John Wilde:
The way I look at it, feelings are important, but they're downstream from the real action. The energy that eventually shows up as emotion may be primary, but it goes through some filters and transformations before it becomes emotion, and even then it needs another ingredient to make it into suffering.
So what's the real action? Do you seek to do something with that primal energy? Have more of it? Have it be purer?
What is happiness for you?
John Wilde:
Because I think the desire for AF (or, for that matter, complete cessation in any form) only arises contingent upon another misperception / misconception that translates a whole mode of experience into innate suffering.
Ah interesting. Personally, I think the Buddha and the practice he taught and those Arahants back-in-the-day were onto something, regardless of whether those practices work now (from mistranslation/what-not). I find the goal of Actualism remarkably in line with what I take the goal of the Buddha to have been. And he certainly taught cessation. My brief experiences of cessation have also been the most suffering-free ones in my life. It might be a personal thing but I just can't see having 'being' around and being free of suffering. It's way too unstable.
John Wilde:
Rather than getting rid of phenomena, it's better to get rid of the misperception / misconception that turns it into suffering.. just like you did with insight.
Where do you draw the line, though? Isn't that misperception/misconception also just phenomena? You can't say you don't want to get rid of/alter phenomena, cause if you didn't you wouldn't practice at all. What if emotions themselves also just arise from misperceptions/misconceptions (as I think they do)?
John Wilde:
With this in mind, I don't see any 'danger' of AF just happening spontaneously.
True, you really have to be hell-bent on it, it seems.
John Wilde:
There used to be another argument in favor of AF, and that was altruism: sacrificing all potential for selfishness and harm for the sake of oneself and everyone else.. but that one has turned out to be a bad joke. AF, in some people, is more like an extreme, autistic self-centredness that can't even see itself, reinforced by bullet-proof rationalizations that would prevent even the slightest possibility of recognition (you can't see what doesn't exist, right?).
It's not the best that is humanly possible, not by a long shot. (Despite some very fine people having gone there).
This might be a matter of personal perception (of others), and also of mode of communication. I've seen one AF person's posts, and chatted with him online, and met him in person. He seemed more robot-like/impersonal/harsh on the left end (posting/chatting) and more friendly/personable/remarkably kind on the right end (chatting/in-person). Same person, mind you.
Also, how kind can you come off if someone is arguing with you about something that is obvious to you? For example, imagine two people are staring at a white car, and one person sees it is white, and the other person says "no, it's blue" (cause they're wearing blue-tinted glasses). And you tell them "just take off the glasses and you'll see it's white". And the other starts vehemently arguing with you about why that is crazy. You can choose to just drop it and walk away, or you can keep trying to persuade them to take the glasses off cause you think it's in their best interest. But if you choose to do the latter, at least one participant will be aggressive.. so even if you don't intend to be, how non-aggressive can you come off, especially when everything you say constantly undercuts the other's beliefs and makes him even more aggressive? Now especially take that in a text-only format where you don't even have body language to show you are not intending any harm. I'm not saying AF people are perfect interlocutors, but I would not call them autistically self-centered/egomaniacal.
Put another way: say you want to help your friend, who is a heroin addict. He will really dislike you cutting him off. He will get aggressive/pissed off/whatever. This doesn't mean you don't want to help him, though. And now consider that addiction to 'self' is far more insidious than addiction to heroin (more people kick heroin addictions than 'self' addictions, hah). To avoid his aggression, you could just choose to walk away. But you know he'll be better off if he drops the habit, so you keep trying (thus inciting his aggression). That doesn't mean you intend him harm, though.
John Wilde:
What is it that appeals to you most about AF that you don't find elsewhere?
I agree with its definition of suffering, and it has informed how I interpret Buddhism and I find that interpretation to be more accurate than I did previously (which was basically agreeing with the definition of MCTB ). It also is remarkably simple to check whether you're AF - that is, it's a well-defined attainment. And it seems more peaceful than anything else, as well as more attainable. Also more tailored to modern times than Buddhism, for example.
John Wilde:
How's your practice going?
meh. ups + downs. can't seem to get it going consistently.
John Wilde:
Putting aside what ought to work and what you want to happen .. what actually does work in practice to make you happier and better by whatever criteria you value most?
What works is when I can actually do actualism practice properly (what I consider properly). It's a matter of not being anxious, not being doubtful, not being insincere, but just enjoying being alive. The more I enjoy the moment, the better. It's just so damn hard to do that sometimes, hah, and I know it's not actually hard, it's just insincerity.
Basically when I can let everything I worry about go, and just enjoy and relax. Enjoying the senses. Interacting with people in a harmonious way, laughing/smiling, without any charged-emotions. Even giddiness is uncomfortable. Even 'vibing' with someone/being on the same page/building up on what each other is saying, is uncomfortable, has an unpleasant tinge to it. I also enjoy hanging out with AF people when I've gotten the chance. Something about it is just relaxing/calming.