This thread started because my flatmate wrote a wonderful summary of Confession, by Tolstoy who struggled with the conception of the meaning of life. And earlier, I had spent some time thinking of goal-seeking behaviors and feedback loops as related to one’s intention.

To elaborate briefly, building on Norbert Weiner’s work on cybernetics, I have come to visualize intention as the setpoint to which we reference the utility of our actions. When choosing between available actions in an environment, we make a decision based on the difference between the output of the action and our intention.

And on reading my flatmate’s summary, we had an interesting discussion around the formation of intention. Specifically, the role of purpose and meaning in intention. To my flatmate, purpose through “one’s own life work” was what lead to meaning, and my argument was that there are meaningful things which lack purpose (a sunrise observed from the top of a hill can be very meaningful to an observer but lack any specific purpose).

Sparing all the minute details of the conversation, the interesting insight is that, a person’s intention at any time requires the right balance of meaning and purpose. In life, there appears to be a requirement for meaning, as what Tolstoy himself was facing, and there is a requirement for purpose which is utility based that necessarily must be done.

So every day’s intention, must be guided by both meaning and purpose. Indulge in too much meaning and neglect purpose, and one might find themselves falling behind, feeling like dead weight. Do the reverse, and one might feel hopeless, lost, and a lack of joy.

And this combination of purpose and meaning, is what guides our daily actions animated by our intention. The challenge as always, is getting the balance right, and that is probably an individually unique situation.