"Intention is the engine that drives Action"
redsash is rapidly becoming one of the most challenging people i know :)
not that i got to see *his* belly-button, but lunchtime conversations have, as they always do with him, provoked some interesting navel-gazing and self-examination.
he rescued my from my performance review with a mild goat curry and a side-order of personal philosophy. for a lunch date in which absolutely no-one got nekkid, it was remarkably stimulating. there's a sense of dual-natured mental chafing, however, that's one-half the conscious attempt to think and express in active verbs rather than (is passive the word i'm looking for here, R?), and one-half the constant feeling of, "ooo, that's interesting and important, i must flag that and come back to it in a minute" (and often as not, getting so distracted by too many other bright and shiny threads to remember even a fraction of what i wanted to come back to).
i should know better than to try this on a monday, really i should, but i felt weak in the face of a great temptation. sometimes, crumbling to one's desires is a perfectly OK thing, and i'm perfectly OK with acknowledging that sexy, brilliant, *stimulating* people are my Achilles' heel. well, all right, a really good indian buffet lubricates the whole encounter exceedingly well. i could have used some raita and a notebook, but i digress.
ever hit a point in your life where you can almost *feel* certain key blocks sliding into place, like you're just on the brink of a Personal Evolutionary Experience, about to get some extra wattage in the Lightbulb of Personal Enlightenment? yeah, i'm on the cusp of one of those things, and parts of it started falling into place when, in the line of conversation about intent, i said the line that heads up this entry. it not only ties back into a conversation i had with matthew recently about poly relationships, and my concerns about one or the other of us "waking up one morning and discovering we've unintentionally fallen into a relationship we didn't mean to happen", it also ties in with another conversation a friend started recently when asked by someone else, "So, how's that poly thing going?"
intent, you see, is a critical part of managing self, and the interactions we have with other people (friends, lovers, partners, co-workers). if you don't know and understand your own intents going into a situation, then how on earth can you make your actions consistent with your own personal code of behaviour, let alone manage other people's expectations for you and/or the situation?
as i see it, intent must, by its very nature, be a deliberate, conscious thing. intent doesn't need to take the form of "a personal course of action, carved in stone", but it does need to be something of which you are *consciously* aware, something to which you *consciously* respond. for example, getting involved with a new person, looking to take on a new lover, even just deciding to date someone casually or socially - these are things we do or have done at some points in our lives. for the self-aware person, the *intent* can be anything from "i'm looking for my life-parter and soul mate" to "i'm just looking for some fun in the short-term". either way, you as an active participant in your own life *should* be able, on the brink of any decision or action, be able to clearly state what the intentions driving your course are.
in my own life, i can look back and lose count of the number of things i've done without clear intent... many of which i have, to degrees both large and small, regretted later. there have been some hair-raising moments as recently as this summer in the development of my relationship with matthew, where he has called me on actions and i have been unable to expliclty express what my driving intentions have been. patterned behaviours are often driven by intentions, but sometimes those intentions are buried so deeply we can't consciously connect to them any more... and often those originating intentions are no longer applicable to a current situation in which we've defaulted to those patterned behaviours, and so we find ourselves surprised when things don't work out quite as we think they should.
intentions have to be dragged to the surface and examined every now and then; IMO, the more times you find yourself triggering patterned behaviours, the more aggressive you have to be with internal investigations, measuring both intent *and* action for appropriateness within the current context.
yes, it's one hell of a lot of work to do constantly, and even those of us with some claim to self-awareness get lazy, or tired, or willfully obstinate from time to time, and slip. those are the moments in which we discover casual lovers have suddenly become Relationships, or patterns of speech have slipped and become inwardly-focused rather than externally focused (it's always easier to hijack someone else's conversation topic and make it All About You than it is to stay present and investigate what the other party is trying to communicate - for example, my biggest pet peeve about conversations with certain people is how i can make an introduction to a topic, and suddenly i'm having to listen to someone tell a tale that may be only tangentially-related to what i've introduced, but in no way furthers the topic as presented). it's hard to stay constantly and consciously aware of intent, it really is, but it's absolutely necessary for clarity of communication, and for measuring the degree of personal consistency you maintain.
in the relationships that i have currently, i have, or am making, a conscious effort to explicitly define and express my own intent for those relationships (and yes, redsash, i'm *trying* to do so in an active verb context). i'm trying to pose the most effective questions i can in order to investigate the intents of the other with whom i am engaged in those relationships. thinking as i write this, i suspect it will be easiest to define each of those intents within the context of the needs or desires i want to meet, rather than saying "i want this to *be* this or that". am i trying to kill too many birds with one stone here? maybe, but i *think* it will be easier to define my intent with statements such as "i want this relationship to meet my needs for a long-term, primary intimate relationship" (in which case, explicitly defining and communicating those needs is a corollary conversation), or "i want to sweep the dishes off the buffet and have sex with you next to the chicken tikka"... as opposed to the less-explicit statements of intent such as, "i want to be your girlfriend", or "i want to be a casual lover".
identify and explictly state intent.
maintain actions (behaviours) that are consistent with the stated intent.
evaluate stated intent regularly for changes.
communicate changes as you find them to manage ongoing expectations.
it all seems so simple, no?
not that i got to see *his* belly-button, but lunchtime conversations have, as they always do with him, provoked some interesting navel-gazing and self-examination.
he rescued my from my performance review with a mild goat curry and a side-order of personal philosophy. for a lunch date in which absolutely no-one got nekkid, it was remarkably stimulating. there's a sense of dual-natured mental chafing, however, that's one-half the conscious attempt to think and express in active verbs rather than (is passive the word i'm looking for here, R?), and one-half the constant feeling of, "ooo, that's interesting and important, i must flag that and come back to it in a minute" (and often as not, getting so distracted by too many other bright and shiny threads to remember even a fraction of what i wanted to come back to).
i should know better than to try this on a monday, really i should, but i felt weak in the face of a great temptation. sometimes, crumbling to one's desires is a perfectly OK thing, and i'm perfectly OK with acknowledging that sexy, brilliant, *stimulating* people are my Achilles' heel. well, all right, a really good indian buffet lubricates the whole encounter exceedingly well. i could have used some raita and a notebook, but i digress.
ever hit a point in your life where you can almost *feel* certain key blocks sliding into place, like you're just on the brink of a Personal Evolutionary Experience, about to get some extra wattage in the Lightbulb of Personal Enlightenment? yeah, i'm on the cusp of one of those things, and parts of it started falling into place when, in the line of conversation about intent, i said the line that heads up this entry. it not only ties back into a conversation i had with matthew recently about poly relationships, and my concerns about one or the other of us "waking up one morning and discovering we've unintentionally fallen into a relationship we didn't mean to happen", it also ties in with another conversation a friend started recently when asked by someone else, "So, how's that poly thing going?"
intent, you see, is a critical part of managing self, and the interactions we have with other people (friends, lovers, partners, co-workers). if you don't know and understand your own intents going into a situation, then how on earth can you make your actions consistent with your own personal code of behaviour, let alone manage other people's expectations for you and/or the situation?
as i see it, intent must, by its very nature, be a deliberate, conscious thing. intent doesn't need to take the form of "a personal course of action, carved in stone", but it does need to be something of which you are *consciously* aware, something to which you *consciously* respond. for example, getting involved with a new person, looking to take on a new lover, even just deciding to date someone casually or socially - these are things we do or have done at some points in our lives. for the self-aware person, the *intent* can be anything from "i'm looking for my life-parter and soul mate" to "i'm just looking for some fun in the short-term". either way, you as an active participant in your own life *should* be able, on the brink of any decision or action, be able to clearly state what the intentions driving your course are.
in my own life, i can look back and lose count of the number of things i've done without clear intent... many of which i have, to degrees both large and small, regretted later. there have been some hair-raising moments as recently as this summer in the development of my relationship with matthew, where he has called me on actions and i have been unable to expliclty express what my driving intentions have been. patterned behaviours are often driven by intentions, but sometimes those intentions are buried so deeply we can't consciously connect to them any more... and often those originating intentions are no longer applicable to a current situation in which we've defaulted to those patterned behaviours, and so we find ourselves surprised when things don't work out quite as we think they should.
intentions have to be dragged to the surface and examined every now and then; IMO, the more times you find yourself triggering patterned behaviours, the more aggressive you have to be with internal investigations, measuring both intent *and* action for appropriateness within the current context.
yes, it's one hell of a lot of work to do constantly, and even those of us with some claim to self-awareness get lazy, or tired, or willfully obstinate from time to time, and slip. those are the moments in which we discover casual lovers have suddenly become Relationships, or patterns of speech have slipped and become inwardly-focused rather than externally focused (it's always easier to hijack someone else's conversation topic and make it All About You than it is to stay present and investigate what the other party is trying to communicate - for example, my biggest pet peeve about conversations with certain people is how i can make an introduction to a topic, and suddenly i'm having to listen to someone tell a tale that may be only tangentially-related to what i've introduced, but in no way furthers the topic as presented). it's hard to stay constantly and consciously aware of intent, it really is, but it's absolutely necessary for clarity of communication, and for measuring the degree of personal consistency you maintain.
in the relationships that i have currently, i have, or am making, a conscious effort to explicitly define and express my own intent for those relationships (and yes, redsash, i'm *trying* to do so in an active verb context). i'm trying to pose the most effective questions i can in order to investigate the intents of the other with whom i am engaged in those relationships. thinking as i write this, i suspect it will be easiest to define each of those intents within the context of the needs or desires i want to meet, rather than saying "i want this to *be* this or that". am i trying to kill too many birds with one stone here? maybe, but i *think* it will be easier to define my intent with statements such as "i want this relationship to meet my needs for a long-term, primary intimate relationship" (in which case, explicitly defining and communicating those needs is a corollary conversation), or "i want to sweep the dishes off the buffet and have sex with you next to the chicken tikka"... as opposed to the less-explicit statements of intent such as, "i want to be your girlfriend", or "i want to be a casual lover".
identify and explictly state intent.
maintain actions (behaviours) that are consistent with the stated intent.
evaluate stated intent regularly for changes.
communicate changes as you find them to manage ongoing expectations.
it all seems so simple, no?