Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Flogged Misconceptions

CO-RESPONDENT: Can one feel other’s feelings?

RICHARD: Only if one is a feeling being.

CO-RESPONDENT: Thoughts?

RICHARD: Only if one is a feeling being with developed psychic abilities.

CO-RESPONDENT: From a distance?

RICHARD: In the first instance ... yes, from a near-distance; in the latter instance ... yes, from a far-distance.

CO-RESPONDENT: In that case is it not that the ‘connection’ is actual?

RICHARD: As the connection is between feeling beings – affective entities within bodies – it is not actual (in the sense that bodies, trees and rocks, are actual) but is quite real (in the sense that the affections, the affective entity and the psychic abilities formed thereof, are real) nevertheless.

CO-RESPONDENT: If somebody can feel the thoughts and feelings of the other from a far distance, does it not mean that there is some kind of ‘actual’ transmission or connection going on?

RICHARD: There is an affective/ psychic transmission/ connection going on ... but only between the feeling beings within bodies (there is no such thing going on between bodies). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 115, 10 June 2006).

RESPONDENT: So if feeling being in body A affectively/ psychically affects feeling being in body B, such as feeling being A experiences anger and body A has the resulting hormonal secretions, and being B experiences fear, and body B has the result hormonal secretions, isn’t it so that those hormonal secretions are actual?

RICHARD: Hormones – such as the adrenaline an angry and/or fearful identity psychosomatically induces a body to secrete – are indeed actual. Viz.:

• adrenaline: a hormone, (HO)2C6H3rCHOHrCH2NHCH3, secreted by the adrenal medulla of people and animals under stress, which has a range of physiological effects, e.g. on circulation, breathing, muscular activity, and carbohydrate metabolism’. (Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: And regardless of the affective nature of the emotions that cause them, doesn’t that mean that the hormonal secretions are not only actual, but also actually linked (transmitted, connected)?

RICHARD: As the link – the transmission (from the feeling being in body A), the connection (betwixt the two feeling beings) – which causes the feeling being in body B to psychosomatically induce its hapless host to secrete hormones is an emotional and/or passional link (transmission, connection) there is no way its affective nature can be disregarded.

Just so there is no misunderstanding: to say that the hormonal secretions are actually transmitted, as you did (in parenthesises) there, is to be saying that body A is emitting adrenaline, for example, and that body B is absorbing it.

RESPONDENT: Also, why do you say emotions are not factual?

RICHARD: I copy-pasted ‘emotions are not factual’ into my search-engine and sent it through all the words I have ever written only to return nil hits; a search for ‘not factual’ returned 20 hits but none of them referred to emotions (the majority were for ‘beliefs are not factual’) ... so I can only presume you are referring to me oft-times saying ‘a feeling is not a fact’.

If so, what I mean by this is that neither a feeling about something – as in ‘it feels right’ for example – makes it factual nor does a feeling of something – as in the feeling of ‘being’ for instance – make it a fact (hence ‘a feeling is not a fact’).

Also the word ‘sense’ – as in ‘a sense of identity’ for example – is often used as a surrogate for the word ‘feeling’ ... as it is more accurate to say ‘a feeling of identity’ then, obviously, that feeling is not a fact.

RESPONDENT: They are chemicals, what is not factual about that?

RICHARD: Chemicals are, of course, factual.

*

RESPONDENT: Now regarding ‘a feeling is not a fact’. This is so tricky. The amygdale identifies various sense data with the need for certain chemicals: for a tiger you need this chemical, for a baby you need that chemical. But no, that would mean identification (thought) comes first. So that means that prior to identification happening, we get chemicals, based on unidentified sense data?

RICHARD: Yes (if by ‘unidentified’ you mean cognitive identification): the raison d’être for the instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, genetically endowed by blind nature is that a split-second reaction occurs in situations where survival depends upon instant action.

In addition to this basic programming, from birth onwards (thus prior to thought developing), an affective memory forms as the baby experiences itself and its world ... and even when cognition develops the circuitry is such that sense impressions go first to the affective memory (which colours the cognitive memory).

Thus when there a tiger is pouncing (to use your example), and there is no time for any leisurely appraisal of the situation before taking appropriate action, there is what has been called a ‘quick and dirty’ emotional/passional scanning of danger, and a near-instantaneous affective-based response.

In a blind rage, for instance, where one instinctually lashes out it is common to later on reflect and say ‘I don’t know what came over me’ (or words to that effect).

RESPONDENT: So that means I am anger waiting to happen, that the sense data that triggers it is not even really relevant.

RICHARD: Well, not always relevant but, at the very least, sometimes so ... it is only a rough and ready software package, which blind nature endows, when all is said and done.

RESPONDENT: I am love waiting to happen, etc. This looks too random.

RICHARD: Whilst nature may be blind it is not necessarily haphazard, arbitrary ... it, being cause-and-effect based, is pragmatic (as opposed to principled) in an adventitious way. The phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ means those best fitted to the environment survive to propagate the species (and not necessarily survival of the most muscular as it is sometimes taken to mean).

RESPONDENT: Am ‘I’ a constant chemical (emotional) combination waiting to focus as one or the other at the sight, smell, touch, of just about anything?

RICHARD: At root, or at ‘my’ most basic ... yes: a hair-trigger entity genetically programmed to thoughtlessly (aka passionately) spring into action at the slightest hint of danger ... as is evidenced in trampling one’s fellow human beings to death at the exits in the blind panic for survival in a fire at a theatre or cinema, for example.

RESPONDENT: How does this chemical saturation so instantly abate and allow a PCE to happen?

RICHARD: You do seem to be disregarding the fact that, not only am ‘I’ anger waiting to happen (or any other of the ‘bad’ feelings) or love waiting to happen (or any other of the ‘good’ feelings), ‘I’ am also the felicitous/ innocuous feelings waiting to happen ... feelings such as happiness and harmlessness, for example.

Put simply: neither a grim and glum person nor a loving and compassionate person has much chance of allowing the PCE to happen.

RESPONDENT: You said in your email that the feelings are creating the feeler.

RICHARD: Yes, from birth onwards, if not before (thus prior to thought developing), an affective ‘self’ forms as the baby feels itself and its world ... and even when cognition develops the circuitry is such that sense impressions go first to the affective faculty (which colours the cognitive faculty) and perpetuates/reinforces that feeling of ‘being’ or ‘presence’. Thus the feeling ‘self’ (‘me’ as soul) exists prior to and underpins the thinking ‘self’ (‘I’ as ego) ... the thinker arises out of the feeler.

RESPONDENT: So it seems logical to me that the feelings, must exist prior of the feeler, because the creator must exist prior to its creation, right?

RICHARD: I would not put it that way – ‘the creator’ and ‘its creation’ – as it conjures up an impression of a cause separate from its effect whereas, if you were to intimately examine this, feeling it out for yourself, you will find that you are your feelings (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings) and your feelings are you (‘my’ feelings are ‘me’).

In hindsight it probably would have been better if I had never baldly said that the feelings *create* the feeler in the e-mail you refer to (further above) as I usually say the feelings *form* themselves into the feeler (as a feeling of ‘being’ or ‘presence’) as that better describes the process. For example:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘And from what stuff are we made of (our identities) anyhow that it cannot be determined by any magnetic scanning?
• [Richard]: ‘Primarily the identity within is the affections (the affective feelings) – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – as *the instinctual passions form themselves into* a ‘presence’, a ‘spirit’, a ‘being’ ... ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself. MRI scans, and all the rest, cannot detect a phantom being, the ghost in the machine. (...) Put expressively the affective feelings swirl around forming a whirlpool or an eddy (which vortex is the ‘presence’, the ‘spirit’, the ‘being’): mostly peoples experience ‘self’ as being a centre, around which the affective feelings form a barrier, which centre could be graphically likened to a dot in a circle (the circle being the affective feelings) which is what gives rise to the admonitions to break down the walls, the barriers, with which the centre protects itself.
Those people who are self-realised have realised that there is no ‘dot’ in the centre of the circle ... hence the word ‘void’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 10 June 2003).

I put it in that expressive way because it is not possible to separate out the feeler from the feelings it is ... just as it is impossible to separate the whirlpool or the eddy – the vortex – from the swirling stuff which is the cause of it (a whirlpool or an eddy – a vortex – of water or air, for example, is the very swirling water or air as the one is not distinct from the other) ... hence ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: So the feelings are innative to the human being, that means they are actual. Instead the feeler is a real entity, but not actual.

RICHARD: Again I would not put it that way ... just because the genetic-inheritance of the instinctual passions is actual – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), being a nucleic acid in which the sugar component is deoxyribose, is a chemical substance – does not necessarily mean that a feeling engendered by that genetic software programme, such as the feeling of fear for example, is actual – any more than the fearer it automatically forms itself into by its very occurrence is actual – especially as you go on to say that the feeler is a real entity but not actual (which implies that the fearer is not the fear – as in ‘I’ am *not* ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are *not* ‘me’ – which, at the very least, smacks of denial if not detachment/disassociation or even full-blown disidentification from one’s roots).

Now, I could go on from this to say that the feeling is a movement, a motion, and not a thing, as there is no such happening as a stationary (static) feeling and that it is this very movement or motion of the feeling in action when it occurs which automatically forms the feeler (such as in the whirlpool of water/air analogy above) but, again, it would be far more fruitful if you were to intimately examine all this, by feeling it out for yourself rather than just thinking about it, and if you were to actually do so – literally feel it for yourself – you will surely find out, just as ‘I’ did all those years ago, that you are your feelings (as in ‘I’ *am* ‘my’ feelings) and your feelings are you (as in ‘my’ feelings *are* ‘me’).

The actualism method is an experiential method ... not an intellectual method (an analytical method, a psychological method, a philosophical method) or any other self-preserving method of inaction.

RESPONDENT: So we have reality and actuality. Reality comes from the Latin word ‘res’, which means thing. A thing is manmade.

RICHARD: Not necessarily ... the word ‘thing’ is a generic word and can refer to any object/entity whether geological/biological or manufactured/fabricated ... whatever has a discrete, independent existence (whether it be material or immaterial as in concrete or abstract/physical or metaphysical) and is not a relation or a function, and so on, is a thing.

It is a very wide-ranging word.

RESPONDENT: And man can not do anything without thought and feelings. Right?

RICHARD: No, I have been doing everything for over a decade now sans feelings ... and, just like anybody else, do many things without thought (scratching an itch, for instance, or walking).

A case could probably be made that the majority of things one does are done on auto-pilot.

RESPONDENT: A tree is not man made, so is a tree a thing or a no-thing?

RICHARD: A tree is a thing ... all objects/entities are things.

RESPONDENT: To make a thing we use ingredients from nature, like wood, iron, etc., but we put them together with factual thought. So a table, a chair, a car are things. Trees, mountains, animals, are not. Right?

RICHARD: No, trees, mountains, animals are things ... just as pieces of wood, lumps of iron, and so on, are.

RICHARD: It is the belief about ‘loving all creatures and the environment’ that is insidious, for this is how you are manipulated by those who seek to control you.

RESPONDENT: I agree with you that belief is insidious. We ARE the beliefs. We like the control of the belief, for then we can just ‘kick’ back and live by what we ‘believe’, think, and the most insidious of these beliefs is the belief in our own knowledge. It is on the soft, comforting pillow of knowledge that we lay our heads, hearts, feelings.

RICHARD: From the way you write the rest of your post, it does not sound all that comforting to me.

RESPONDENT: I have no belief in my feelings.

RICHARD: If you say so ... if I were you I would re-examine this statement, however.

RESPONDENT: These are ‘actual’. There are feelings of ‘sadness’; ‘pleasure’, the labels, but these are actually emotions, not feelings.

RICHARD: The word ‘feelings’ covers the whole gamut of the affective faculties: emotions, passions and calenture (and the word ‘calenture’ is deliberately used because it means a feverish, burning and zealous ardour that results in delirium and hallucinations).

RESPONDENT: By feelings I – mean something ‘deeper’ than thought, than emotion ... something connected to something more real ... like insight.

RICHARD: ‘More real’ ? Are there gradations of reality? It must be a hassle trying to determine what is more or less real ... I am glad that I stick to facts and actuality. A fact is obvious ... never ‘more or less’ a fact. Actuality is self-evident ... there is no need to ascertain if some thing is more or less actual.

And an insight is seeing the fact ... direct seeing. It is not a feeling ... be it ‘deep’ or otherwise. You are interchanging ‘insight’ (awareness, discernment, understanding, penetration, acumen, perspicacity, discrimination) with ‘intuition’ (sixth sense, divination, presentiment, clairvoyance, second sight, extrasensory perception, instinct). And intuition has a poor track record for veracity. The best that intuition has ever done when tested exactly is a 53.4% accuracy ... which is only marginally above guess-work anyway (and that was the best result ... the rest are 50/50).

RESPONDENT: By ‘no belief in them’, I mean that they do not offer security, do not offer something from which I derive comfort, are not something lasting.

RICHARD: Then why defend them so? The only thing that offers ‘security’ is ceasing to exist as an ego ‘I’ and a soul ‘me’; the only thing that offers ‘comfort’ is the utter safety of being here now; the only thing that is lasting is the infinitude of this physical universe ... and by ‘infinitude’ I am referring to being where this moment in eternal time and this place in infinite space intersect. In the jargon it is called: ‘being here now’ ... only I mean it as this flesh and blood body and not as some ‘Immortal Self’.

RESPONDENT: They are what they are, from moment to moment.

RICHARD: Just what does that mean: ‘they are what they are’ ? It sounds like a platitude to me. Anyway, feelings are downright destructive: 160,000,000 million people killed in wars this century alone, according to the most recent estimate I have heard.

RESPONDENT: They are never the same.

RICHARD: Oh, yes they are ... they are tediously repetitious.

RESPONDENT: Sometimes they are. Those are the emotions.

RICHARD: Not only the emotions ... also the passions and calenture. And from the way you are leaning toward having faith in intuition ... so to is the psychic. It is all the same-same stuff that human beings have fallen prey to for millennia ... with disastrous results.

RESPONDENT: They are always new.

RICHARD: Oh, no they are not ... they are the same old same old.

RESPONDENT: These are the insights. They just come to one ‘out of the blue’. This is what I mean by ‘true feelings’, the sixth sense. You are a firm adherent to the five senses; haven’t you come in contact with the sixth one yet?

RICHARD: Yes ... many years ago. You are not talking to a beginner here ... I have already been down that path. The ‘sixth sense’ is where one enters into the psychic world of prescience and clairvoyance and all that stuff. Also notoriously unreliable ... and down-right dangerous into the bargain.

RESPONDENT: Don’t you ever just ‘know things’ without any reason or rhyme? Do you listen to this sixth sense?

RICHARD: No ... I no longer have it. Intuition (and the imaginative faculty that it is born of) disappeared completely in 1992 when the soul ‘me’ vanished entirely from this body. Thus I know as a fact that it is all born of the affective faculties, as I have had no feelings at all since then.

RESPONDENT: For instance, a couple of years ago some numbers came to me, in my ‘feelings’. I knew they were ‘magic’ numbers, but I didn’t know what to do with them ... we don’t have a lottery in Arkansas, and I have no idea how a lottery works anyway ... something to do with numbers. Anyway, we were driving through a state where gambling was legal, and when we sat down to eat, the waitress brought us a card to play keno on. I had a certificate to play the game, but I didn’t know how. It was worth a two dollar bet, so I used all of my numbers, and they came up sequentially on the game board and I won a hundred dollars. (Now I know that if I had played only my numbers, I would have won about $50,000). I knew I was wasting the numbers because I just knew (felt) they were worth a lot of money, but I had been carrying them around in my head for a long time, and I was ready to get rid of them. This is not the only instance of ‘feelings’ I have had ... when you just know things that have happened or are going to happen.

RICHARD: This is a subject that I have examined with great interest over the years ... it is not something that I have discarded capriciously. These days, when someone sits in my living room and makes these kind of statements – detailing their case-history – I always ask them to remember when their much-treasured intuition did not work ... and eventually they come to see that it works out at about 50/50. As this equals guess-work, they invariably leave much more soberly – and wiser – than when they came in. Intuition cannot survive scrutiny.

RESPONDENT: Over the years I learned not to listen to this sixth sense. It was always uncomfortable for me being around people because I could ‘feel’ what they were feeling. That was no fun, and when I was younger I couldn’t differentiate between who was feeling what. I thought the feelings were mine, and they weren’t.

RICHARD: Yes ... this is the psychic connection between normal human beings and it is born of the affective faculties. In particular: fear. Hence group highs can turn into mob riots, as fear is an unstable affective state.

RESPONDENT: So by feelings, Richard, I mean something more than the feelings that cause wars and hunger and great disparities, emotions.

RICHARD: Not so ... these are the very feelings that ‘cause wars and hunger and great disparities’ . Maybe a case may be made that they are not emotions ... but they are certainly passions and calenture. Added to the psychic dimension, they are a volatile mixture.

RESPONDENT: It takes a lot of patience; a lot of love and care; and an absence of judgement to live through the feelings. I don’t mean living ‘through’ feelings, but without attachment to the feelings.

RICHARD: Who is the person that is ‘without attachment to the feelings’ ?

RESPONDENT: And who would be the one to dispense with them?

RICHARD: You are not Jewish, by any chance, are you ... answering a question with a counter-question? Yet I find it easy to answer, nevertheless: The ego ‘I’ can self-immolate psychologically. The soul ‘me’ can self-immolate psychically. Psychological and psychic self-immolation is the only sensible sacrifice that ‘I’ and ‘me’ can make in order to reveal perfection. Life is bursting with meaning when ‘I’ and ‘me’ are no longer present to mess things up. ‘I’ and ‘me’ stand in the way of that purity being apparent. ‘My’ presence prohibits perfection being evident. ‘I’ and ‘me’ prevent the very meaning to life, which ‘I’ and ‘me’ are searching for, from coming into plain view. The main trouble is that ‘I’ and ‘me’ wish to remain in existence to savour the meaning; ‘I’ and ‘me’ mistakenly think that meaning is the product of the mind and the heart. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Apperceptive awareness makes self-immolation possible.

Then the search for meaning amidst the debris of the much-vaunted human hopes and dreams and schemes has come to its timely end. With the end of ‘I’ and ‘me’, the distance or separation between ‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘my’ senses – and thus the external world – disappears. To be the senses as a bare awareness is apperception, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is. Because there is no ‘I’ as an observer – a little person inside one’s head – or ‘me’ as a feeler – a little person inside one’s heart – to have sensations, I am the sensations. There is nothing except the series of sensations which happen ... not to ‘I’ or ‘me’ but just happening ... moment by moment ... one after another. To be these sensations, as distinct from having them, engenders the most astonishing sense of freedom and release. Consequently, I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away ... nor has it ever been away. ‘I’ and ‘me’ were standing in the way of meaning.

So, again: ‘Who is the person that is ‘without attachment to the feelings’?

RESPONDENT: I wonder Richard, why folks confuse ‘feelings’ which are not real and are removable with ‘emotions’ why are of the humanness, real and non removable?

RICHARD: The word <feeling> serves two faculties (sensate and affective) as in ‘I feel the sun on my face’ or ‘I feel the wind in my hair (sensate feeling) and ‘I feel hateful’ or ‘I feel loving’ (affective feeling). Thus when I write about the affective feelings I am meaning it as all the emotions and passions and calentures ... it is an all-inclusive term. The affective feelings include both the affectionate and desirable emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are loving and trusting) and hostile and invidious emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are hateful and fearful). This means the entire ‘software package’ of malice and sorrow along with its antidotal love and compassion in its totality ... all which are born of the instincts: the fear and aggression (savage) and nurture and desire (tender) genetically encoded by blind nature as a ‘rough and ready’ survival package. As it is ‘software’ and not ‘hardware’ it can be deleted in its totality when it is no longer needed. And as intelligence (the ability to think, to reflect and plan and implement considered action for beneficial reasons) has evolved in one carbon-based life-form – the human species – it is no longer needed. This ‘quick and dirty’ reactionary package is now a hindrance – a liability rather than an asset – and the 160,000,000 human beings killed in wars this century by their fellow human beings bears stark testimony to this observation.

In my experience the whole lot are ‘removable’ – but only when the rudimentary animal self lurking around in the centre of these feelings psychologically and psychically self-immolates – and not just the so-called ‘bad’ ones (the savage instincts). That is, both the ‘good’ feelings, the affectionate and desirable emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are loving and trusting) and the ‘bad’ feelings, the hostile and invidious emotions and/or passions and/or calentures (those that are hateful and fearful) are no longer extant. The result is an individual peace-on-earth.

Which ones is it that you are saying are ‘humaneness’ and therefore ‘non removable’?

RESPONDENT: One thing about actualism that has never been explained to my satisfaction is why thought is classified as actual, whereas feeling is not.

RICHARD: Put succinctly: thought operates here in this actual world – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – whereas feelings do not.

RESPONDENT: Actualists say that thought is simply the human brain in operation.

RICHARD: They only say that to counter the religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical notion, which some peoples espouse, that thought is not of the human brain.

RESPONDENT: Why shouldn’t feeling have the same ontological status?

RICHARD: Simply because actualism is experiential and not ontological ... ‘of or pertaining to ontology [the science or study of being; that part of metaphysics which relates to the nature or essence of being or existence]; metaphysical’ (Oxford Dictionary).

RESPONDENT: Why should the thought of the number 42 be considered actual, while the feeling of hunger is not?

RICHARD: For no other reason than because the thought of the number 42 operates here in this actual world – as evidenced in a PCE – whereas the feeling of hunger does not.

RESPONDENT: In both cases, the only actuality is the human brain in operation.

RICHARD: Nope ... in the latter case the affective faculty in its entirety/the identity in toto is also in operation.

RESPONDENT: I did say ‘the only actuality’ so I question your answer here. Whatever thinking and feeling is going on, the only actuality (in your terms) is the neuro-chemical activity in the brain (etc.).

RICHARD: I am only too happy to rephrase my answer:

• [Respondent]: ‘Why should the thought of the number 42 be considered actual, while the feeling of hunger is not?
• [Richard]: ‘For no other reason than because the thought of the number 42 operates here in this actual world – as evidenced in a PCE – whereas the feeling of hunger does not.
• [Respondent]: ‘In both cases, the only actuality is the human brain in operation.
• [Richard]: ‘Nope ... the latter case does not operate here in this actual world (it has no actuality whatsoever).

RESPONDENT: In other words, an actual brain in the process of thinking has the same ontological status as an actual brain in the process of feeling ... does it not?

RICHARD: As I am not an ontologist I am unable to answer meaningfully in either the affirmative or the negative ... what I can do, however, is point out that by only ascribing actuality to neuro-chemical activity in the brain (and not to thought, thoughts and thinking as well) you are effectively ignoring my succinct response at the top of this page.

I did wonder at your characterisation of a prosaic reason as being an astonishing one.

RICHARD: The reason for drawing your attention to the above text is because the recent “Burnt Toast” thread, on the Discuss Actualism Online forum, is where Rick has painstakingly constructed a teetering edifice of such a flashy magnitude—an inverted pyramid teetering so gaudily on its illegitimate capstone as to register 7.4 on the Richter Scale (and surpassed only by his infamous ‘affective feelings are actual’ thread which registered 9.6 on that eponymous scale)—as to render it more than passing strange how none of the thread’s responders ever noticed it.

• Burnt Toast: That’s that Sh* I don’t like!

Post № 01; Rick; 14 Apr 2024.

[https://discuss.actualism.online/t/burnt-toast-thats-that-sh-i-dont-like/965].

In 1959, Broadway writers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein composed “My Favourite Things” for their hit musical The Sound of Music, whose film adaptation starring Julie Andrews went on to win five Oscars, including Best Picture. “My Favourite Things” was Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s ode to those things for which they heartily approved, namely: || Raindrops on roses | whiskers on kittens | Bright copper kettles | warm woollen mittens | Brown paper packages tied up with strings | Cream coloured ponies | crisp apple strudels | Doorbells | sleigh bells | schnitzel with noodles | Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings | Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes | Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eye lashes | Silver white winters that melt into springs ||

{Video Caption: The Sound of Music; My Favourite Thing; 1965}.

53 years later, in what was plainly a furtive nod to the Broadway composers, Chicago debutants Messrs. Chief Keef and Lil’ Reese, self-styled “musicians,” pillars of their community, and “good boys” according to their mommas, penned their chart-topping “[Things] I Don’t Like”, a definitive, antipodal version of the 1959 classic. “[Things] I Don’t Like” was Chief Keef’s and Lil’ Reese’s sonnet dedicated to those things for which they fervently disapproved, namely: || fuck niggas | snitch niggas | bitch niggas | sneak dissers | popped bitches | smoking Reggie | fake trues | fake shoes | flake niggas | stalking-ass bitches | playing both sides | thirsty-ass bitches ||

{Video Caption: Chief Keef: I Don’t Like f/ Lil Reese}.

Enter Richard, a Perth native {!sic!; a Harewood native, actually}, whose accomplishments include Peace on Earth, setting the stage on fire with a unique twist to the like/ dislike dichotomy, which the arts had been forcing upon its patrons since time began. Artists worth their salt pay homage to their forebears before striking out on their own. Accordingly, in the fashion of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Richard utilised the medium of prose to first describe a thing he liked, namely:

• “hot, golden-brown toast covered with butter just beginning to melt and drip”.

Then, in style characteristic of Chief Keef and Lil’ Reese, he submitted a thing he did not like, namely:

• “cold, charred-black toast covered with butter long-ago melted and now congealed”.

How is one to feel about this? The audience has been straightaway driven from one extreme of the like/ dislike spectrum to the other. They are confused, dizzy, and, what’s worse, feeling rather neutral about it all. “Meh”, they seem to say, for that is how it feels when subjected to an equal share of repulsive “ones” and pleasing “tens”. But not to worry, for that was just the intro, a mere illustration of the essential defect in the jumbled, chaotic outlooks of those who’d gone before. Then, defying all convention, he rectifies the defective dichotomy by decimating the scales, hierarchies, and gradations altogether, to reveal a pre-existent, underlying, and “ultimate” aspect to everything—golden-brown and charred-black toast alike—that is nothing short of perfect and peerless. Here, and only here, is where all without exception is faultless and flawless.

Here is where ♫ crisp apple strudels and thirsty-ass bitches, raindrops on roses and the raping of villages ♫ can be liked, enjoyed, and appreciated, for how else would one experience a thing that was, in the final analysis, perfect?

RICHARD: “[i]f, upon ordering buttered toast at a café the waiter/ waitress brings hot, golden-brown toast covered with butter just beginning to melt and drip, in contrast to bringing cold, charred-black toast covered with butter long-ago melted and now congealed, I would rate the former as being 10, on a scale of 1-10 and the latter as being 1 on the same scale ... howsoever that is a relative scale as the very stuff of both the former and the latter, being the very stuff of infinitude itself, is incomparable (peerless). Thus, in the ultimate sense, *everything* is perfect here in this actual world”. [emphasis added by Rick]. (Mailing List ‘AF’ Respondent No. 25c, 15 September 2003)

To explain: by hyperopically eyeing what he considers the key word—and thus already mentally reacting to it (he even added emphasis to the word “everything” it will be noticed)—he adroitly overlooked the operative words “the very stuff” (which appear twice mind you) and which reactionary thought has him then engage in what is known in the trade as a strawman argument (wherein an argufier invents something their interlocutor did not say then criticises their own invention as if they are having a meaningful conversation about what the other had actually said).

• Jul 10 2015:

RESPONDENT: “I’m a bit confused about Pure Intent here—since it is a life-force, does it exist only in living organisms?”

RICHARD: “No, not only as living organisms—as in, flora and fauna, that is—but as matter as well (which is what the constituent elements of all flora and fauna are, anyway) as per that ‘same-same stuff as the very stuff of the universe itself’ articulation⁽*⁾ in the email you are responding to”. (Richard, List D, No. 32a, 10 July 2015).

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⁽*⁾Jul 6 2015

RICHARD: “(...). In this context, then, as the term ‘pure intent’ refers to an intimate connection betwixt the near-purity of the sincerity of naiveté and the pristine-purity of that actual innocence which is inherent to living life as a flesh-and-blood body only (i.e., sans identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty) then the benedictive/ liberative impetus, or agency as such, stems from and/or flows from that which is totally other than ‘me’ and/or completely outside of ‘me’ (this factor is very important as it is vital that such impetus, such agency, be not of ‘me’ or ‘my’ doings) and literally invisible to ‘me’—namely: that flesh-and-blood body only being thus apperceptively conscious (i.e., apperceptively sentient). Now, as a flesh-and-blood body is the same-same stuff as the very stuff of the universe itself—inasmuch each and every one of its constituent elements, all of which are as old as the universe is as matter itself is neither created nor destroyed, come out of the ground in the form of the carrots and lettuce and milk and cheese, and whatever else is digested, in conjunction with the air inhaled and the water swallowed and the sunlight absorbed —then what one is, as an apperceptive flesh-and-blood body, is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as such this ‘perpetuus mobilis’ universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude. And this is truly wonderful”. (Richard, List D, Martin, 6 July 2005).

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• June 17 2000

RICHARD: “What I am is the air breathed, the water drunk, the food eaten and the sunlight absorbed—thus I am nothing but ‘the stuff of which the universe is made’ (matter). The matter of the universe is both actual things (solid stuff) and active force (energetic stuff). The immeasurable amount of ‘stuff of the universe’ (either in its solid aspect or energetic phase) is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of myriad form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. This universe, being boundless and limitless (never beginning and never ending) is unborn and undying—as I remarked (further above): it is this universe which is immortal”. (Richard, List B, No. 19d, 17 June 2000).

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• March 16 2000

RICHARD: “Yet a fact never changes (otherwise it is not a fact). It is a fact that there is only heart and lungs and liver and kidneys and so on ‘within’ this flesh and blood body”.

RESPONDENT: “Yes that qualify as material plane stuff. Why couldn’t there be non-material plane stuff? Why limit stuff? Isn’t that being a bit stuffy?”

RICHARD: “Yet ‘material stuff’ is not limited: this physical universe, being infinite and eternal, is boundless and limitless. The physical infinitude that this very material universe actually is, is comprised of an unlimited amount of ‘material stuff’ perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the unbounded reaches of infinite space throughout the immeasurable extent of eternal time. Thus the ‘material stuff’ that is this flesh and blood body is the very same-same ‘material stuff’ as the ‘material stuff’ of this infinite and eternal physical universe, in that I come out of the ground (‘material stuff’) as a variety of carrots and lettuce and milk and cheese and whatever (‘material stuff’), combined with the air (‘material stuff’) that I breath and the water (‘material stuff’) that I drink and the sunlight (‘material stuff’) that I absorb. As such there is no ‘limit’ whatsoever, and, as this flesh and blood body (‘material stuff’), I am this very ‘material stuff’ universe experiencing its own infinitude (‘material stuff’) as a sensate and reflective human being (‘material stuff’). This very physical universe (‘material stuff’) is also experiencing itself as cats and dogs (‘material stuff’) and all other sentient beings (‘material stuff’).

How on earth can all this magnificence be ‘a bit stuffy’ (i.e., ‘dull; lacking in freshness or interest’; Oxford English Dictionary)? Everything is in a constant state of flux: nothing stays the same, each moment again everything is novel, fresh, vital, dynamic. One can never, ever be bored”. (Richard, List C, No. 3, 16 March 2000).

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• October 20 2001

RICHARD: “Whereas, as I said further above, I am this flesh and blood body only—it is the stuff of this body which is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in infinitude—and, as this flesh and blood body only, I was born, live for x-number of years, and die, whereupon all the stuff of this body disperses into a multitude of other forms (as it also partially does moment-to-moment throughout its life). In short: I am mortal”. (Richard, List B, No. 33g, 20 October 2001).

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• October 21 2001:

RICHARD: “In short: I am mortal”.

RESPONDENT: “In long: this mortal is also the infinitude of the universe, that is timeless, etc”.

RICHARD: “No ... ‘in long’ it reads as above: I am this flesh and blood body only—it is the stuff of this body which is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in infinitude—and, as this flesh and blood body only, I was born, live for x-number of years, and die, whereupon all the stuff of this body disperses into a multitude of other forms (as it also partially does moment-to-moment throughout its life). I am not ‘timeless, etc.’”.

RESPONDENT: “I thought we agreed upon that point: you and I, as universe, are infinite and timeless etc., didn’t we?”

RICHARD: “No, I have been most specific that the physical universe is spatially infinite, temporally eternal and materially perpetual—in direct contrast to the non-physical Brahman being spaceless, timeless and formless. ’Tis the universe which is immortal—not some god (or ground of being by whatever name)”.

RESPONDENT: “[Richard]: ’Tis the universe which is immortal, not some god (or ground of being by whatever name). [A]. I am mortal. [B]. [endquotes]. Can mortality ever know that which is immortal? [A] and [B] are mutually contradictory statements, my friend. So, which one is it, [A] or [B]?”

RICHARD: “It is quite simple: the very stuff of this universe is immortal (perpetual) whereas the shape or form that this stuff takes, which is born, grows, ages, and dies, is what is mortal (transitory)—be it flesh and blood bodies, planets, stars or nebulae (or even houses and cars and so on). I have also referred to this all-pervading perpetuality in earlier posts to you in regards buildings, pixels on computer screens and other examples. Viz.:

• [Richard]: “...the universe is as much the building you are sitting in reading these words as it is ‘out there’ in the far reaches of galactic distance”.

• [Richard]: “...these pixels on this computer screen are as much the universe as anything else is—there is no thing that is not the universe”.

• [Richard]: “...all flora and fauna are as much the universe as all the stars are (which are born, grow, age and die)—all of the universe is in a constate state of flux”.

• [Richard]: “...there is nothing else other than this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe”.

• [Richard]: “...as the universe is all existence (all time, all space and all matter) what is called the ‘relative’ is actually the absolute”.

• [Richard]: “...the universe is constantly arranging and rearranging itself everywhere and everywhen as everything—that something is born and dies is but a local event (‘local’ as viewed by an observer)”.

• [Richard]: “...matter is arranging and rearranging itself perpetually (matter as either mass or energy)”.

• [Richard]: “...as this universe is eternal it is all time—it is already always this moment in eternal time whenever you go anywhere”.

• [Richard]: “...as this universe is infinite it is all space—it is already always this place in infinite space whenever you go anywhere”.

• [Richard]: “...the stuff of this flesh and blood body is the very stuff of the universe and the stuff of this flesh and blood body has been virtually everywhere and everything at everywhen”.

• [Richard]: “...it is the stuff of this body which is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in infinitude”.

Therefore a mortal or transitory shape or form, comprised of immortal or perpetual stuff, can indeed ‘know that which is immortal’, or, as I have said before, as this flesh and blood body only (which means sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) I am this universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being: as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

And if you gaze deeply into the inky darkness betwixt the stars you will be standing naked before infinitude.

Then you will see it (the absolute) even when looking at your own hand ... for example”. (Richard, List B, No. 33g, 12 October 2001).

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• June 21 2000

RESPONDENT: “(...). Now my question is which entity ‘I’ or ‘me’ is perceiving this state which you are describing...”.

RICHARD: “The brain is entirely capable of perception without any ‘I’ or ‘me’ whatsoever—it does it a whole lot better, in fact. I am the sense organs: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me—and this thinking is me.

Whereas ‘I’/‘me’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose ... and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world—the world as-it-is.

RESPONDENT: “...the state that I name ‘stasis’ if you allow me, as ‘perfect’?

RICHARD: “Sure ... although most people I have used the word ‘stasis’ with, as being a word describing the motile equanimity which ensues in arriving at perfection, initially comprehend ‘stasis’ as being either a static equipollence or a stagnant immobility—rather the dynamic, scintillating vitality of the peerless perfection of infinitude wherein everything is the vivid, sparkling and lustrous purity that is coming from nowhere nor going anywhere. Consequently I rarely, if ever, use the word—too much explaining involved”.

RESPONDENT: “If I am not wrong due to physics the world is going toward an atrophy [an entropy]. Disorder. You perceive what is and call it perfect”.

RICHARD: “In physics, entropy applies only in a closed system, whereas this universe is perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in myriads of countless form (nebulae, stars, planets and so on) all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time. This infinitude is perfection (infinitude has no opposite) and as infinitude cannot be entropic (infinitude is perpetuus mobilis) there is no disorder whatsoever”. (Richard, List B, No. 49, 21 June 2000).

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• February 13 2002

RESPONDENT: “Is the universe being infinite in all directions a theory, not a fact?”

RICHARD: “First of all, it is physically impossible to empirically establish the extended attributes of space, time and matter—one cannot, ever, hop into some ultra high speed spacecraft and travel to some ‘where’ or ‘when’ or ‘that’ and show or demonstrate or exhibit infinitude. Needless is it to say, for those who propose a caused universe, that no one has journeyed to where they can witness such a creation of material ex nihilo? Needless is it to say, for those who propose a temporary universe, that no one has travelled to when that limited time began? Needless is it to say, for those who propose a finite universe, that no one has voyaged to the edge of that bounded universe?

Similarly, if (note ‘if’) one could roam forever throughout the physical infinitude of immeasurable matter perpetually arranging and rearranging itself in endless varieties of form all over the boundless reaches of infinite space throughout the limitless extent of eternal time—one would never ‘prove’ anything.

Apart from the current passionate preoccupation by academia with Quantum Theory (which gets ever more frantic due to the mathematicians who, having taken over physics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are bemiring themselves more and more in their futile efforts to prove their god to be a mathematician) modern astronomy is showing the universe to be immensely vast. For example, in 1986 a huge conglomeration of galaxies that is 1,000,000,000 light years long, 300,000,000 light years wide and 100,000,000 light years thick were found (which finding was confirmed in 1990). This ‘wall of galaxies’, as it became known, would have taken 100,000,000,000 years to form under the workings of the ‘Big Bang’ theory ... which makes the mathematically estimated ‘age’ of the universe—12 to 14 billion years—simply look sillier than it already did.

Obviously then, the entire question revolves around being sensible, and I always plunk for a rational or reasonable approach—the judicious approach—from the word go.

It is up to those who propose an edge, a boundary, a beginning, a duration, an ending, a depletion to demonstrate the veracity of their claim. Until then, the universe will go on being what it is: a boundless, limitless, immeasurable infinitude.

Furthermore, they need to satisfactorily explain why they are unnecessarily complicating what is actually a simple issue: they need to satisfactorily explain why they are positing a finite space—and where it came from and out of what and how and why; they need to satisfactorily explain why they are positing a limited time—and when it came and from what and how and why; they need to satisfactorily explain why they are positing depletable matter—and where it came from and out of what and how and why. They also need to satisfactorily explain just what constitutes their timeless and spaceless nothingness which this immense universe (supposedly) arose out of.

Apperception reveals that identity (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) creates a centre to consciousness—and thus a boundary (or circumference)—which is then projected onto this universe’s properties; the ending of identity is the ending of such boundaries.

In an apperceptive awareness it is patently obvious that one is the universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being—as such the universe is stunningly conscious of its own infinitude”. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 30, 13 February 2002)..

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