"Maybe he did everything on his own initiative, possessed by a passion for knowledge, driven by a restless and unfocused compulsion?" he reckons.
The oligarchs, led by Critias, one of the "overseers" and a former exile, summoned a Spartan garrison to ensure their safety and then initiated a reign of terror, executing any men who they thought might possess sufficient initiative or a large enough following to effectively challenge them.
William Godwin coined initiative in 1793 to mean "the first step in some enterprise" and (prefiguring debate in the art world centuries later) wrote, "Sensation... possesses the initiative".
Thus Sennacherib, king of Assyria, in undertaking a military campaign, recorded that he did so not on his own initiative but in conformity with Ashur's will: "In my second campaign, Ashur my Lord impelled me". When the Hebrews and Ammonites had a border dispute, Jephthah told the Ammonites: "Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess?
With the invention and subsequent rise in personal computing, tech heavyweights increasingly gobbled up tech start-ups sometimes with the primary initiative of possessing their proprietary technology (reference Oracle).
People from outside the rural areas, the impoverished areas, are often shocked at the ideas and initiative possessed there.
Initiative requires a bodily agent possessing specific capabilities and vulnerabilities who inhabits some concrete worldly situation.
In 2013 two-thirds of Portland voters backed an MPP-supported ballot initiative repealing all local (but not state) penalties for possessing up to 2.5 ounces.
The legislative initiative was possessed by the Emperor, along with the Diet executive (six deputies and the Marshal), and all individual deputies.
Similarly, one general manager of a human resources service company (B7) stated that possessing certificates was an indicator of a person's commitment to high levels of initiative, as opposed to doing only what was required.
