On intention

In reading David Epstein's Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, I'm drawn to more than just the idea of working within constraints (either natural or human). I'm drawn to this idea of intention.

Intention seems to have been supplanted by information. With boundless, unconstrained access to information, we're feeling this power that is both terrifying and incredibly misguided.

Information has become passive, for lack of a better term. Rather than seek out knowledge, we are inundated with information endlessly. And information is not knowledge. I would consider seeking knowledge to be an active behavior and receiving information to be a passive one. When we act as beacons of unconstrained information, we lack the ability to process any of it. Worse yet, we filter most of it out and only accept what we choose, rather than be unbiased processors of that information. Often times what we choose is what we consider to be easy, rather than true. And this, coupled with the noise of what don't choose, means that we are trying to find the peanuts in a firehose of infinite nuts which make our lives harder, rather than easier. (Yes I know that peanuts are legumes. Humor me.)

What gets me so excited about the Theory of Constraints and the anecdotes mentioned in Epstein's book is the idea that when we are constrained, whether we realize it or not, we are forced to operate with intention. And from intention comes great things. Whether those constraints are a lack of resources (humans, money, materials) or a deadline or even a lack of knowledge or ability, we spend mindshare computing other creative approaches to achieving our end. That end may not have been the one that we had intended to seek, but the intention we employed to get there was in itself the reward. And the thing we produced, the product of our creativity and intention.

I plan on operating with more intention...in everything that I do. In doing so, I will channel my creativity and this in turn will bring me joy.