This project is a culmination of a journey to the Self.  Mine may be a journey similar to your own.  Offered in the spirit of well being, it is meant as a gift of communion, take this gift only for what it is worth.  It is a scaffold I constructed as a system to frame chaos.  A tool to objectively make meaning of the swirling complex that is life. It is a navigational tool to move through this world to make sheltered spaces for those we love in our lives. It is up to you to define your own reality, to clarify what is important in life and eliminate liabilities; it is made available as a resource to be leveraged at your discretion in that endeavor. Through it, I offer myself as a resource to be leveraged in your service.

In this work I “stand on the shoulders of giants,” categorizing all Needs into Mazlow’s Hierarchy, Eisenhower’s Quadrant and Johari Window to plot a course to self understanding, forgiveness and improvement through prioritization and execution of intention. To define this life and share what little wisdom that’s been gleaned. How can one person define everything in a life? Such a huge undertaking at its inception and inaugural attempts; particularly in the absence of insight and a complicated and truthful world view.  As Zinger says “writing is thinking on paper.”  Words are committed to these pages as footprints in fresh snow; breaking trail to gain the vantage point of perspective.  This is not a mindless word vomit into a random blog, nor is it undertaken as corporal self-flagellation. It is a culmination of a journey to find value and meaning to you from an otherwise unacquainted and thereby meaningless / worthless life.

The fader for it really began to pile up years ago but began to take a focused form in Jerry Catt-Oliason’s Hermeneutics workshop at Boise State University. He offered amazing intellectually expansive insights. The content of The Intention Project is a navigation of those insights. Hermeneutics. Jerry showed us that we are symbolic creatures. Our language, our perceptions, our actions all symbolic. He taught us that we are all experiencing a world through our five senses. We are in touch with and isolated from the world by them. We make meaning from these symbols and it is up to us to decide what that meaning is. This path of enlightenments weaves through Hermeneutics, Listening, Mindfulness, Budo and writing using my intention project as a trail map.

hermeneutics, n. The art or science of interpretation. OED Second edition, 1989; online version September 2011

Listening is not the physical act of hearing, it is the mental act of making meaning. Listening is attaching meaning to aural input symbols most commonly but is extrapolated across all sensation. We must hear the entire message to gain perspective. It is only after it has been digested that its complexities can be understood. The entrapped nature of humanity, if you will.

Despite how well the proverb might fit in this writing, intentions are not the pavers in a cobble stone road to Hades. They are the mental projections of will, hope, discipline, talent and desire. Intentions are the girders we fashion together to bolster plans until they can be dragged into reality through tenacity and sweat to stand in existence on their own. They are the framework we build up in this chaotic world so we might make sense of it. For instance:

Rush in to help and get hurt too? This is an obvious piece of advise in the same vain as proverbs like…look before you leap…or…a stitch in time saves nine. At the time the concept was shown to me it was accepted at face value like the other proverbs. What made this different, and perhaps why I was enamored with the concept was that it came with a clear executable plan to avoid that which it warns against.  During a Wilderness Advanced First Aid class the “scene size-up” was the first of many frameworks to reduce human error and avoid the snowball effects of a chaotic situation. The scene size-up took into consideration the rescuer, the victim and the environment then gave them all a structure to operate in. Essentially building a mental cage around chaos in order to organize and deal with it accordingly.

Imagine a scene where you come across a wounded person in the wilderness. What do you do? Survey the scene to identify the Mode Of Injury.  Revers engineer how the victim came to be in the predicament they are in. Rapidly deconstruct the scene detail by detail with as much resolution as circumstance will allow. Lay the observed details sequentially end to end and connect them one at a time. Give your mind a tool to work agains the overwhelming flood of input and primal urge to immediately dive in without regard of consequence.

Why Maslow’s Hierarchy? It is an excellent contextual tool to determine prioritized execution of the stated. Reference to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs may be of assistance to detach from the demands of the now to keep perspective on what is most important. That is why these Needs have been selected to be the major headings (page names and links in the header) under which all other categories can be organized.