Attention on intention and metaintention

January 26, 2020

This morning I woke up with my attention on intention.

Still half asleep, I intended to do a lot of writing. But I realized that wasn’t enough.

I realized that I also needed to stay aware of the state of my intention.

So I needed two intentions.

Retrospectively, an assessment

Since I intended to write, I decided to write about intention first. Why not?

I decided to start by doing some research. As it happens, I’ve written about intention before. A lot. And as it happens, I’m one of my favorite writers, and I decided to read what I’d written.

So: I had an intention (and a metaintention). I’d made a decision. I had a plan.

I’d write a post that would include a checklist.

I predicted success

Intentional failure

In the post “Intentional failure” I wrote:

TL;DR: everything that happens comes from intention. If what I want to have happened has not happened, then I need to fix the intention. If I’m not fixing my (failed) intentions, then my metaintention needs fixing.

In the post, I recorded some questions that I might have asked:

  1. Does the intention specify the correct endpoint?

  2. Is the endpoint specific enough?

  3. Is the intention strong enough?

  4. Does the intention include producing a plan?

Thanks, Past Me. I’ll keep those in mind right now. My intention to write about intention meets all those criteria. My intention to monitor my intention—pretty good.

Intention deficit disorder

Next up, this post, “Intention Deficit Disorder”.

Since I came up with the idea, I’ve been reviewing how I carry out intentional acts and when unintentional acts intrude. I’ve been thinking about what I might do to improve my ability to use whatever powers of intention that I have.

What I learned:

  1. Is the decision behind the intention clear?

  2. Does the intention lead to a first action?

  3. Does it include an intention to follow through to the end?

  4. Does the intention anticipate obstacles and the intention to overcome them?

Intention lost, intention regained?

In December 2016, I wrote a post about the purpose of life, the universe, and everything. In July 2017, I wrote a longer post on the same subject..

I know my purpose: it’s gaining knowledge, organizing it, and communicating it.

So I added this:

  1. Is the intention aligned to your purpose in life?

Decision intention prediction

Intention comes from decision. If an intention is strong enough, it will lead to action. To control action, start with a decision, and test with prediction.

I’ve already covered by the decision step. But here’s another:

  1. Do you predict you’ll succeed in reaching your goal?

Why meditate? Redux

From this one, Why Meditate? Redux

Daniel said:

If meditating doesn’t enhance the other 15 hours of your life (8 for sleep and 1 for meditation) - I don’t know why anyone would do it.

You can learn detachment without losing 6.25% of your conscious life.

My goal in meditation and in life is not detachment. It is awareness. (Actually, awareness is a means, not an end. The end is knowledge.)

Especially awareness of the state of my mind

Especially awareness of my current intention (or lack) and awareness of any newly arising intentions of and any change in intention

  1. Are you aware of any other rising intention or change in intention?

An intentional meditation on intention and meditation

…while it may not be obvious, all our achievements originate from intentions. Consider learning to play catch. As a child, you may have wanted to play catch, but at first, your arm and hand just didn’t move in quite the right way. However, by sustaining the intention to catch the ball, after much practice, your arm and hand eventually performed the task whenever you wanted. “You” don’t play catch. Instead, you just intend to catch the ball, and the rest follows. “You” intend, and the body acts.

  1. Are you maintaining your intention?

Excellent meditation

In this post, “Excellent meditation”, I riff further on intention.

In short: talk about how you use intention to learn to catch a ball.

We don’t know how to do anything. It’s all due to intention and magic.

If you’ve learned to catch a ball, you set an intention to catch it, and when a ball comes in your direction, you catch it.

Easy.

How? Nobody knows.

But first, you’ve got to learn how to catch a ball. And how do you do

that?

You intend to learn to catch. Someone throws balls in your direction.

You try to catch it. You alternately fail and succeed. And then one

day, you’ve learned that you can do it.

The point’s been covered, and this reinforces it.

The inner game of—whatever

This reminds me of Farnam Street Blog’s post in today’s Farnam Street - Brain Food No. 353.

The article is about Tim Gallwey’s idea of “the inner game” as described in his book The Inner Game of Tennis.

Here’s a YouTube Video with as Tim Gallway gives a woman at tennis lesson. Her progress is rapid, and surprising:

Gallwey’s point and mine are: to get better, all you need to do is pay attention.

The more you try, the worse you’re likely to do!

Consciousness, Awareness, Attention, Intention

Intention is a big deal. You can’t program the unconscious mind directly, but you can get it to reprogram itself by intention. The way you become skilled at a sport is by going through the motions, with attention and intention. Merely going through the motions is not enough.

You get the idea, Future Me?

The checklist

So here’s my checklist for evaluating and monitoring intention:

  1. Does the intention specify the correct endpoint?

  2. Is the endpoint specific enough?

  3. Is the intention strong enough?

  4. Does the intention include producing a plan?

  5. Is the decision behind the intention clear?

  6. Does the intention lead to a first action?

  7. Does it include an intention to follow through to the end?

  8. Does the intention anticipate obstacles and the intention to overcome them?

  9. Is the intention aligned to your purpose in life?

  10. Do you predict your plan will succeed?

  11. Are you aware of any other rising intention or change in intention?

  12. Are you maintaining your intention?

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