The Truth about Intentionality

Most of my day was consumed with Oak Leaves. Since I was sick anyway, I thought I might at least make a productive day of it. So today I chose to work on Oak Leaves. As I only received the final files tonight, completion some time tomorrow will be acceptable.

I spent a few minutes chatting with Brett Wheat-Simms about the Words of the Ancient Wise blog, and my goals for the year. I also received my evaluation back from Erik for my first Sellars assignment. All in all, it was very positive. He has also asked me to help him set up a mechanism to discuss common Fallacies. Should be very interesting.


At around 8pm the ADF chat started and we discussed, in some depth, the concepts of Kindred. It was interesting, and I am thinking of reintroducing some kind of joint vespers idea with Pam. We have been asked to sing some samples of Taize on the Thursday video chat.

I think that maybe that is the essence of productivity. Always be actively engaged in something. Sunday's reading on the Words of the Ancient Wise brought this to mind:

NOT to be slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions, nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation, nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or, furiously to launch out as it were, nor ever to want employment.

MARCUS AURELIUS. MEDITATIONS. Book viii. 19.

It reminds me also of Franklin's Virtue of Industry:  "Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."

Never fall to the default, but rather choose your next activity. This is what is really important. Am I really doing something I intended to do, or just something I fell into. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out this virtue of Industry (what ADF calls Fertility). I even wrote a complete Meditation on it. It bears re-reading.

Getting Myself Committed

Confirmation comes in strange clothes. This blog is about my personal journey, and so the only ones I expected to have any real interest are my friends and family. Imagine my surprise when I received a comment from a new contributor to yesterday's blog. The comments were positive, encouraging and served to confirm my resolve to resolve to commit.

The idea of having commitment as my personal theme for 2010 really only coalesced at the end of yesterday's blog. I think that validates the psychological practice of 'talking it out.' So if 2009 was the 'Year of Change,' which had the result of not changing a damned thing, then 2010, as the 'Year of Commitment,' is going to change everything. As a Stoic, I just love paradoxes.

So here are the things that I am doing right now, that I am going to keep doing throughout the year.

1. I am currently working on the DP, and will complete it by year's end.
2. I have already started the Olympian Oracle, to prepare it for publication. That is also to be done by year's end.
3. Complete the Oak Leaves submissions on time for the balance of the year. I have to get to work on this one, as the blue line for the Spring issue is due in a few days.
4. I have made some significant progress on the Stoic Studies program with Erik at the College. I am going to complete this, which shouldn't take more the 4 - 5 months. Afterwards, I am going to continue working through the yet to be developed Stoic Mentorship program.
5. Pam and I have decided to work our way through some personal Stoic studies. We will start the year off with Keith's Stoic Serenity course, and when that is complete, work on William's Guide to the Good Life. This may not take us to the end of the year, but some other course may come up in the meantime to flesh it out. The point is that we study, deeply, together.
6. Words of the Ancient Wise. Everyday, alone or together.
7. This Blog, 3 times/week minimum. I have already experience of the power of writing, beyond mere catharsis.
8. Renovations to the upstairs of the house. With the holidays over, there are simply no excuses for not finishing what we started.
9. Health. This one is a bit of a stretch, but I might just try to shoehorn it in. The car broke down this week (New Year's Eve) and we decided to go car-less, for the time being at least. This means more walking (a lot more!). I am also going to be taking the bus to and from work. The extension of more activity in my life seems to be reasonable though. Wii on nights when we have no-where to go, and walking to places where there are things to do.

So these are the nine things I have committed to continue. None of them introduce new intentions or practices, none are strictly speaking, new. The list even breaks down nicely into Spirit (1-3 in green are focussed around the ADF), Mind (4-6 in blue are all about Stoic Studies) and Body (7-9 in red). The last is also easy enough to figure out, with the physical/emotional action of writing, the labour of renovations, and the obvious health focus.

Not too much. Not too little. So I am committed to the Nine through the end of Ten.

Crossing the Streams

I HAVE been posting some essays on the ADF lists lately, related to Stoicism, and I was gently prompted by a dear friend to think about my blog again. So I am going to go and dig through the posts and bring them up here.

Pam and I are still posting our comments to the Words of the Ancient Wise blog. I am so glad we started that this year. So much cause for deep thought and conversation. I love that I can talk to her about the important, philosophical parts of life. My impression is that this is a rare gift, and that most couples only deal in deepness when there is a crisis. So this is what being blessed feels like.