I Threw Out the Framework in January and I'm Fine

↗ Read the original entry, in Syd's own high-context words

Things are moving fast and I wanted to report it before I forget, as I forgot the details last time. The speed is the headline; the forgetting I have decided not to dwell on.

It is amazing how quickly I learn, actualism or anything else, once I embrace my high-context mind. I can hold a great many things at once. The one drawback is that I cannot communicate any of them to anyone, which I attribute to the other people.

So in January I discarded the framework and started from raw sincere awareness. I no longer read AFT out of habit. I no longer run the method's steps. The framework does not exist inside my mind, only in hindsight, in pieces. I have kept the two pieces that require nothing of me: get back to feeling good, and look at things within about thirty minutes.

I also dropped Richard's feeling-nomenclature and went for raw experience. I find writing a chore these days, so I will leave the nuances out. I mention that I have nuances mainly so it is on the record that there were some.

I used to think a man's feelings toward women were all about sex. They are not. By now I have fully figured out the entire psychic apparatus around sexuality. I figured it out in the course of arranging to have more sex with less involvement, and I consider the theory the achievement.

I have never set out to nip libido in the bud. I never nip anything in the bud. I simply return to the actual moment, away from the inner feeling world — which, with women, means I find out straight away whether there is mutual attraction rather than hoping or intuiting. I have noticed this makes me spontaneously flirtatious even when I did not intend to be. I report the flirtation as a side effect I did not seek and have decided to keep.

No games, no facades, no holding back. That is fun, until it isn't, and then nurture comes in. I thought I had put those feelings to rest, but they kept reappearing. I teased them out again with sincere awareness, and intend to keep teasing them out indefinitely, which I take to mean they are resolved.

I can now see that "enjoy and appreciate" makes sense. "Enjoy" is a word I would never normally use, but it describes my experience. Appreciation does not operate consistently yet, but when it does it magnifies everything, and I mostly notice it magnifying afternoons that were already good.

Since January I have also dropped both actual freedom and PCEs as goals.¹ I stopped caring about them. Whatever happens will be good, because nothing matters in the end — the entire solar system will burn out eventually. I find this a steadying thought and have built a practice on it.

To be clear, I am not claiming enlightenment, and I am not claiming actual freedom, which I no longer want. I am claiming that I feel good and expect to keep feeling good. I quit the method and the goal in the same month, and I am doing fine, which I take as the proof.