Source: FlickrNumerous movies and television programs feature characters with supernatural powers. I’m sure most of you could easily name a dozen. A couple I am currently watching are Stranger Things and The Witcher, both on Netflix.
As entertainment, these programs allow us to think about worlds very different from our own. Also, it is amusing to fantasize about what we would do if we had such powers.
Quite simply though, we don’t!
Yet we do possess an amazing power. A power that, to some extent, we are born with, yet requires learning and experience to use well. A power that can only be fully developed through extensive practice and application often requiring years.
This is the power of intentionality, sometimes simply called will power.
The power of intentionality can be directed inwardly or outwardly. Outwardly, it is the power to establish, work toward, and achieve well considered goals. Inwardly, it is the power to give form and focus to the very workings of our conscious mind.
Outward Focus
I turned 20 in 1973. I spent my teenage years as a kind of live-for-today hippie. Like most hippies, I got wasted a lot. And looking back on it all, I see how many opportunities I wasted because of it.
It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I learned what it meant to set goals for myself and the satisfaction of achieving them. After learning this, I became an avid goal setter. I started each week reviewing my goals, marking the progress I had made toward achieving them, and writing down new ones.
I have since met people who had well established goals by the time they were 16. These people usually enjoy greater economic success than I do. But taking a goal directed approach to my life, I was able to achieve considerable success in my career and in other aspects of my life.
Inward Focus
Inwardly directed intentionality is quite different. With outwardly directed goals there is usually some point where we can say that we have achieved or failed to achieve a given goal. And, there are usually clear mileposts along that way that inform us about our progress. Inwardly directed intentionality often lacks such clarity. I use the term “project goal” to refer to goals that have a clear finish line, and “process goals” for those that do not.
A good example of inwardly directed intentionality is the goal of becoming more virtuous. We may become kinder and more compassionate; braver and more prudent; even wiser, but is there ever a time when we can say that we are completely kind, compassionate, courageous, prudent or wise? I certainly can’t. There is always room for improvement. It is an ongoing process.
Learning meditation or other forms of mindfulness is another example. Mindfulness, in my opinion, is the purest form of inward intentionality. In mindfulness our intent is to intend. Mindfulness is the goal and being mindful is the means toward achieving that goal. Sustained mindfulness would seem to be a rather easy thing to achieve, but most people find it difficult and only achieve success after months or years of effort. Our minds want to be active and externally focused. I suspect that at some earlier time in our evolution, there was considerable survival advantage in having an active, externally focused mind. We are battling with an aspect of our biological nature when we seek a quieter, more inwardly focused mind.
Conclusion
In the title of this piece, I say of the power of intentionality that it is “almost” unnatural. I say this, because in a pure act of intentionality we are doing something that is far removed from the simple laws of physics. There, an external force is required to generate movement and that movement is proportional to the amount of force. When we act intentionally, a simple idea can become the cause of activity that goes on for years.
Intentionality is the force within us that gives us impetus and direction – that gives a unified structure to our activities. How far this is from the physics governing a billiard ball or even from life as directed by our instincts rather than our learning.
Nature is a marvelously creational process. When we act intentionally, we embody the avant garde of Nature’s creativity.
__________
Learn about Membership in the Spiritual Naturalist Society
The Spiritual Naturalist Society works to spread awareness of spiritual naturalism as a way of life, develop its thought and practice, and help bring together like-minded practitioners in fellowship.
SNS strives to include diverse voices within the spectrum of naturalistic spirituality. Authors will vary in their opinions, terms, and outlook. The views of no single author therefore necessarily reflect those of all Spiritual Naturalists or of SNS.
__________
Thanks Thomas. Great article. I don’t think I understood goal setting until much later in life and wasted decades meandering about. One thing I appreciate about Spiritual Naturalism is how it brings a certain clarity to the value of life in itself. Without that focus, life goals can get obscured by non-rational beliefs both conscious and unconscious. Your idea of process goals is great. Chasing absolute ‘enlightenment’ or perfection can be so harmful in my opinion.
Mightn’t one also say humanity’s inborn inclination for intentionality is similar to how a billiard ball has an inborn inclination to roll downhill? Each feels and responds to the environment in their own unique way – intentionality as an extension or supercharging of ‘the physics governing a billiard balls’.
Thanks again
Dwayne, Thanks for the complement.
As to your comment that “humanity’s inborn inclination for intentionality is similar to how a billiard ball has an inborn inclination to roll downhill” I would say, only as an analogy. Human inclination, or the inclination of any animal, is a very complex event comprised of generic information shaped over millions of years of evolution. It’s a long way from any simple physics.
Certainly at the base of human intentionality there is physics. But I would say that the physics of electromagnetic energy is much more to the point than the physics of billiard balls. To make a conscious intention requires that millions, more likely billions, of ATP molecules must yield a precious photon to energize it.
Perhaps, just perhaps, those photons are the actual light of consciousness rather than merely an apt metaphor for it.