Conation
Def - the mental faculty of purpose, desire, or will to perform an action; volition.
That definition is woefully inadequate to plumb the depths of this remarkable and life-changing word. Conation is basically the willingness to act on something as soon as you figure out you should. Here are a couple better working definitions:
"The will to succeed that manifest itself in single minded pursuit of a goal." (John McCormack)
And my favorite personal definition of conation - "I want something so bad, I'm already doing it."
Conation is basically intuition in immediate action. Intuition is the accumulation of all our past thinking, feeling and doing that allows us to "know" very quickly how something will likely unfold. When we act on that intuition, that action is conation. I believe the number one indicator of success in an early stage business is Speed of Execution. When business owners conate, they succeed. When they don't, they are exhibiting the traits of my second favorite word.
Velleity
I stumbled across velleity (vah-lay-ity) in a book on obscure words. The definition actually starts with, "the antonym to conation." It's the only word I know of that starts by telling you what it isn't. But you see why when you understand the meaning of the word itself:
Velleity - The desire, with no intention of doing anything.
One dictionary calls it, "a mere wish, unaccompanied by effort to obtain."
Nothing else could be so clearly the antonym of conation. Conation says I want something so bad that I'm already doing it. Velleity says I would love to have it, but won't put out the effort to make it happen.
Wouldn't it be great if...
Someday I'm going to...
I sure wish that...
It's a real desire, but it's all just velleity.
To Conate or Not To Conate, That Is The Question
June 30, with only 10% body fat, I had a heart attack and found out sugar is not a food but a poison (except for glucose, which is not in our soft drinks or our honey). I'll hammer sugar and the food and pharma industries that ignore and obscure its destructive nature in a future post. The point here is that within a few weeks of my heart attack I had seen enough science to know that cutting processed sugar out of my diet would make living more fun and extend my life. So I did.
In three months my bad cholesterol dropped from 205 to 54, deadly triglycerides went from 207 to 83, and insulin resistance essentially disappeared. All indicators of heart problems dropped to irrelevant levels.
If I was thinking in terms of "resolutions", I would have done what most of us do before we act on our New Year's Resolution. I would have gone on a sugar binge. Or at the very least I would have set a cutoff date a few weeks to a few months out, while I used up the sugar laying around the kitchen and got my sugar affairs in order, all so I could prepare to mourn the death of sugar.
But that would be velleity - a desire, with no intention of doing anything. Conation says that if I want something, I'm already doing it. There is no preparing, adjusting, phasing out or weekend binging down the road. Yoda said, "Do or do not. There is no try." Classic conation.
When I was a kid, my mother said it even better. "Chuck, there are no excuses, there aren't even reasons, there are only priorities." Mothers often say things that just tick you off because you know there is no wiggle room.
Conating vs. New Year's Resolutions
Do you have a New Year's Resolution you plan to start on January 1? If I would have figured out the sugar thing on December 28, should I have waited four days to do something about it? Four weeks? Six months? If I had to wait until some special day in the future to do what I knew I should do, it would just be velleity. According to research on New Year's Resolutions, the likelihood that I would stick with it is just about nil.
There are no excuses or reasons, just priorities. Velleity is just naked desire. Conation says I want something bad enough that I'm already doing it. Do or do not, there is no try.
Let's mess with New Year's Resolutions and start today, because tomorrow never comes.
Carpe freaking diem already.
Information provided about velleity:
Velleity meaning in Hindi : Get meaning and translation of Velleity in Hindi language with grammar,antonyms,synonyms and sentence usages. Know answer of question : what is meaning of Velleity in Hindi? Velleity ka matalab hindi me kya hai (Velleity का हिंदी में मतलब ). Velleity meaning in Hindi (हिन्दी मे मीनिंग ) is इच्छा मात्र.English definition of Velleity : a mere wish, unaccompanied by effort to obtain
Hindi meaning of velleity, velleity meaning in hindi, velleity ka matalab hindi me, velleity translation and definition in Hindi language.velleity का मतलब (मीनिंग) हिंदी में जाने |Simon Hertnon
Auckland, December 2022
velleity
{vә-LEE-ә-tee. Noun.}
MEANING
From the OED:
• The fact or quality of merely willing, wishing, or desiring, without any effort or advance towards action or realization.
• With a and in the plural. A mere wish, desire, or inclination without accompanying action or effort.
The RH2’s definition adds another nuance: ‘volition in its weakest form.’ Velleity is the very benchmark of caring minimally.
The adjective is velleitous
AGE
Early 17th century
ETYMOLOGY
From the Latin velleitas, from velle, ‘to will, to wish, to be willing’, and -itas, -ity.
Very rare
WHY I LIKE THE WORD VELLEITY
Velleity is the word whose (and I quote myself, which is a little weird) ‘utter relevance, archaic age (around 400 years old) and extreme rarity immediately struck me as something special’.
I cannot imagine there are too many other English words that so accurately describe such a pervasive condition. I mean, sure, we have many words and phrases at our disposal to express that we don’t care at all (don’t give a damn, indifference), that we do care (love, passion, calling), and even that we secretly care but want to inflict a little pain by claiming that we don’t (couldn’t care less). But what about when we give just a little damn — not enough to do anything about our limited interest or concern — but a totally unhelpful inkling of a damn all the same?
And everywhere you look you will find velleitous inklings of concern. For example, the velleitous concern for air quality and global warming displayed by the drivers of gas-guzzling, smoke-belching SUVs (and that stands for Suburban Utility Vehicle, in case you have ever had a velleitous desire to look it up, but never got round to it).
I am convinced that velleity permeates our lukewarm blood and that talking about the condition and using the word will only help us to better recognise our own behaviour.
Let’s resurrect this word.
QUOTATION
The ease of her words, the control of them, was meant to convey to Compton that her wish to know of her real parents was hardly more than a velleity, a thought that would come to one while watering a plant or peeling an orange.
Thomas Savage, I Heard My Sister Speak My Name (Little, Brown, 1977)
VELLEITY ALIVE
[The ‘alive’ section for each featured word is one hundredth of a short story that uses, in alphabetical order, all one hundred rare words. You’ll have to buy the book to find out all about interior designer, Jane, her nuclear physicist husband, Bill, her strikingly beautiful sister, Jane, and a philandering Italian dentist called Angelo.]
Jane had reached a conclusion and it was time to tell Bill. ‘Let’s do it,’ she said.
Bill was simultaneously excited, scared, worried and sceptical. ‘But what about your work? Your shops?’
Jane looked regretful, but only for a second. ‘I can commute. I can do select projects. Hey, I could even project-manage other designers. We’ll find a way. Look, Bill, I’ve spent my life complaining about the velleitous folk who only talk the talk. I need to expel a little velleity of my own and just support us.’