So even just based on this talk, it seems to illustrate how challenging reclaiming personal intention would be for us even as small groups let alone world wide. Does it not?

Yes.

I find myself at a loss. Why does the idea seem so unimaginable? Perhaps an example to illustrate the question. If I try to help my wife with what she thinks she is doing, or help her with what she actually wants to do, which would be more valuable?

The latter.

Help her do what she actually wants to do.

I think maybe we have to set up systems that accomplish what we want without the need for willpower.

Willpower is an illusion, a delusion of conventional thought and education. A distraction for what we actually need to accomplish. We substitute ideas of willpower for an understanding of actual intention. The two are by no means the same thing. We can’t begin to articulate a purpose, an actual anchored pattern of observation and behaviour, let alone make ourselves do anything other than that.

That’s all intention actually is, present centred observation with structured behaviour based on that observation. The observation being all inclusive, accounting for our knowledge, skills, state of mind and health, as well as for the concrete details of our physical environment. Is this really so insane?

Not at all. Is this what we actually do? Does planning allow for much of that? Any of it?

I think I’ve done it in small areas which is how I’ve sustained the activity, but I need to do it more. Planning does not.

I think we need to include incentives if we expect anything to get done. We can hire workers, but if you don’t pay them, they will quit.

We have all the incentive we need. We substitute other concepts for incentive and then get confused when those fail to hold our attention, especially over any real length of time. We actually are curious beings, exploratory. We do seek to engage in experiences for novelty sake even when there is no other reason to do it.

Yes, and that’s the same reason we get bored with something.

Addictions are an example of that kind of motivation. Because we ignore our need to explore, our need for stimulation, we will take any novel stimulation we can get because our conventional thinking doesn’t allow for self generated novelty. It doesn’t support imaginative engagement with our day to day reality. This is actually what made me even think to begin trying to design that game I am working on, as difficult as I am finding it to progress in.

Is this how volunteer organizations work? People with desire and intention? They serve as a stand in and generally offer a greater degree of novelty than most other activities. I would say they are a genuine option as they tend to allow a high degree of the human element which is an abundant source of novelty even if people deny that they actually want it, instead calling it drama. People become addicted to emotionally poisonous behaviour, because they have little or no sense for how to evaluate the wholesomeness of emotional experience or stimulation, either thinking of it as all good or all bad. All is fair or life isn’t fair. Is there really any middle ground in society these days?

Like having a study group to help you do homework.

We are our own little society, so I say yes. Possibly in small groups. Do these groups hold up under pressure? Can they survive a lifetime? If not why not?

I think each member needs a personal reason to stick with it.

They can find a personal reason in most cases. Are they given much support in finding that personal reason, rather than being pressured into some strange sort of conformity?

Pressure only lasts for so long. Do most groups even have enough to offer to make that even possible? If not why not?

No.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~