Intention's Centrality

Think about how influential search engines like Google are. My parents don't have much idea of what is available with tools like this, but when they use these tools for the few uses they can imagine, they're generally happy with the results. New options are created daily or almost daily, so much so that I can not say that I am much closer to using the full potential of all this available information even if I am ten times more adept, informed, and creative about it than my parents.

Mining the full potential of the Web is like trying to mine our full human potential. We each have more potential than we can much more than skim in a single lifetime. Think about how many languages you are capable of learning if you focused on them--there are hundreds or thousands of languages that any kid can learn but no one of us has the time for all of them. Besides languages, there are things like dancing that we could all be better at, sports, academics, etc. I will never be quite the car mechanic I might have been if I'd only focused on mechanics earlier in life, and if I start learning now, I will be able to keep learning about mechanics for the rest of my life. There are thousands or millions (or more) of such possibilities.

Because attention is limited, we have to choose somewhat where we want to focus, but our options are phenomenal. The teacher-to-student method of education involves a lot of discipline. Dominating types of discipline, as opposed to self-directed types of interested focus, create all sorts of negative aftereffects. The possibilities that were offered by TV (to Generation X) showed kids other things to focus on besides school-based curriculums. More recently, the possibilities offered by interactive mediums offer something other than passive or receptive options.

The same is true of "therapy". While it has often been modeled on human weakness (potential we have not fulfilled), much of this unfulfilled potential, much of the difficulties and motivational ambiguity people experience, comes from the aftereffects of dominance. In comparison to mutual innovation and the inspiration it creates, dominance is boring from a more powerful position and from a less powerful position. Dominance is a lot of work, and it continues to create a perceived need for more dominance by creating resentment and resistance. The same is true when we model our understanding of human beings on ideas of weakness or sickness (existential or medical); in such a case, we create a perceived need for therapy.

When people learn to dis-identify with domination methods and the aftereffects, they open up to innovation and inspiration. We replace what used to be called "delayed gratification" with intentional focus. When that happens, the purpose of education and what used to be thought of as "therapy" end up looking like a common "development of human potential".

Within the recognition that we (individually and globally) have more potential than we can bring out in one lifetime, we end up considering not only the breadth of choices, but also depth or profundity. When individual intention is included, we begin to recognize the importance of clarifying intention. By clarifying intention I mean learning intentional focus as well as liberating ourselves from the debilitating aftereffects and methods used in dominance idioms. In a hundred different ways, we learn to not only free our minds but also to interact in a clearly focused (inspired) manner with the world around us. When we all have the same information available, the quality of how we use it stands out as more important than the quantity each person has because quantity is relatively equal. In such a context, what you can do remains very important, but what you can intend to do becomes definitive. What WE can do is very important, but what WE intend to do is definitive. With these changes in technological mediums and increase in availability of information, we become increasingly known by our intentions. It becomes very important, then, to question how we can improve our ability to intend and the wisdom with which we develop and deploy this ability. Human development--with education and therapy as subsets of human development--become increasingly organized around intention and potential rather than around forms of dominance and aftereffects of dominance.

We increasingly interact in more informed ways through increasingly rich and diverse social networks. As overwhelming as this can seem, as we familiarize ourselves to the opportunities, we improve in applying our intention and energy to selecting and innovating opportunities. With a progressive psychology, we begin to more fully and adequately explore the possibility principle with mindful appreciation. Rather than lauding the ideological benefits, this sense of progress is experimentally verifiable through neurophysiology, economic growth, and political process.