point: in my investigations of what it means to be a human being, I have been struck with how much of human socializing is based on commiseration – sharing a common plight and grievance, and additionally sharing feelings and emotions: whether it be returning to work on Monday, the state of the economy, the price of gasoline, how unfairly the work place is treating you, etc., etc. Human beings seems to revel in their complaints and gripes, and a sense of resentment is the cement that seems to bind people together in many social situations. Indeed, it is the raison d’être for political groups and political causes of various types. RICHARD: Aye ... this is something I come across almost on a daily basis and it is amazing how many people tell me that I am being ‘optimistic’, or ‘positive’, or ‘up-beat’, or that I am ‘forever trying to talk things up’. For example, I might comment upon what a great day it is and, as sure as eggs are eggs, the plighted person will find fault (even if only ‘it won’t last’) ... or I may say how marvellous it is to be living in a technologically advanced society (take contemporary surgical procedures, for instance, or current dental practice) and a whole litany of doom and gloom comes forth. Even sitting at a caff by myself, with snippets of nearby conversations drifting by from time-to-time, it is remarkable how much of the content of social chit-chat is, as you say, gripe, grievance, complaint, and resentment ... and the last-named is the key to it all (the basic resentment of being alive in the first place). Until one wakes up to implications and ramifications of the factuality of already being here on this planet earth anyway, whether one wants to be or not (‘I didn’t ask to be born’), one is fated to forever seek consolation and commiseration in the arms (both metaphorically and literally) of another similarly afflicted. Yet the simple fact is that, despite the ‘I didn’t ask to be born’ rhetoric, one does want to be alive (else one would have committed suicide long ago) and all that it takes is to fully acknowledge this and thus unequivocally say !YES! to being here now as this flesh and blood body ... and this affirmation is an unconditional agreement/ approval of life itself as-it-is. I did not ask to be born either (truisms can be so trite) ... but I am ever-so-glad that I was. GARY: However, not to get too far afield and to return again to the theme of emotional ‘connection’, I have sometimes in past months been aghast at my lack of emotional, social connection to others. There has been the fright that I am suffering from a serious mental disorder. RICHARD: This seems to be par for the course ... I would probably not be going too far out on a limb to say that the fear of insanity plays a large part in whatever else it is that keeps people locked into sanity. GARY: In that one’s emotional connections with others are a prime indicator of one’s mental health, that may certainly be the case, although I carry no official diagnosis (not having come into contact with mental health professionals in any capacity that relates to me personally). RICHARD: Yes ... ‘well-balanced’ emotional connections are indeed a prime indicator of mental health in the real-world. As a generalisation commitment to radical change is usually avoided like the plague lest people begin calling one ‘obsessed’ and start issuing atavistic warnings of dire consequences ... and slip the word ‘insanity’ into their conversations every now and then. GARY: There has been something at times like anxiety and shock to recognize that I am no longer moved by a need to affiliate and identify with others. This fear reminds me of the fears I first encountered in Actualism – atavistic fears relating to being an ‘outcast’, i.e. falling off the plate of humanity, so to speak. RICHARD: The glue which holds humanity together is sourced in the gregarian impulse (the herd instinct ... and this urge to belong to the group (identifying and affiliating with others) is backed-up by the ever-present threat of ostracism, or banishment, in the form of humiliation, embarrassment, disgrace, dishonour, shame, mortification, ignominy, and so on. A powerful social tool, in other words, wielded viciously at times. GARY: However, the fears have taken on a somewhat different spin, at times feeling myself to be the object of derision or discrimination. RICHARD: Ah, yes ... derision, eh? Another emotional vibe, or psychic current, to add to the short list (above) of powerful social tools ... which would have to include disparagement, scorn, mockery, disdain, belittlement, vilification, denigration, contempt, castigation, disapprobation, denunciation, and condemnation (and discrimination as evidenced by bad-mouthing, backbiting, slander, libel, defamation and a whole range of slurs, smears, censures, admonishments, reproaches, reprovals, and so on). GARY: Whatever it is, and although there may be a slightly paranoid flavour at times, I am unable to return to what once was a habitual mode of operation socially – to seek out ‘relationships’ with others, whether they be friendships, kinship with family members, or groups to identify with. As I write these words, I am thinking that these fears are basic atavistic fears related to the demolishment of one’s identity, as well as fears that indicate the presence of the identity in the first place. These fears have largely settled down at the present time. RICHARD: Good ... what would keep the ‘me’ that was firmly on track, at times, was the glaring fact that, for all of humanity’s social tools and coping mechanisms and management techniques, peace on earth was nowhere to be seen ... either then or at any other period in human history. The impression gained at the time was that everyone else was sitting back moaning and groaning about the inequity of it all ... and castigating anyone who dared to begin stepping out of the mould. I kid you not ... many was the person who said (words to the effect): ‘how could you be happy while people are suffering ... have you no humanity?’ Is one to wait until everybody else is happy and harmless before oneself? If one were to wait the waiting would be forever for under this twisted rationale no one would dare to be the first to be happy and harmless because of such people waiting in the wings poised and ready to pounce with their ‘how could you’ wisdom ... this peculiar reasoning allows only for an instantaneous mass happiness and harmlessness to occur globally and, as such a miracle is never going to happen, surely someone has to be intrepid enough to be the first, to show what is possible to a benighted humanity, before they all tear each other apart. At times one just has to face the opprobrium of one’s ill-informed peers and dare to be different anyway. GARY: I would welcome any comments either you or other participants have about the topic currently under discussion. I would be interested, for instance, in knowing how your own conduct socially and in terms of intimate, emotional connection has changed since you have been living in Actual Freedom compared with your previous life as a ‘normal’, care-worn person. RICHARD: Ahh ... the change from being a care-worn person to being a care-free person means that social interaction has changed from normal to actual (from friendship to fellowship) which is a change from being affectively intimate (a separative connection) to being actually intimate (an inseparate association) and, as a result, a change from being commiserative to being dissolutive and thus a change from complaintive to acclamatory and/or from condolatory to laudatory (from grievance to panegyrical) ... what others would call being ‘optimistic’, or ‘positive’, or ‘up-beat’, and so on. Mostly people stay away in droves. GARY: Specific questions that arise might be the following: do you belong to any groups or organizations of any kind? RICHARD: I neither belong to any public organisation, club, guild, or fraternity/ sorority by whatever description, nor go to parties, bars, dances, or any other similar social venue ... neither do I play competitive sports, support any team or player, or even watch any such sporting events. GARY: Do you have a more active social life now or less active? RICHARD: An entirely different social life: no integration is required as the world as-it-is endows any activity with all its completion ... a plenitude that far exceeds any social event which seeks to divert the jaded from their creeping ennui. GARY: What happened to you socially when you self-immolated? RICHARD: I have tended to be individualistic all my life – although I could party-on with the best of the revellers on occasion – so, basically, all that happened socially was that gregariousness, or the urge to socialise, has vanished completely ... just as sexual congress sans the libidinous impulse is a luscious intercourse so too is social congress without the gregarian urge a delightful interaction. All in all an estimable situation. RESPONDENT: You speak about peace on earth, is this not a feeling toward humanity? RICHARD: No, it is actually caring about my fellow human beings and not merely feeling that one cares. RESPONDENT: When they ask you what is passing through your heart when you see your children, you answered, blood. RICHARD: Indeed I did ... that is because there is no instinctual passions whatsoever in this flesh and blood body. RESPONDENT: Is this not a contradiction? RICHARD: No, it is a statement of fact – nobody is special here in this actual world because everybody is special simply by virtue of being alive – and the people who were my children back when I was a father are fellow human beings living their life as they see fit. I do not interfere ... I never offer unsolicited advice, for example. RESPONDENT: When you need a policeman, you ask for his help, like the time the thief came to your house. The policeman is not an actualist. RICHARD: Not in that instance, no ... there is nothing to stop a member of the police force from being an actualist, however, nor any reason why an actualist cannot take up policing as a profession. RESPONDENT: The real change will take place, when there will not be need for policemen any more, and not locks on the doors necessary. RICHARD: As that lack of need for police and locks on doors will only come about through radical change in the nature of each and every human being then to wait for ‘the real change’ is to be waiting forever, so to speak. RESPONDENT: And I think that this will happen when the time will be right. RICHARD: In the final analysis it is your life you are living and, provided you comply with the legal laws and observe the social protocols, you will be left alone to live your life as wisely or as foolishly as you wish ... only you get to reap the rewards or pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. Your freedom is in your hands and your hands alone. RESPONDENT: Is good to be aware of our conditioning and make if possible some change to our lives, because this conditioning is man made (Society). RICHARD: Indeed ... how are you going with curing yourself of agoraphobia? RESPONDENT: But to arrive to the point by our self to alter or change our brain, may be dangerous also. RICHARD: In what way is it ‘dangerous’ to become free from the human condition? I am neither in gaol nor a psychiatric institution; I can orient myself in space and time and navigate from point A to point B; I can defend myself when necessary by circumstances; I feed, clothe and house myself, paying all my bills on time; I make contingency plans to meet projected situations; I manage four net-worked computers, an internet domain, a web page, a mail server, and so on, without any prior experience or training; I write millions of words meaningfully strung together in sentences and paragraphs ... and, most importantly, I am neither a danger to myself or to others (which is the very first thing any psychiatrist/ psychologist ascertains). As this has been the situation for over a decade your prognosis is totally invalid. RESPONDENT No. 27: I don’t recall talking to No. 40, but Richard and I had a few verbal exchanges on actuality. Apparently, we did not see ‘actuality’ actually the same, though I forget what we actually saw, but I would be surprised if he doesn’t still have an actual computer record of what was actually said by everyone, even if his interpretations tended to distort whatever was actually said. RESPONDENT: You seem to have came across the same distortions and limitations I did. Yes it was disappointing to discover Richard mental clarity was not infinite and had its shut off point, just like the rest of us poor impassioned human beings nursing our bosoms. LOL. At the moment he’s pussyfooting and trying desperately to hide his distaste and frustration at one of his fellow list members who refuses to be brow beaten into seeing actualism Richard’s way. The list member (who has just recently created a new website called actualfreedom.com and seeks to link it with Richards actualfreedom.com.au in a bid to spread the good word) is on his way up to Byron Bay with a friend to meet Richard for a chat and pristine cup of coffee at the pub for the 4th or so time. But Richard is so pissed off he plans to deny this recalcitrant disciple his esteemed audience. It seems Richard sees no point in retaining friendships with those who do not see life HIS WAY (so much for his actual intimacy??). The list member has been told his answering machine will be on and no one will be home. Which just goes to show that friendship in Richards – oh so perfect world – is still conditional and dependent on his actualism being ‘accepted’. And so the plot thickens. (Message #01200 of Archive 00/11: Subject: ‘Richards Methods’). RICHARD: It would appear that the failure to recognise a trope when it is writ large results in tripe. Needless to say, none of this misinformation above (or is it disinformation) which you pen to this Mailing List, for whatever obscure reason it is that you would do such a thing anyway, has any connection whatsoever with what is actually happening ... maybe it is your disappointment about ‘Richard’s mental clarity’ which has emotionally flooded your cognitive ability to accurately discern facts and makes you see only ‘distortions and limitations’ instead? For starters, the person whom you are referring to as ‘this recalcitrant disciple’ is a disciple of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain (aka a ‘friend of Osho’) who first approached me on the internet nearly two years ago (February 1999) under the guise of being a ‘creative writer’ wanting to publicise ‘Richard’ (‘do you think it would be a good thing for ‘Richard’ to be more widely known?’). I declined, giving reasons, and then stating clearly and succinctly [Richard]: ‘I value my privacy very highly and have no desire for a public profile.’ [endquote]. (Message #363 Mon, Jan 25, 1999 and Message #393 Tue, Feb 2, 1999; ‘Subject: Re: ‘Simplifying Richard’). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12a, 2 February 1999). This ‘friend of Osho’ (aka a disciple of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain) was remarkably persistent ... there followed a series of E-Mails wherein I made my position crystal clear ... for example [Richard]: ‘... as I have remarked before, I do value my privacy highly and have no desire for a public profile. Consequently I am not liberal with handing out my telephone number, street address or last name to people ...’ [endquote]. (Fri, 19 Feb. 1999; Subject: Re: Can We Meet?). This response was because again the guise of being a journalist wishing to interview me vis-à-vis an actual freedom was being presented ... for example: [quote]: ‘... my motivation for meeting you would be to flesh out my experience of you, in order to be able to write an article about Actual Freedom. My intention would be to publish such an article’ [endquote]. (Wed, 17 Feb. 1999; Subject: Re: Can We Meet?). And again I made my position crystal clear ... for example: [Richard]: ‘... nothing can be gained from meeting me face-to-face other than the verification that there is a flesh and blood body that writes these words – hence I turn down all requests for a photograph. Nothing is obtained from a personal talk that cannot be gained from reading the interactive exchange of words on the Internet’. (Tue, 2 Mar. 1999; Subject: Re: Can We Meet?). All that (and more) was all nearly two years ago ... if you have been even superficially following the current exchange on the other Mailing List you will find my words (above) of February and March 1999 very, very familiar and thus see that my current words are not ‘pussyfooting and desperately hiding distaste and frustration’ at all ... let alone ‘brow-beating’. I am simply saying the same thing over and again: I wish to preserve my chosen lifestyle as-it-is and share my discovery on the internet because an actual freedom is epitomised by being conveyed by words alone ... and is the ability to fully live a normal lifestyle. Second, where you say that this person has set-up a web page in ‘a bid to spread the good word’ you are apparently oblivious to the actuality ... it has been set-up to downplay what I am saying, only under the same name (‘actual freedom’). That this ploy has sucked you in goes to show that the association of similar domain names (‘actualfreedom.com’ and ‘actualfreedom.com.au’) has the effect of misleading the undiscerning ... to the point that this ‘friend of Osho’ can then state that ‘Actual Freedom’=‘Actual Truth’ (aka ‘The Truth’ aka ‘God’ aka ‘Whatever Name’). It is somewhat akin to the propensity Hinduism has, for instance, of absorbing all potentially conflicting alternatives under its all-embracing umbrella. Third, where you say that ‘Richard sees no point in retaining friendships with those who do not see life HIS WAY’ you are apparently also oblivious to the fact than an actual intimacy experiences every body equally ... an actual intimacy plays no favourites and brooks no exclusive friendship. This includes racial and biological kith and kin ... no body is special as every body is special. Fourth, where you say ‘(so much for his actual intimacy??)’ ... I am conscious of the fact that I am writing to a fellow human being, and not to words appearing on a screen, who has publicly informed everyone on the Mailing List (including yourself) of their medical condition. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘I have major depression; and probably it is of the bipolar variety; at this stage somewhere around the bipolar II range on the bipolar spectrum disorder characterisation. I take medication for that and it works well ... and at times toward the depressed end of the swing of my genetic pendulum I go into silence and inactivity for varying lengths of time’. (Message #1410 ‘Second question from the defence’; Fri 11/24/000). I have intimate experience, over many years, of interacting with people who have been suffering from varying degrees of this particularly distressing disorder (popularly known as ‘manic depression’) ... and in my experience (and verified via their own feedback) the most helpful way of interacting is by (a) being sensible and practical at all times and (b) enabling or facilitating the ability to make their own decisions based upon sound physical reasons. It is important, vital, to not pander to flights of fancy and being always down-to-earth and matter-of-fact in any, oft-times fluctuating, instances. Fifth, where you say that this person ‘has been told his answering machine will be on and no one will be home’ is where you go for a trip on the trope ... and in a big way: the ‘friend of Osho’ would not read, or would only partly read, my responses to all the attempts in order to downplay what I am saying into being yet another version of the ‘Tried and True’. The ‘answering machine’ analogy only came towards the end of a long series of back and forth E-Mails wherein I was told repeatedly by this ‘friend of Osho’ that he had no interest in reading my words at all. And, as all that he would get from seeing me in person – or ringing me on the telephone – would be me saying nothing different from what my words in the E-Mails and on the Web Page were saying, I put it that all that he would get by ringing me, in other words, would be an answering machine responding with the same-same as what is already in words on the web ... except that the printed words say it a lot better than I do as I tend to waffle on a lot in voice. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 12f, 28 November 2000a). Lastly, as this person’s point of view forced him to only see an ‘enlightened master’ (by whatever name) in this flesh and blood body called Richard, I explicitly said ‘there is no person answering to that description at this address’. How you can translate that into Richard saying that ‘his answering machine will be on and no one will be home’ I do not know ... maybe it is your propensity to see plots where there is none (‘and so the plot thickens’). However, it may very well turn out that your plot has thinned a little having read all this. RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity