Seriousness

RESPONDENT: I understand what you are saying. But I still fail to grasp why (and how you can say) that ‘physical death’ is essential for being happy and harmless (as you haven’t died but still are happy and harmless).

RICHARD: It is the very fact of physical death – everybody alive today on this planet will eventually be dead – which ensures happiness and harmlessness … if everything alive today were to all-of-a-sudden endure forever then everything would matter in the long-term (everything would be of enduring importance (in this ultimate sense) and, therefore, life would be a serious business.

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-happy2.htm

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RESPONDENT: How does it have anything to do with being happy and harmless?

RICHARD: It basically has to do with endurance and, therefore, seriousness.

RESPONDENT: Can you please elaborate on this point?

RICHARD: Sure … this planet, indeed the entire solar system, is going to cease to exist in its current form about 4.5 billion years from now (or some-such figure). All these words – yours, mine, and others (all the dictionaries, encyclopaedias, scholarly tomes and so on) – will perish and all the monuments, all the statues, all the tombstones, all the sacred sites, all the carefully conserved/carefully restored memorabilia, will vanish as if they had never existed … nothing will remain of any human endeavour (including yours truly).

Nothing at all … nil, zero, zilch.

Which means that nothing really matters in the long-term and, as nothing actually is of enduring importance (in this ultimate sense), it means that life can in no way be a serious business.

http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listdcorrespondence/listd07.htm

RICHARD: … this naive boy from the farm writing all these millions of words, this big kid with adult sensibilities tapping with two fingers at this keyboard, is perpetually aged circa 14 years (à la the ‘Peter Pan’ chronicles for example) until physical death.

RESPONDENT: It’s as if you are reading my mind … I was going to type something very similar, you beat me to it!

RICHARD: G’day No. 7, Aha … somebody finally understands!

You know, I have been telling this to people for years but to no avail … for a recent instance:

• [Richard]: ‘ ( … ) around the time of puberty onwards, adolescents become increasingly serious and childhood fun gives way to societally-inculcated obligations and responsibility.

As these are embedded, via affective vibes and psychic currents, ¹ into the instinctually affective programme all sentient beings are genetically endowed with (I have seen many a frisky lamb 🐑 turn into a sedate sheep 🐑, and frolicsome calves 🐄 into sombre cattle 🐄, as maturity takes its toll) they turn into having the appearance of being innate … when they are not.

Life here in this actual world – the world of sensuous delight – is akin to being a child again but with the undeniable advantage of adult sensibilities; when the occasion calls for it I can adopt a suitably solemn expression, nod sagely as appropriate, and get away with being just a big kid having a ball in the otherwise grim and glum land of the grown-ups; indeed, I can even tell them how much fun I am having – that I am just a big kid – and yet they are so serious they assume me to be making some kind of obscure or idiosyncratic joke’.

Now, as far as I am concerned the above quote could not be more clear – I even provide an explanation via a frisky lamb/ frolicsome calves example and the [quote] ‘instinctually affective’ [endquote] cause for a sedate sheep/ sombre cattle plus the embedment into that [quote] ‘affective’ [endquote] programme of the societally-inculcated obligations and responsibility (as in morals and/or ethics and values and/or principles and beliefs and/or truths) – yet only recently two people, whom I know for a fact read all my posts to this forum, literally freaked out upon direct access to me as I actually am (perpetually aged circa 14 years) and absconded in a sheer funk from what they took to be an insane man with a dual personality/ split personality disorder. [..]

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-happy2.htm

RICHARD: As the process of becoming serious occurs during puberty – when the biological imperative kicks in big-time – it thus runs very deep and is fundamental to the make-up of ‘my’ adulthood.

http://actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/humour.htm

RICHARD: You need to have a keen sense of humour. This business of becoming free is not – contrary to popular opinion – a serious business at all. Be totally sincere … most definitely utterly sincere, as genuineness is essential. But serious … no way. Humour is essential – it is inevitable in an actual freedom – and one has a lot of fun along the way. An actual freedom is all about having fun; about enjoying being here; about delighting in being alive. All that ‘being serious’ stuff actively works against peace-on-earth. One has to want to be here on this planet … most people resent being here and wish to escape. This method will bring one into being more fully here than anyone has ever been before. If you do not want to be here, then forget it.