To the Point of No Return

RL7 → RL6: Getting Going

Willingness helps create a conception of an endeavour built around purpose: i.e. my personal values and goals. More

The effect of my willingness-RL7 is to bring my personal goals-RL6_A into being. How this creation occurs is a mystery. Without my willingness, it won't occur and if there is no goal, there can be no ideas for an endeavour. Once I have goals that I genuinely feel are my own and are worthwhile, then another mystery occurs. I find myself even more willing to pursue them. Creation works both ways.

The RL7_B ↔ RL6_A Channel force is: Create

My willingness-RL7 takes for granted my group's norms/doctrines-RL6_C which is why I am comfortable to be a member. As long as I am part of the group (family, society, association, discipline, organization), I have little option, but usually I don't want an option. It is just the way things are. The group certainly presumes that I adhere to its doctrines and norms willingly.

If I am an unwilling participant in this group, and the group knows, then it would become uncomfortable. It would mean reduced support for me and my endeavour, or possibly antagonism if I seem to be an apostate. In any case, the group's view can be powerfully expressed in relation to my goal-RL6_A.

The Channel force is:  Presume

By determining my goal-RL6_A and being comfortable with relevant doctrines and norms-RL6_C, I feel as if I know what my endeavour is about. But this is just the bare bones of a conception. It's an idea—and ideas are cheap and easy.

RL6 → RL5: To the Drawing Board

My conception needs to be fleshed out so there is something others can take seriously. I have to communicate-RL6—to myself as well as to others—by producing accounts: informal and formal or technical. These make it clear what I am aiming at, what its value is, and how I think it can work practically, socially, technically and financially. Whatever it is If the endeavour is becoming a parent, the account will look very different than if it is a new internet application. You must imagine your own endeavour to bring these topics alive., the two key processes for a successful passage to the drawing board are clarification and confirmation.

Click on the thumbnail to see the two Centres at each level with the 4 possible Channels. A moment's thought reveals that two of these cannot exist. Which and why?

My personal goals-RL6_A are too sketchy and general to affect formal specifications-RL5_C. I need to elaborate my goals significantly and provide an informal, comprehensible explanation before formal specs are possible. Similarly, technicalities on their own will not shape my goals. Only when I convert them to my own language can I see the implications which might lead me to adjust my goal.

Similarly, my group's doctrines and norms-RL6_C are too abstract and general to shape my informal accounts- RL5_A of the potential endeavour. And my focused accounts will not affect those doctrines and social norms either.

Many Good Ideas Start Confused

Starting from my personal goals-RL6_A, I can start spinning an account-RL5_A of the endeavour. I can question myself, or get someone to quiz me so that I consider implications for a wide range of factors. My goals help me clarify and improve explanations that I provide. Giving an account to others helps me clarify and adjust or elaborate my goals for the endeavour.

The RL6_A ↔ RL5_A Channel force is: Clarify

Most Good Ideas can Be Improved

The formal specifications-RL5_C do not shift and adjust like my conversational accounts. They are definitive and lend themselves to being evaluated and challenged and improved. It is, however, desirable that doctrines, customs and conventions-RL6_C will confirm the validity of the formal specification in principle. The formal specifications in turn should confirm the relevant group paradigms, beliefs and expectations. Confirmation may not be forthcoming if the endeavour is too radical.

The RL6_C ↔ RL5_C Channel force is: Confirm

Once communication-RL5 has put flesh on the bones of the endeavour idea-RL6, it is time make the crucial assay using my-self (i.e. my experience-RL4) as the instrument. Because it is my endeavour, it is vital that I am 100% comfortable with it.

RL5 → RL4: My «Sense» must Prevail

To be comfortable, I must feel confident about the endeavour as it is shaping up. It needs to reflect my views, my principles, my preferences and my understanding. Where necessary, I must be ready to put my stamp on it whatever others may say. So I not only evaluate and adjust the endeavour conception at the outset, I also continue that process as the endeavour, my ideas and events evolve.

Feeling a Flush of Recognition

Informal accounts-RL5_A affect my experience by colouring it, perhaps by expectations of inner strength or fortune or fame or travel or simplicity or social acceptance. (None of these expectations may eventuate, or not in the way I expect.) My experience will certainly colour the informal account: perhaps helpfully by using personal examples; or perhaps unhelpfully tingeing it with my fears, and indicating risks that are rather unlikely to eventuate.

The RL5_A ↔ RL4_B Channel force is: Colour

Applying my Biases, Even as it Shapes my Life.

The formal specification-RL5_C will impact on and shape my experience-RL4_B because of the details and implications—which may be disturbing or even shocking. (I may have to adjust my expectations; and realize that even if I do not proceed, I have learned a lot!)

My experience-RL4_B will also shape the formal specifications-RL5_C because the endeavour must be adapted, for good or ill, to me. By me, I mean my fears, my ambitions, my principles, my prejudices and any other relevant experience that is activated. The specification is moulded in part because my personal experience contains identity and maturational requirements. These are not amenable to alteration or suppression by me or anyone else.

The RL5_C ↔ RL4_B Channel force is: Mould

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Now, the crucial question: Is the die cast? According to Suetonius, Julius Caesar said in Latin "Iacta alea est" when he crossed the Rubicon river with his army on the way to Rome. The law required Military Commanders to leave their forces beyond the Rubicon. By breaking the law in this way, Caesar was in effect committing himself to his endeavour: to return in triumph to Rome, to overthrow the Senate and eventually to become Emperor of the Roman Empire.

The next step down from the RL4-My Experience Centre generates actualization. So this is a crucial moment of choice and commitment. Having adjusted the envisaged endeavour to my preferences and experience, and having adjusted myself to accepting a detailed practical version of the endeavour in principle, I must now choose to make it happen.

• Moving to Change-RL3 means the world will never be the same again.

Originally posted : 13-Aug-2011. Updated 5-Jul-2013