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How to change context:
  1. Recognize that you are in a context in which you don't want to be.
  2. Focus on details of the context to which you want to move.  
  3. Commit  that you will move to the new context.
  4. Stop any activity in the old context from which you are coming ... close down the windows, turn off the radio, whatever activity the old context entails, turn it off.
  5. Dramatize  the new context.  Conceive of some new value or pleasure it will give to you ... tie it to your overall life goals ... whatever works for you such that you can take new pride in the context.   
Congratulations you are now in a new context  .
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by seth on [group seth] at 2010-07-18 23:06:26, changed 2010-07-31 07:36:55 [permalink 14107]
39 comments
 This is mostly will-based as is indicated by your use of imperative sentences. I would add conjuring up a feeling of shame to augment step 1 & probably add some NLP to each step to get the job done; but then this is your plastic habit thingy. This conjurs up the thought again whether anyone ever learns from somebody else's experience.
For your amusement (or not) here is the G.W.'s Tai Shu commentary for the Yi King hex for today (at least in Paradise):
P.1944 #26,5 71-1-1-5-10-3-TUE (39/6/15 or 39.54 yrs ago)
" ... KU: kon poo ye lun peen P.1833 & P.1946. Plenty here for everybody - no one has been neglected or is ineligible!  One lesson learned is when force to perform some task is not sufficient its function can be supplied by using Rhythm.  The most trivial habits & mannerisms are important, not necessarily intrinsically, but simply as habits.  In any context always consider more than this one life.  As you are already aware this Hex has intimate correspondences with Our .'. Lord's Prayer, which comprehends in its structure all human bodies &/or vehicles.  When we are born physically the World gives us birth; we cross the Threshold to enter a World spititually to which we have given birth & whose organisation we had the opportunity freely to build. "
~
I include it mostly for its mention of habits & rhythm.
Yes, p.1944 does seem to have some bearing on this item, thanks.  Thing is, personally i don't place much faith in "force to perform some task" ... it never seems to work for me.  Hence i use plastic habits to perform that function which "can be supplied by using Rhythm.  The most trivial habits & mannerisms are important, not necessarily intrinsically, but simply as habits". 

This also is why personally i don't much like the whole concept referred to in our upbringing as "will" because it does smack of "will power"; but i have found no power there.  Rather i prefer to just refer that to "action" ... err "doing something" ... and whatever precedes that might better be referred to as "courage".  If there is a struggel there ... between will and wont ... i prefer to just call that a struggle betwee timidity and courage.  But, me, i prefer there not to be a struggle there at all ... where there is a struggle it's like i have already lost.   That struggle, should it have to exist, me thinks is best moved up a notch ... to the development and evolution of habits.   There is where i am looking for that Hallelujah effect ... there is where i can express my love of life ... for it is there where i am living it.  But that is just me ... your mileage will vary ... all over the place.
     I am fascinated with my own & other people's motivation - how does it work? I studied NLP, a field which I may have invented had I not run into it externally, to get another chunk of the puzzle. GW & others opine that the will is mostly asleep - akin to deep sleep; humans not very  able to be totally conscious of what torches off action as compared to being much more awake in feelings & thoughts.
     I have thought that you have a lot of will-power.  One of my early memories of this was when GW slapped you in the face & you defiantly offered the other cheek with a "go ahead" stance.  I might, otoh, have either slugged him or left the room. If you have a lot of will-power (like you & GW) it is like the water to a fish swimming in it or like the air to us.
     Your method is similar to the NLP (via Robbins) questions. It's a swish pattern between one state & another by asking questions. I can't lay my hands on the whole process at this time but I implemented it in CyberMind. Being conscious of your own being-self as in BofNK eliminates some of the sleepiness in the will - if you are conscious of your source you will be congruent in your actions.
source: M above
I have thought that you have a lot of will-power.  One of my early memories of this was when GW slapped you in the face & you defiantly offered the other cheek with a "go ahead" stance.  I might, otoh, have either slugged him or left the room. If you have a lot of will-power (like you & GW) it is like the water to a fish swimming in it or like the air to us.
It is so very strange then how things look different from the inside.  Perhaps you did not know that i have struggled with my "will" all my life ... and even pretty much have given up on it ... saying to myself that controlling myself to do what i rationally intend is a lost cause.   The best i have come up with is the plasticity of my habits ... those to some small measure can bow to my "will" ... but not in the now ... only over larger time frames.

The example you give would not have applied to what i would call "my will"; for it would have been unthinkable for me to strike Genesthai ... that action simply would not have been in the vocabulary of my muscles to move ... leaving the room might, but even that is not something that i tend usually to do.  I don't remember an attitude of turning the other cheek. 

I don't know, perhaps you are thinking about some of the larger changes i've made to my life ... like running away etc.  Yeah, those, i've never had problems with ... just done them.  But my day to day activity seems mostly to be governed by whims and attractions ... sans of course my intentional habits.
     Do you remember the incident in question very well? There was definitely a turning of the cheek to offer the other one, perhaps because the one he hit was still stinging. There was a challenge for GW to do it again which surprised him enough to change his mind. 
     You might say that Iran in the form of the clerics & Ahmadinejad has more will to develop their nuclear programs that the rest of the World has to stop them.
     IMHO, because I still am working on it, free will shows up when I do something I love without quibbling. You could call that will-power or the power of love or something else!
Nope, i don't remember the incident at all.

Your right, we are mushing together a lot of different things in this dialogue.  Here let me give my interpretation of the things your identified ...
  • willful -  You say somebody is "willful" when they do something that you do not want or expect them to do.  This is a relative judgment about of a person's actions from outside by another person.  I doubt that many people will apply that term to themselves ... unless they are expressing that other people have found them willful and they are jut going along with it.   I used to think that Lotus was willful.  I wonder where i got that idea.
  • will-power -  is pretty much the topic of this item.  It is the ability to act according to our intentions.
  • the will - LOL, no such thing.  This comes from RS and our upbringing.  For me it is an attempt to embody the process of action into a personal body.  In my ontology there are no personal "bodies" ... there are just processes.  This is more a semantic issue, than anything else.  I just like the process ontology rather than breaking stuff up into cute little bodies.
  • doing - same as action.  LOL, this is where it is at.  Too bad Niki patented it . 

  • being - this is your thing ... i never have understood it yet.
  • desire - a strong feeling to experience or re-experience something.
  • intention - a conscious plan of action (doing).
  • having - the process of legal control of some object ... i.e. "to possess".  This word can also be applied to abilities ... so it can be said that we have this or that ability.  
C 2010-07-28 07:55:36 [item 14107]
     Too bad you don't remember the incident.  It may have been like a seminal moment which seems to have caused you to rebel against the old man , maybe even all he stood for & taught. 
     Not a problem - I can & do integrate it all, from modern psychology, ontology (not your definition), R.S., A.C., T.R., M.H., W.E., modern science & mathematics as well as G.W. & with all of their distinctions. Distinctions within life do not remove the unity of all of it!
     I will let the rest of your definitions, etc.  ferment a while to see if the wine therein is ready to taste.

ontology Look up ontology at Dictionary.com"metaphysical science or study of being," 1721, from Mod.L. ontologia (coined in Fr. by Jean le Clerc, 1692), from Gk. on (gen. ontos) "being" (prp. of einai "to be;" see essence) + -logia "writing about, study of."
An amusing sequel to the above in the days when GW would hold court in the front room at Walgrove with some of the family around I asked him about the will-power thingy. He answered with what is now the famous Nike slogan (as do you.) I guess at one point you both agreed. The problem I had then, as now, is it begs the question. Where is that match which lights afire & turns into action? IMHO, its a consciousness thingy.

source: C above
Where is that match which lights afire & turns into action? IMHO, its a consciousness thingy.
Well i have not been able to fine the match in my consciousness.  I am conscious only of what i do, but not that which causes me to do it ... except of course by examining my habits and working on them.   Nor have i ever heard of anyone publishing a believable account of being conscious of that match.   My own conclusion is that the match is not accessible to processes of consciousness.  You are conscious only of your planning, wanting, intending, and doing and then after the fact of your rationalizations.  But the actual cause of the action does not seem to appear as an object in your consciousness.   I now doubt that it is worth the effort to look for it there. 
seth 2010-07-29 09:59:15 [item 14107]
source: C above
Where is that match which lights afire & turns into action? IMHO, its a consciousness thingy.
Well i have not been able to fine the match in my consciousness.  I am conscious only of what i do, but not that which causes me to do it ... except of course by examining my habits and working on them.   Nor have i ever heard of anyone publishing a believable account of being conscious of that match.   My own conclusion is that the match is not accessible to processes of consciousness.  You are conscious only of your planning, wanting, intending, and doing and then after the fact of your rationalizations.  But the actual cause of the action does not seem to appear as an object in your consciousness.   I now doubt that it is worth the effort to look for it there. 
Maybe you are only conscious of your planning, wanting, intending & doing & the after the fact rationalizations, but ....
Becoming more conscious of something that is less than fully conscious or unconscious may not thrill you, but for me I like to wake up some more.  It lies for me in the distinction intend vs perhaps the distinction desire or want.  I'm am mostly conscious of did; with some minimal effort I am conscious of doing & working on more waking consciousness of my intent.  I too doubt than anyone can describe it for you just like describing who I am to you will not communicate to you who/what I am for me. No description suffices!

M 2010-07-29 10:40:14 [item 14107]
seth 2010-07-29 09:59:15 [item 14107]
source: C above
Where is that match which lights afire & turns into action? IMHO, its a consciousness thingy.
Well i have not been able to fine the match in my consciousness.  I am conscious only of what i do, but not that which causes me to do it ... except of course by examining my habits and working on them.   Nor have i ever heard of anyone publishing a believable account of being conscious of that match.   My own conclusion is that the match is not accessible to processes of consciousness.  You are conscious only of your planning, wanting, intending, and doing and then after the fact of your rationalizations.  But the actual cause of the action does not seem to appear as an object in your consciousness.   I now doubt that it is worth the effort to look for it there. 
Maybe you are only conscious of your planning, wanting, intending & doing & the after the fact rationalizations, but ....
Becoming more conscious of something that is less than fully conscious or unconscious may not thrill you, but for me I like to wake up some more.  It lies for me in the distinction intend vs perhaps the distinction desire or want.  I'm am mostly conscious of did; with some minimal effort I am conscious of doing & working on more waking consciousness of my intent.  I too doubt than anyone can describe it for you just like describing who I am to you will not communicate to you who/what I am for me. No description suffices!

Strange i am almost always conscious of my intentions.  If i had planned to do something, then i am always always aware of that planning (intending, intentions) when the moment for action on them occurs.  That doesn't mean of course that i will act on my intentions.  The problem occurs when the intentions were formed in a different context from the moment when the action is supposed to occur.  Such is the motivation for this item.
M 2010-07-29 14:18:36 [item 14107]
IMHO & others, at some point I need to say what I did or am doing is what I really intended so that I have a chance at grasping the metaphorical match I strike.  Peter Ralston describes it thus:
BofNK 23:56 The Nature of Emotion: ...
"The word want is often used as as either intend or desire. Intention is committing to take a course of action -- it is what we actually end up doing, and so in this way we can say it is what we want to do.  Desire is imagining something we'd like to experience in the future.  It is indulging a conceptual possibility recognizable as the pleasure-charged effect evoked by imagining that experience coming to pass.  This is differenf from what we indend to do. Although there may be an urge or impulse to have a desired experience come about, desire doesn't demand action. Intent does."
... If I did it I intended to do it, the emotional calculus that lead up to it needs no proof maybe just more consciousness.


Well i think Ralston has hit upon a better definition ...
  • intention - a commitment to take a course of action
 ... and i think that saying "If I did it, I intended to do it" makes some (as yet unidentified) assumption about human psychology which i am not as yet prepared to make.  Perhaps we should tease out that assumption.

I certainly do agree that "imagining something we'd like to experience in the future" is not necessarily actually intending it to happen.  It lacks the commitment to make it happen. 

Psychologists have called that commitment a "mental state" and then have proceeded to argue about whether such a mental state can exist or not, see Denett's "The Intentional Stance".   That is a long and perhaps arduous context ... one which i became quite mired in some time ago ... you could probably still Google it on comp.ai.psychology.  Perhaps we can avoid that whole mire, perhaps not.

Me, i allow that  i can do things (1) intentionally, (2) unintentionally, and (3) by habit.   The third category is, by and far, the largest and dominates my actions.   In that category i put not only my own habits but also the habits of the culture in which i swim.  

Perhaps when you say you want to wake "consciousness of [your] intent", you are saying that you want to become aware of in which of my categories above your actions fall.  Is that the case?
M 2010-07-30 06:55:06 [item 14107]
above: ... Perhaps when you say you want to wake "consciousness of [your] intent", you are saying that you want to become aware of in which of my categories above your actions fall.  Is that the case?
... That's a good question: Just exactly what do I want to be more conscious of ?
Well, I'm going for experience with my ego in the room (self-consciousness), and (using my previous metaphor I want to have that self-consciousness while I get the match, light the match & set fire metabolically to the mechanism of action.) Categorization is conceptual & not the thing or process itself. I am looking for an experience of action with all aspects & components in the experience including my self-being.
    NLP treats a person as a state-machine & manipulates the electro-chemical storm via previously proven states of that person to get him to act in more resourceful ways from new or different states. Some use language to create a commitment to commitments - (such as "I say what I do & do what I say)) bypassing the metaphysics of it all. Ontologists, like Peter, go for the direct experience - as free & honest an experience as one can have of what is so without intervening mind/self stuff.


Ok, i get it, you are not into the "intent" thing at all.  I agree that intent, defined by "a commitment to take a course of action", is in the meta realm of thougt and is quite removed from and in another domain from the action itself.  All too freqently intent is not the cause of action, hence my motivation for this item.

You, on the other hand, are into the cause of action itself, apart from your thoughts about it ... you seek that match itself ... and perchance want to see yourself light it.   Can you describe an actual context and wha you experience?
     Well, actually I am interested in the intent (getting the match in the metaphor); building the emotion is part of the whole process of doing & carrying out the intent. Emotion is active & causative whereas feeling is passive mostly reaction.
     As an example, shortly after reading your comment I was conscious of a need to move my bowels. It came to me in the form of a sensation of heaviness or tension (these via interpretation in retrospect) in my lower abdomen. I more or less automatically chose to take care of it in the usual way (after a brief feeling of disappointment for the interrupt) & walked the ~ 9 steps to the toilet & sat down & squeezed & pinched off the loaf. The epiphany moment was a sensation of "done" followed by another sensation of wiping followed by another "done" (as best as paper can handle the job) followed by a backward glance into my memory recalling that the first done & the application of wiping was like a little micro sun illuminating the conception of what had to be accomplished. It was like the intention in a constructed moving picture of the acts (I have never seen my own orifice in the process)was a latent movie which finally lit up with reality with my self/being present.
Well i thoughtfully enjoyed your description of your shit.  So much so that i'm thinking of making a facebook app for it ... people should have a place where they can describe their shits ... after all these are intense experiences that we all have and we should not be too prudish to talk about them in public.
C 2010-07-31 10:09:13 [item 14107]
I agree with Peter in that I always carry out my intent, but I may not always be aware or conscious of exactly what that intent is or was. The question for us though is if I mistype a word or if playing basketball miss the shot was that my intent to miss?
Well that seems to fly in the face of Peter's definition of "intent" being "a commitment to take a course of action"; but perhaps there is quite a bit more in his book that i don't have than that which you have quoted above.  For me it appears as just a semantic confusion ... a playing with words.  I fully intended to eat at Naan-N-Curry yesterday but when it came down to the actual moment we went to Olive Garden instead.  So then for me, you and Peter have just taken the word "intent" out of our vocabulary ... and in it's place have substituted some metaphysical "real intent" of which we can pursue a consciousness.  Sorry, i don't care for doing that.

That said, there still is a thing here.  There is a kind of living and doing in which i would not separate the intention from the doing at all; and not build this schizophrenia in my being.  I would not always be comparing what i intended to do with what i actually did.  Sometimes i actually do that.  It is a very "in the now" kind of being ... and certainly a good way to be ... it is like an gymnast performing with no hesitation and no regrets.  

But you're right, given that redesign of human behavior and semantics, it does pose the problem of how to acknowledge mistakes.  Lot's of luck with that one ... I don't intend to solve it.
Perhaps, you also have the wonderful word try in your vocabulary, eh?  Trying is not doing but feeling good about yourself for the mental/physical effort you put out not doing . The mistakes thing can be avoided by more consciousness (presence of mind) when you do things.  There is a chain/network of things going on. You can choose to be more conscious when you put your keys somewhere to avoid having to hunt for them or you can build a habit of always putting them in the same place. I can be more conscious of my typing & avoid mistyping. If I were a basketball player I would intend to practice more until I built up the skill & mental presence of mind to hit the basket every time.  In the same section of BofNK, Peter describes being in an a stinky outhouse as intent but in a case where outside are very hungry wolves - (a duality to ponder.) Do you intend (or does it happen just on my machine that purple color is perpetuated unless I select black from the color palette) ? If you choose to bury your head in the sand eventually your world will begin to look gritty! Backing up from what you do to examine what you chose & intended is not a bad exercise. I would not  choose to do it all day long, though.  Even GW's (& PR's!) thinking backward exercise is not bad for results in that area.


seth 2010-08-01 04:20:10 [item 14107]
Well i thoughtfully enjoyed your description of your shit.  So much so that i'm thinking of making a facebook app for it ... people should have a place where they can describe their shits ... after all these are intense experiences that we all have and we should not be too prudish to talk about them in public.
You might even make a business out of selling flushable paper gloves or covers for your cell phone out of it - for those who are more in-the-now inclined.

source: M above
Perhaps, you also have the wonderful word try in your vocabulary, eh?  Trying is not doing but feeling good about yourself for the mental/physical effort you put out not doing .
No, i'm not a fan of trying to do stuff.  Except, of course, in the context of trial and error.  You try this and then your try that until you find something that works.  But saying to yourself "I'm gonna try to do my taxes in January" does not get your taxes done.   So, for me, there is a grand distinction  between trying to do something and  forming the requisite commitment to actually get it done.  See my new wording for step 3 above.  

Frequently the problem is that the commitment is formed in a different context, and perhaps even in a different time, from which the action will occur.   Hence the necessity to change back to the original context to implement the commitment. 
source: M
Do you intend (or does it happen just on my machine that purple color is perpetuated unless I select black from the color palette) ? If you choose to bury your head in the sand eventually your world will begin to look gritty! Backing up from what you do to examine what you chose & intended is not a bad exercise. I would not  choose to do it all day long, though.  Even GW's (& PR's!) thinking backward exercise is not bad for results in that area.
  Obviously the bugs and quirks in the fastblogit WYSIWYG editor were not intentional.  It was my intention to implement the best editor i could within the constraints in which i was working  at the time ... and obviously i agree that "backing up from what you do to examine what you chose & intended is not a bad exercise".    So i am not getting what you intended to convey here with your comment.
seth 2010-08-02 07:04:54 [item 14107]
source: M
Do you intend (or does it happen just on my machine that purple color is perpetuated unless I select black from the color palette) ? If you choose to bury your head in the sand eventually your world will begin to look gritty! Backing up from what you do to examine what you chose & intended is not a bad exercise. I would not  choose to do it all day long, though.  Even GW's (& PR's!) thinking backward exercise is not bad for results in that area.
  Obviously the bugs and quirks in the fastblogit WYSIWYG editor were not intentional.  It was my intention to implement the best editor i could within the constraints in which i was working  at the time ... and obviously i agree that "backing up from what you do to examine what you chose & intended is not a bad exercise".    So i am not getting what you intended to convey here with your comment.
This is an example of not knowing what another intends. I just wanted to bring to your attention the purple writing which I can turn off only when I reselect black as my basic color each post. I am pretty sure that my intention was accomplished; unless it doesn't happen in your browser.

seth 2010-08-02 06:54:35 [item 14107]
source: M above
Perhaps, you also have the wonderful word try in your vocabulary, eh?  Trying is not doing but feeling good about yourself for the mental/physical effort you put out not doing .
No, i'm not a fan of trying to do stuff.  Except, of course, in the context of trial and error.  You try this and then your try that until you find something that works.  But saying to yourself "I'm gonna try to do my taxes in January" does not get your taxes done.   So, for me, there is a grand distinction  between trying to do something and  forming the requisite commitment to actually get it done.  See my new wording for step 3 above.  

Frequently the problem is that the commitment is formed in a different context, and perhaps even in a different time, from which the action will occur.   Hence the necessity to change back to the original context to implement the commitment. 
This is an excellent example of why not to procrastinate - the context doesn't shift as far when the time interval is short.  However, you have soared so high into the abstract that your have left the plane of experience & reality.  Nobody thinks "I'm going to shift context to accomplish X". Rather, they think "I'm going to do X" or "I want to do X".  As a matter of fact, you can shift context all day long & not accomplish X since context is a conceptual thingy. In the end you have to succumb to the Nike motto!

source: M above
I just wanted to bring to your attention the purple writing which I can turn off only when I reselect black as my basic color each post.
There is some kind of disconnect between the DOM pointer and what you see on the screen ... in other words, the programming doesn't know exactly where you think you are.  But there is a way that will always work:  Complete your message by typing or pasting into the box without clicking any text gadgets.  Then go back and select the text you want to decorate and click the gadget.  That, me thinks, always works.  When you are copying decorated text into a new context, paste it first into notepad, reselect it there and copy it to the clipboard, and then paste it into the wysiwyg box, and if need be reapply whatever decoration you want it to have in the new context.
source: M above
However, you have soared so high into the abstract that your have left the plane of experience & reality.  Nobody thinks "I'm going to shift context to accomplish X". Rather, they think "I'm going to do X" or "I want to do X".  As a matter of fact, you can shift context all day long & not accomplish X since context is a conceptual thingy.
hmmm ... seem that you have arrived at a notion of what i am doing here.

Thing is there is nothing abstract about this method ... though perhas it is described in an abstract manner in which you are not familiar.   But you are right, most people will not be thinking with this vocabulary and will not be thinking that their actions are primarily controlled by the current context in which they find themselves.  But their actions in fact are controlled primarially by the stimuli of the moment and the habits and attentions that the person brings to that moment.  I am merely referring to all of that with my word "context".   

That said, then perhaps you can grok why my first step is "Recognize".  The rest of the method follows naturally from that.  Also please bear in mind that i am not saying this method always works, is the best method that could be devised, or even that i am having all that very much success with it.  If the method fails, it probably fail immediately after step 1 ... a person simply not having (or choosing) the requisite resolve to take the matter further.  

C 2010-08-02 08:50:56 [item 14107]
Context & distinction are fundamental to meaning or semantics, but are as abstract & conceptual as it gets. You can't see, touch, taste, smell or hear context (or fuck it either unless you can shift your context to all there is is cunt - in which case you have to disappear or become cunt & figure out how to fuck yourself from there).
slurp! All hail Nuit!
Yes the concepts called "context" and "distinction" are abstract.   So in that same sense are all descriptions.    That said, you are missing the  point with  a quibble.   The method is not abstract.  It is a sequence of  things that you *do* ! 
I keep thinking ... where's the plasticity in all of this? This looks like plain old changing a habit or stopping a bad habit. Can you tease out why you label it plastic?

C 2010-08-14 08:08:17 [item 14107]
I keep thinking ... where's the plasticity in all of this? This looks like plain old changing a habit or stopping a bad habit. Can you tease out why you label it plastic?

I tagged this item into my [tag plastic habits] room for the sake of retrieval, but i didn't label it "plastic habit" as such.  It is a procedure to intentionally change from one behavior to another, in the here and now.   I had not intended to create a procedure to create "plastic habits" ... but rather i had just intended to write down an obvious procedure to intentionally transit from one behavior to another one.  That said, since i believe that 99.9 % (not sure how far to carry the decimal point) of all behavior is habitual at some level,  any intentional change of a behavior entails a change in a habit ... hense the procedure, where effective, would add plasticity to your habits.

But i'm not sure how effective the procedure is.  If i am trapped in a behavior that i would intentionally change, and i know that, and i know of this procedure, that does not imply that i will use it.  If it is used, me thinks it will work, but what happens is that it fails immediately on step 2 because the requisite courage to change is not there. 
Thanks.  -What stands out for me in what you said is that most behavior is habitual - in your context & explanation. I would prefer to think of such as rhythmic - just change the harmony or the melody & one can get a different song. Rhythm is cosmic starting out for us with the Sun, Moon & rotation of the Earth - no way to get around that! Add to that the biological ones of beating heart, breathing, eating & shitting & the pattern continues - the beat goes on thankfully - not one I want to escape! I remember listening to some spontaneous jazz & conga/bongo moments when the beat would begin to change & the melody/harmony would shift.  One guy could shift the music in a different direction which would solidify eventually into something I would recognize as perhaps music.  What we align with shifts directions is the metaphor.
    Way back when we were discussing the rwg I said there were brief moments out of the psychological stimulus-response loop of machinery that were special. Some who like Zen say you can increase the number of those with self-consciousness of what you are doing & thinking.

I think it is the unconsciousness & feelings of helplessness incongruent with some level of goals that make habits a dilemma.

Yeah the musical metaphor is a interesting one, i will give it some more though.  Life doesn't present itself to me as music ... perhaps it is just me not being all that musically aware ... perhaps i just need to tune into it more.

Step 5 is very important.  It must balance against the pull to the current context.  Perhaps i have it positioned wrong ... perhaps step 5 should be step 2 ... yet you cannot really focus on the drama of the new context without being aware of it's details ... perhaps step 5 should preceed step 3 ... try it that way. 

Case in point with new sequence: 
  1. I intend to finish and open that which is not  what i have been doing ... rather i have been doing that and of course this.  
  2. All i have to do with that is to test out the final ordering procedure and make some known changes in it.   
  3. (was 5) point is if i focus on that and finish it today ... at least tomorrow ... think of how glorious it will be that i have finally completed the new speaktomecatalog site.  I can start actually playing with customers having identity at our site.  Lots of new stuff will open up ... and i can move on to the next project and won't be stuck here in infinite regress.
  4. (was 3) So do it ... open /new today or tomorrow.
  5. clicking say here and closing other windows
M 2010-08-16 09:02:55 [item 14107]
I think it is the unconsciousness & feelings of helplessness incongruent with some level of goals that make habits a dilemma.

I really cannot grock what that means.   If we to become more aware and less frustrated when we don't meet our goals will that "make habits less of a dilemma"?  And how are habits a dilemma anyway?  To me they are a fact of life ... more like a predicament.  Habits are Great!  But when they get in the way of my goals, i feel that as a tension, a struggle, perhaps even a feeling of frustration (though not really) ...  Is that the "feelings of helplessness" to which you refer? 

What happens frequently with me is goals are formed in a different context than the now and the habits of the now interfere with their accomplishment ... consequently my emphasis in this item to changing context.   Is your Zen solution not to form goals except in the now in which they are met? 
seth 2010-08-16 17:20:55 [item 14107]
M 2010-08-16 09:02:55 [item 14107]
I think it is the unconsciousness & feelings of helplessness incongruent with some level of goals that make habits a dilemma.

I really cannot grock what that means.   If we to become more aware and less frustrated when we don't meet our goals will that "make habits less of a dilemma"?  And how are habits a dilemma anyway?  To me they are a fact of life ... more like a predicament.  Habits are Great!  But when they get in the way of my goals, i feel that as a tension, a struggle, perhaps even a feeling of frustration (though not really) ...  Is that the "feelings of helplessness" to which you refer? 

What happens frequently with me is goals are formed in a different context than the now and the habits of the now interfere with their accomplishment ... consequently my emphasis in this item to changing context.   Is your Zen solution not to form goals except in the now in which they are met? 
The habits I was referring to are the ones most people describe as bad habits like smoking, drinking, eating too much, or fucking sheep etc. The duality is wanting to do them, but not wanting to deal with the consequences - that's the dilemma. Those habits like pinching off a loaf first thing in the morning are habits I am congruent with & so with the consequences.  If you've ever watched the A&E series Intervention you know that the machinery is very clever at continuing the habit & making the habitue's helpless overpower the desire to quit. As far as Zen goes, being conscious & congruent with whatever you do in real-time bypasses all the rest of the psycho-babble & goes straight to the heart of the matter. You may not like what you have to do for work, but you must do something to feed, clothe & shelter yourself. Therefore, quit conceiving futures different from what you are doing NOW & enjoy what you are doing which is congruent with providing your necessities.

The habits I was referring to are the ones most people describe as bad habits like smoking, drinking, eating too much, or fucking sheep etc. The duality is wanting to do them, but not wanting to deal with the consequences - that's the dilemma. Those habits like pinching off a loaf first thing in the morning are habits I am congruent with & so with the consequences.  If you've ever watched the A&E series Intervention you know that the machinery is very clever at continuing the habit & making the habitue's helpless overpower the desire to quit. As far as Zen goes, being conscious & congruent with whatever you do in real-time bypasses all the rest of the psycho-babble & goes straight to the heart of the matter. You may not like what you have to do for work, but you must do something to feed, clothe & shelter yourself. Therefore, quit conceiving futures different from what you are doing NOW & enjoy what you are doing which is congruent with providing your necessities.


M 2010-08-19 09:03:38 [item 14107]
One of my favorite pieces of music for hearing the interplay of melody, harmony & especially rhythm is Santana's piece Jingo from his 1969 Album. His Samba Pa Ti from the Abraxis album is another if you are more inclined toward melody & rhythm. How well you get the relationship between music & altering the flow of habits is up to you. 

& if you are interested in a more modern example, especially of harmony try:
FYI & edification (or NOT) I retrieved from deep archives something TR called Rules Realignment via Questions. I condensed it into a PDF here. The important concept is that you can ask yourself questions to elicit the rules you have for obtaining a particular state. You can shift from one state to another (or in your context from a person with one habit to a person with a more resourceful habit).  The second page gives the overall context for the different types of questions.  Each page has a column from the present state to the desired state.  Your method reminded me of this.  Usually by the time you complete answering all of the questions you desire the change - it's tedious & the process of answering is convinces the person doing it to change.  If not, you can review your answers via a multi channel swish pattern from the currrent state to the desired state & complete the change that way.  Don't worry too much about what that means, I don't expect you to do it unless you're interested.

knowing a bad behavior is a habit before i give in to it, means that i am less likely to do it.   at that moment of knowledge, i have a choice to change context.  without that moment of knowledge, seems to me i don't get a choice in the matter. 
also knowing what qued the habit is helpful in recognizing the habituation.  for example: i used to go lie down after i took a pee in the bathroom next to my bedroom.  now when i take a pee in that bathroom i feel the urge to lie down.  the urge still occurs in that context ... but now i recognize it as just a bad habit that i don't have to do ... consequently i rarely ever do it any more.
  another bad behavior i have is to give in to distraction when i have made some small accomplishment.  now that i recognize that que, can i change the behavior?

 
 

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