Intending vs. Doing | Playing with a Full Deck | The Four : On-Line In Life

Intending and doing are two different things. Obviously. Now, here's how.

This piece talks about the underpinnings of feeling and intention -- how they work, in us, and how they can go wrong.

Intending is one of the four fundamental attributes, functions, or facets of life -- of which there are four.

ATTENDING | REMEMBERING | IMAGINING | INTENDING
The Four

that particular order or sequence being that of the evolutionary drive, from an egoic point of view. I say, "an egoic point of view", in distinction from, "an impersonal process".

In any case, intending is one of those four.

Doing, on the other hand, consists of those four, all simultaneously, all together, all differentiated from each other, all integrated with every other.

Doing, consists of

• attending ( paying attention to the location of ) to whatever you're doing
• remembering ( persistently focussing your attention on ) whatever you're doing
• imagining ( having a sense of the direction, keen or general ) whatever you're doing
• intending ( bringing into existence ) whatever you're doing

These are the "suits" in your "deck of consciousness".

Without all four, 

• You don't know where to turn, next.
• You have no idea what you're doing.
• You have no idea where you might possibly go with it.
• It is of no consequence, to you, and so you don't notice it.

Without a full complement of all four, you aren't playing with a full deck. You certainly have aces and wildcards missing, since those are the top "power" cards.

It is impossible for us to have an experience of being altogether without all four. Try it. Check yourself . . . . . 

BUT, I say, BUT . . . . .

It's possible for one or more of the four to be running on-automatic, without our recognizing it, even at full-blast, and be influencing the outcome of our doing, distorting it, causing us to miss things or to take things for granted that shouldn't be taken for granted; prejudices of all kinds bending our reactions; superficial or cursory attention (inattention), leading to wrong perception, wrong conclusions, wrong actions; insensitivity to or or disregard of clues or premonitions; failure to notice habitual patterns of thought and feeling (memory); being poorly focussed, producing mediocre (or outrightly errant, off-base, delayed, or never forthcoming) results.  This is called, "Unconscious Incompetence": Flakiness.

If you notice your flakiness, it's called, "Conscious Incompetence."  Not to worry; another stage follows.

If you sometimes get good results, despite your Conscious Incompetence, I call this, "Unconscious Competence." This is usage of the term is not the common usage.

The common usage places, "Unconscious Competence", at the end of the course of development, as mastery at the ready, ever adaptable.  It's also a kind of competence that the individual may possess, by grace or "by birth".  I disagree with that usage; that's conscious, but smaller-range competence, as I will shortly explain. Unconscious Competence is "beginner's luck", the competence of the dilettante, vulnerable to turbulence, the unexpected. It's the competence of a little knowledge -- good as far as it goes.

As you learn to course-correct after encountering turbulence, to improvise to get better back-on-track, you're on the road of (not "to") "Conscious Competence."

Conscious Competence arises as The Four come on-line in life. The force and focus of intentionality may now be magnified, softened, or let free. Those words correspond to a kind and range of feeling that anyone may experience -- but not if they only hold the words in mind and try to understand it by reasoning or comparing it to what they already know -- without the experience. The experience is IT. 

Instructions, below.

While it's impossible totally to account for, or predict, the turbulence, curves, spins and bumps life may throw our way, we can at least optimize our capacity to handle them with a minimum of disturbance and a maximum of effectiveness. The word I just used, is optimize.  To optimize implies a process of correction, over time. The half-baked phrase commonly used is, "Trial and error"; it is half-baked because the process is, "Trial, error, and adjustment."

The turbulence of the unexpected is something we experience, within us and as our own state in the moment. 

We can make adjustments relatively well or relatively badly. Our own turbulence calls for a balancing of The Four, of which we are made and by which we experience life. To the degree we have The Four on-line in life, balanced and integrated, we make to our adjustments relatively quickly and relatively well, even if sometimes adjustments are difficult or laborious. In some cases, even the laborious quality diminishes to the degree that The Four are on-line in life, so that the correction seems to go easily.

Then, we respond to life's conditions with more of our native intelligence on-line, in life, absorbing and dissolving their effects in ourselves (like digesting them -- even if there is some indigestion), and bringing more of our native intelligence to our doing -- which we weren't doing when we weren't playing with a full deck.

When corrections go easily, it's just flow. The feeling of flow is, ease. "The Master Makes it Look Easy", is the saying. This is Transcendent Competence, not Unconscious Competence.

To the degree that one or more of The Four is "running the show from behind the scenes," we adjust relatively badly, both emotionally and interactively. Know anybody like that?

We tend to be unevenly developed in different ways in different areas of our lives. In some areas, we lack imagination; in others, our memories have taken over and color our actions; or we may have little or too much interest, or too little or too much attention on, something. Obsessive, oblivious, fixed-minded, or whack-o, or some mix or balance. Do you just act on your impulses? Do you bring your full intelligence to them?

Best to bring all four on-line, to life, balanced and integrated. 

Then, intending shows up as relatively intelligent and relatively effective doing.

This doing shows up as bursts of creativity and the ability to carry a creative burst to a tangible conclusion, despite possible turbulence. Because The Four are integrated and relatively balanced, we experience that turbulence as, navigable, and are able to dissolve emotional turbulence fairly quickly, by bringing The Four on-line and to life.

"Bringing The Four on line and to life" means, with regard to anything we are experiencing:

1. ATTENDING to it
2. REMEMBERING it
3. INTENDING it
4. IMAGINING it

... not just thinking about it; experiencing how we experience each. It's a drill you repeat until it comes to life. This drill, as basic as it is, is psycho-active. If you don't feel changes occurring in you, it has yet to come to life. Persist a few more times. Soon, you'll be fit for the more powerful procedures involving The Four.

Now you know what bringing The Four on-line and to life does, and what that can do to both your intending and your doing.

Intending is a part of doing. You need all four on-line, in life, to be playing with a full deck.

An ounce of "prevention" is worth a pound of "cure". 

The Four: on-line and in life

The Gold Key Release: Deprogram yourself.
Power Contemplation Practices

copyright 2017 Lawrence Gold