Stop Counting

In dreams we approach a form of knowing that we find difficult to access while awake. We tend to discount the sensation that there was “something to it.” Or, we displace our fascination within the dream in a vain attempt to narrate its dramatic particulars. As this fails to match our original wonder, as we

The Purposes of Images

Sometimes a picture just shows too much. Not just pictures, but any presentation. Sometimes we can be too explicit. Not so much that we are too straightforward, or too forthcoming; but that we often tend to say – or show, actually – more than we mean. Not just more than we intend, at least I

Intention, Sincerity & the Works of I

This post is a departure for Horizons of Significance. Instead of an essay, this post is a poem. There have been times when while writing fiction or essays, I’ve felt what was coming out might really be a narrative or expository poem instead. Coming off the last post, which seems to have brought some sort

Algorithms and Intention

Algorithms. While teaching a week-long course in half-model making and marine drafting I came across a tangible definition of an algorithm. In drafting we use splines, long, thin wooden battens that we bend around control points held by lead weights called ducks or whales. The shape, density and grain of the wood influences how it

from Intention to Attention

Intention gets in the way of attention. It begins an inexorable drift from what is, and finding ways to engage what is, towards building an edifice of will and illusion upon what is desired. There is a push to give intention primacy, “We intend, therefore we are!” Yet, before we have any intention, we attend.

It’s All Holographic, Stupid!

This phrase just popped into my head after reading Alex Fradera’s post on an event he led at Atlantic College recently. To be clear, and fair to Alex, it’s not directed at him! I’m not even quite sure what it means, that’s what sitting down to write this is for. It just seemed a nice

On Intention, Stumbling towards a Loose Rigor

Here’s a series of statements, let’s see where they lead. My intention is to be effective. To be effective is to avoid futility. Intentional striving is futile. To be effective requires letting go of intention. * Is this squaring the circle? Or describing a paradox?

“I never thought of that!”

How unintended consequences wreak havoc on our expectations concerning the connection between intention and responsibility. I’ve been looking for ways to illuminate the space hidden behind our expectation that the only way to be responsible is to plan and then act out our intentions. Everyone I know, including myself, has had a hard time dealing

Probing Intention

Intention, Will… How do we untangle intention from willfulness? How do we untangle will from the desire to control? How do we avoid hubris while promoting an active humility that searches out ways and means to embody intention? And so it goes, around and around.