Intentionality
Set An Intention & Wait
What is an intention? In the “productivity” world there is much talk about these buzz words. Motivation, discipline, routine, habit, intention. They get mixed up.
There are rings of magic. Sometimes we like to think that these words, these concepts reside on different levels. In a sense, they do. Where we see the differences is when we use the different rings of magic. Magic is just what we call that which science has not yet defined.
How can we define intention in a scientific way? We cannot. We have only just come up with a working definition for “attention” in the scientific community. The day when we have a definition for “consciousness” may be beyond me.
Mental Tricks
Magic
First ring magic is what you learn as a child. You observe that a rock gets moved with the force of your body. A hole gets dug in the same way. There are mechanisms of the mind involved but we’ll come to that.
As adults we find the same kind of force in the brain can overpower the body. We can push the animal beyond its limits. We can treat it like a machine. We can work 60, 70, 80 hours not stop until we go home. And when I say 60 hours working, I’m not including commute or lunch or social media breaks, or sitting in your trailer / green room waiting for your scene. I mean physical and mental exertion.
Second ring magic is finding the mechanisms that make us dig deep. Then, when we fall apart, we need third ring magic. Second ring magic says that discipline is freedom. If you program yourself you can do more. If you don’t have to think then you can use that cognitive energy to do more work.
Third ring magic says that discipline is conformity. It says that discipline makes the mind mechanical. The mechanical mind is not free. In second ring magic we find where the extra power lives and we access it.
Power
The reason third ring magic is powerful is that the energy doesn’t run out. It sustains itself. Second ring magic is not sustainable. So many people are stuck in second ring magic and they spend countless hours on YouTube and all of places. You’re trying to find what you found before. But it’s like beating your head on the wall.
Second ring magic isn’t sustainable. It runs out and it wears you out. That’s not sustainable. Third ring magic is like having a bottomless vessel of energy.
First ring magic is using what you have. Second ring magic involves looking outside of yourself to learn how to operate the human animal more efficiently, how to get more out of it. Third ring magic involves looking inside yourself to learn how energy can flow to you. When you master third ring magic, you don’t need to do it all yourself. It feels more effortless.
The rings of magic
Here’s a way to look at it:
The body
The brain
The mind
Well, that’s one way to look at it. Another set of words I always liked to put together was mind, body, and spirit. Spirit in this list correlates to mind in the last list. You could think of the soul or the spirit as an etheric form of or source of magic. But I don’t really think like that anymore. I think it’s much more immediate than that.
I see the brain and body as physical, and the mind as something more mysterious, but simply a combination of the body and the brain. Like synergy. It doesn’t have to be magical. In the end, it all comes back to the body, because that’s what we have, and the brain is part of the body. We come back to the breath. To the beating of the heart, can you feel it?
Confusion becomes greed
It’s simple and it’s here, right now. It doesn’t have to be any more mystical or spiritual than that, because I think power is less about belief, and more about trust. To think that power is all second ring, suggests that you have to do it all yourself, which turns to greed.
It becomes frustration, I don’t have enough, I can’t get enough. Then it becomes stepping on people. When you trust, you have access to assistance, real and unseen - like motivation, inspiration, productivity that appears to come out of nowhere.
The culture of productivity
Confusing words
What is an intention? Ryder Carroll says that intention is a commitment. I think this is a very astute way of looking at it, but it may be just as cryptic as whatever you thought intention meant.
You might think of having an intention as having the idea that you’re going to do something, as if it were plans to do something. You might think that intention means it’s an item on a list, and you still have to do something in order to make that happen.
You are not alone. You don’t have to do it all yourself. AND, you don’t have to step on other people.What if you didn’t have to do anything? What if simply having the thought that you need to do something or you want to do something or that you’re going to do something, is enough for you to sit back and let it happen?
Motivation
Here’s another confusing one, what does motivation mean? Is motivation something you need to get? Is it something you need to have? Is it something you generate and build in and of yourself?
I don’t see it that way. I don’t see motivation as something that is outside of you. In fact, I think we need to take a closer look at this and involve time.
A man must know his own limits. I’ve found that the path to mastering time management isn’t by becoming more productive, it’s be recognizing how long it takes to do something and use that data to plan future work. Set realistic expectations.
I see motivation as something in the past. I don’t think we get motivation or have motivation, I think we had motivation. Motivation gets way too much emphasis. It’s just something that happens. More on this and other posts, past and future.
Productivity
What is productivity? What does it mean to be productive? Is this something that we reach for? Do we dig down and find it?
Similar to motivation, I don’t think productivity is something that we have. I don’t think it’s a skill, or a skill set. I see it like motivation, in that it is a description of what occurred. Were you productive, yes. Productivity also gets too much emphasis. It’s something that happens when you’re engaged, it’s not a goal. That’s focusing on the wrong thing.
Were you efficient, yes. Are you efficient? I don’t know that that question has an answer. And I think that’s the difference between second ring magic and third grand magic.
The method
Is there a method?
I don’t really like the term third ring magic. I mean, I love it, because I love the fantasy, the romanticism, and the idea that there is something magical. But on the other hand, I don’t know that there’s any magic to it. There is mystery, however.
Part of the mystery is what has been occulted from us. The secret, if there is a secret, is to look inward. This is not a secret. Everyone says this, and it’s right.
If there is a method, it's the intuition. Trust yourself. Which means first, you have to know yourself. Meditation is the path to self knowledge, and what does meditation mean? It means self knowledge. When second ring magic has exhausted itself, when you are no longer able to push yourself beyond the point of exhaustion, you need something more. You are ready for the third ring.
The answers are within
Where do you find the keys to second ring magic? You find them outside of yourself. Your parents tell you little things to pursue farther, to teach you discipline, to show
you how habits work, to encourage you to build routines, and on and on and on.
Where do you look to find the keys to third ring magic? You look inside yourself. Why? Because the answer is in the body. That’s where you will find the responses that you were looking for, and nobody can tell you that, nobody has your body.
This makes perfect sense when you think about it. Would you really go on YouTube and listen to somebody saying how to dig deep and find more motivation, find out how to be more productive? No. Because they know how it works for them, so why are you listening to them? You are not them.
You are a different person, not just because you have a different brain with different ideas and memories and knowledge, but because you have a different body. You have to listen to the body.
Finding energy
Truth & freedom
So where do we find the deeper meaning to intention, to discipline, to motivation, to performance, success, purpose, passion, spirit, freedom, truth? First of all, figure out which ones drive this energy that you’re looking for. When you have that sorted, use the power of deduction to eliminate the ones that have no impact whatsoever. This will take some time and exploration.
Next, learn you. Learn about yourself, learn about your body, learn about your mind. It’s not about developing your mind, that was in second ring magic. It’s not about learning to develop your body, that was the first ring.
Here in the third ring, you are learning to receive. Be receptive, be neutral, and let the energy come. It’s there, all you have to do is find it. Tap into it.
Energy
Have you ever gone to a place that just energized you? It might have been a market, filled with things to buy, full of bustling people. That will give you energy. But it’s not necessarily the people.
Real power doesn’t come from you, it flows through you. You can’t do it all yourself, and you don’t have it. It’s okay to accept help, to ask for it.
I find the same kind of energy, well actually a different kind of energy, but the same level, let’s say, at a beach, in a river, under a waterfall, on a mountain, etc. Why is this? Because it’s not outside you, it’s inside. You are just recognizing it in yourself when you go out into the world.
Just be
There is a distinction here - using energy unnecessarily is wasteful. Using more effort than needed depletes energy in the body. Thinking depletes energy in the brain, and it’s shocking how many people don’t realize this.
We can conserve energy, we can use it wisely, and we can find more. This is different than optimizing for productivity or becoming more efficient. The difference is oppression. You don’t need to be any different, but you can recognize your power.
So let’s be clear, looking inside yourself doesn’t mean staying away from everybody. It means recognizing that you are enough, you don’t need anything else, you just need to learn how to use what you have. It’s enough.
You didn’t come with an instructions manual. There’s no guidebook, but if you have a journal, you already have it written. Now finish it.
Thanks for indulging the analogy of magic. There is certainly something mystical about energy that doesn’t deplete itself. For more, I suggest Lao Tzu, or one of my posts about him.