November | 2011 | The Direction of Intention

Truly Powerful People (244)

Posted on November 10, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

244.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Here’s a call and response from Judy. She took a look at http://www.trulypowerful.com and sent this thought: “Just a quick musing at this unworldly hour. Power in Spanish is ‘poder.’ Poder also means ‘to be able to’. So ‘disabled’ is ‘without power’… not a fair title when you look at the power within the disabled in our lives. Not sure how it all relates; perhaps you can finish my thought.”

And my idea back at her: “Do you know the term ‘label-libel?’ It is from Marshall McLuhan and means that once we slap a label on something we no longer need to think about it. Isn’t it true that we have a progressive history of labels leading to this latest word ‘disabled?’ Perhaps true poder is in the capacity to peer beyond the label, to see the potential, the possibilities, and the abilities in each and every unique human being.”

I’ve worked with and known many, many people who wear the “disabled” label on their lapels in the eyes of society. They are miracles of perseverance and power, love and gratitude, generosity and courage. They have a lot to teach the rest of us otherwise disabled folk about true power if only we have the eyes to see it.

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Truly Powerful People (243)

Posted on November 9, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

243.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Mark works for a government organization and he told me of a great revelation he had a few years ago. For the first 14 years of his career he got into a lot of trouble. He couldn’t figure out why he was in so much trouble all of the time because he was performing his job to the best of his abilities. And then, one day in the shower the reason hit him like a thunderbolt: his superiors didn’t really want him (or anyone, it wasn’t personal) to do the job. They didn’t want anyone to improve things because, as Mark so beautifully said, “Improvement makes waves.” He did an experiment and stopped doing his job and almost immediately his approval ratings began to rise.

Years ago I had a conversation with a banker, a vice president. I was doing work in system’s change and he told me that if I worked in his department he’d have to fire me. He said, “My job is to keep the status quo. The people that work for me want to come to work and go home with a paycheck. They don’t want change – even if it actually made things better. They want consistency.” I challenged his position. I haven’t met very many people (outside of management) who desire routine over effectiveness. And, his big misperception from my point of view is that change lives in opposition to consistency. In today’s world of business, the only consistency is change.

Recently I heard a speech by the outgoing Washington State Auditor. He’s been around for 20 years and told us that he can’t audit the departments of state government unless they request it; he’s the auditor but he can’t audit anything that will reveal waste and corruption unless the wasters and corrupters request it. You can guess how many requests he’s received in career.

Do you see the pattern? This is thinking of a time-gone-by. Compartmentalization and control are dinosaurs in a digital age. The only thing consistent in our world is change and the pace of change increases every year. Compartmentalization and control are power killers; an expansive economy requires expansive thinkers who know how to engage with multiple possibilities. The folks in the executive suite need to learn a new pattern of empowerment and fluid motion. We have a job to do and pretending that we’re doing it is flushing a ton of potential, time, energy and creative ability down the tubes.

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Truly Powerful People (242)

Posted on November 8, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

242.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

There is a simple image that I love from the book, Brain Rules: a researcher places a toy just outside the reach of a very young child and then places a plastic rake nearby. The child wants the toy and soon recognizes that the rake is useful in reaching the toy. Once the toy is acquired, explored, and scrutinized the child tosses the toy away so it can reach again with the rake. The toy is repeatedly raked within reach and just as quickly the toy is hurtled farther away.

The fascination is not with the toy, the thing, but with the challenge, the process. Left to his or her devices, the child will create greater and greater challenges; they will seek limits so they can expand beyond them. It is in their nature. It is in your nature. It is in our nature. Curiosity, exploration of the unknown, and mastery of greater and greater challenges is what we are designed to do. Boredom is unnatural and an acquired taste.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, we make education so convoluted and disturbingly difficult. We educators have designed and continue to support a system that is about the toy (the attainment of the “A”). What’s more, we teach students that we are the rake; the “A” is reached through us by performing what is expected for us – they look to us to see if they’ve reached the toy or not. Contain the curiosity, prescribe the exploration, eliminate the unknown; define the hoop and teach the student to jump through it – and call that learning. Is it any wonder our dropout rates are astronomical? You’ll find the kids in the park repeatedly falling off their skateboards – breaking bones if necessary – until the new trick is mastered.

Hoop jumping is controllable; true learning has nothing to do with control and everything to do with focus directed at an intention. It only takes a toy and a rake and the capacity to understand the difference between the two.

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Truly Powerful People 241

Posted on November 7, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

241.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

As luck would have it (isn’t that an interesting phrase! Luck personified and with an intention!) this morning I began reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It is lucky or serendipitous or coincidental, depending upon your belief about such matters, because last night I was working on the sequence for my upcoming class and needed a good story or example that clearly illustrated the power of community and connectivity. The introduction to Outliers is about a little town in Pennsylvania, Roseto.

In the 1950’s heart disease was an epidemic in the United States. Heart attacks were the leading cause of death among men under the age of 65 – except among the residents of Roseto. Heart disease was virtually non-existent there in people 55 or younger. Among people 65 or older the rate of death from heart disease was half that of the rest of the United States. Why?

Multiple studies were done to investigate this abnormality. Diet was considered and ruled out; the people of Roseto ate foods high in cholesterol, higher than most parts of the nation. Exercise, genetics, geography were each considered and ruled out. What was the difference?

As Gladwell writes, “The Rosetans had created a powerful, protective, social structure capable of insolating them from the pressures of the modern world. The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world that they created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills.”

This little town had virtually no crime, no homelessness, no suicide, no drug addiction or alcoholism, no one was on welfare, no one was dying of stress related conditions. In short, they were actively supportive, concerned and engaged with each other. They created a communal culture in which all members matter, all member care for the wellbeing of the others – no one was racing to be some other place.

Gladwell continues: the researchers “…had to convince the medical community to think about health and heart attacks in an entirely new way: they had to get them to realize that they wouldn’t be able to understand why someone was healthy if all they did was think about an individual’s personal choices or actions in isolation. They had to look beyond the individual. They had to understand the culture he or she was a part of,….”

No one lives in a vacuum. No one creates in a vacuum. No one develops in a vacuum. The health of the community expresses as the health experienced in the individuals. Power follows the same channels: if only the few dominate through power-over others then none are powerful, all are powerful when all the members are supported and supporting each other to realize their true power.

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Truly Powerful People (240)

Posted on November 6, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

240.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Someone once told me that many people come to the Pacific Northwest to heal. It is a magic place. It inspires quiet in the winter months. In the dark of winter it can be like going into the belly of the whale. When the sun returns or breaks through the winter clouds, all work stops as we pile out of our office buildings and stand with eyes closed, palms open absorbing the heat and the light; we are sun worshippers here.

I have been here for over a decade and there is a particular phenomenon that continues to take away my breath; the first time I saw it I almost crashed my car. Mountains surround Seattle though you could live here for months and never know it. The clouds and fog and rain are like a magician’s assistant – they make the mountains disappear; they hide them until we forget that they are there. And then, one day, the magician sun parts the curtains and the mountains, glowing pink and orange and purple in the early morning step forth reborn. We say, “The mountains are out today.”

I took a walk early this morning. It was raining and grey and cold. I felt something looming over my shoulder. I turned to look at what was behind me and the mountains were there, close enough to touch, staring back at me. Just for a moment. And then the magician’s assistant, said, “That’s enough,” and pulled the curtain, and they were gone.

Of course, I am self-centered enough to think the curtain was pulled back just for me. Just for a moment as if to say, “Don’t take this – any of this – for granted. The magic is always there and available at a moment’s notice. You never know what is coming just around the corner or walking just behind you. Pay attention. It is magic. Don’t forget to look.”

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Truly Powerful People (239)

Posted on November 5, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

239.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

This is a day for staring out of windows. I am marveling at the cycles of living and the timing of this day’s news.

A few moments ago I received word that Kim Bush, one of the most amazing people I have ever known, died last night. When I talk of empowered people empowering others it is often Kim and his wife Judy that I reference. Kim used his days on earth to enrich the lives of others – and so he had a very rich life. He suffered a massive stroke 4 years ago. It is enough to say that over the past 4 years on days that I needed to know the power of the human spirit, I paid Kim and Judy a visit: after the stroke Kim’s light did not dim as I would have expected, it intensified and shone brightly through the wreckage of his body. He became more present, more alive, more full of mischief and humor and curiosity after the stroke.

There is circumstance and there is who you are within your circumstance. Kim did not resist his circumstance; he lived a vital life within it (thank you, Judy).

15 minutes after I read the news of Kim’s passing, I got a text from Rafael. He is the proud papa of a new baby girl born last night at approximately the same time that Kim left us. The tides go out, the tides come in; the story is unique and universal, essential and inevitable, and ultimately about renewal.

My to-do list seems utterly unimportant, even silly. I will never have this day of life again and I think I will sit here and be amazed by it all.

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Truly Powerful People (238)

Posted on November 4, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

238.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

About a year ago I was doing research for a performance project and bumbled into a notion, an aspect of belief in some cultures that has intrigued me: hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts are not the same as other ghosts.

In many traditional belief systems people become ghosts when they die. Shadows, shades, wisps, or spirit without a body – all are variations on the theme. Generally it was thought that ghosts did not have an eternal life as a ghost, but slowly weaken, dissipate and eventually dissolve into mist; essentially ghosts are a transitional step toward unity.

Hungry ghosts are different. Hungry ghosts are exceptional cases! When a person no longer appreciates their ancestors, when in life they do something very bad to others (all crimes against others dishonors the ancestors), if they are greedy or the worst possible crime: forcing people to move from their ancestral home, thus disgracing both families of ancestors (the ancestors of the forced and the forcer), then this person will die and become a hungry ghost. Desire, greed, anger and ignorance all are factors in causing a soul to become a hungry ghost because they are motives for people to perform evil deeds against others. So, the bottom line is this: do something bad to others = shame to the ancestors = become a hungry ghost.

There is no eventual unity for a hungry ghost. There is no rebirth in the cosmic cycle, no resurrection, do not pass “Go,” do not collect $200, go straight to hungry ghost. It is not a transitional phase; it an end result. It is forever.

Here’s the kicker: there is a single get-out-of-hungry-ghost card but it is very, very hard to achieve. The ghost must convince a mortal to feel compassion for it, to show compassion for its choices, its crimes. This is not forgiveness and certainly not absolution. It is a search for that rare person capable of looking beyond the fear, the greed, the horror, the hunger, the cruelty and see, truly see the essence of the soul. This person has to be able to see the unity even in the hungry ghost – and then the ghost can see it, too.

Sometimes as I walk down the streets of my city I see people as hungry ghosts seeking for that one rare mortal capable of seeing beyond their weakness, their yearning, their flaws and humanity; people who want to be seen. Sometimes, I refocus my eyes and see everyone as that mortal, not so rare, capable of seeing beyond the mess; people capable of seeing. Either way, the action is the same: the hider seeks the seeker, the seeker seeks the hider, compassion ensues and unity becomes a possibility: the ancestors welcome both home.

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Truly Powerful People (237)

Posted on November 3, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

237.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

As a child you probably asked yourself, “How do I change myself to be accepted?” Although it is a necessary question to ask while figuring out who you are, it is a question that will plague you all your adult life until you stumble into the second question, when you finally ask yourself, “How do I accept myself as I am?”

Resistance, frustration, anger and fear are the hallmarks of the first question if it is carried beyond its usefulness. Placing your acceptance in the hands of another is a recipe for disaster and will make your life’s story a dance for approval.

The second question is always with you. It is your ally, your friend, and your guardian of power. While asking the first question, while trying to change yourself for the eyes of others, you will feel that your life is just beyond your reach; you will catch glimmers of your power but it will sift like sand through your fingers. That is the second question waiting for you to place your acceptance where it belongs. It touches you on the shoulder every so often to remind you that it is with you, waiting for you to place your acceptance within yourself where it belongs.

The absence of resistance, frustration, anger and fear are the hallmarks of the second question, when your life story becomes about creating power with others in all the amazing shapes, sizes and forms available to you when you finally decide to stop the dance.

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Truly Powerful People (236)

Posted on November 2, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

236.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

236 days ago I started this meditation on power (for myself). I was certain that I would run out of things to say in less than 30 days so I set my expectation to write for at least that long which, at the time, felt like standing at the base of Mt Everest. I couldn’t imagine it. What I have learned in this meditation is that I have too much to say about power. And, it can be reduced into a few simple ideas, mainly that power isn’t power unless it is connective tissue, unless the focus in on the creation of power and not on the negation of power. That has always been for me the hallmark of things to which I need to pay attention; simplicities within complexities always signal deeper waters. In fact, in writing these posts I’ve come to realize that this meditation on power is central to everything I do. As Alan would say, “This is my soul mission.”

Last night I launched a new website, http://www.trulypowerful.com, and sent out a newsletter announcing the site. If you want to join me in this community and didn’t get the notice, go to the site and join the mailing list (and am pretending I don’t have a Facebook page yet because I hate what the designers have done…stay tuned). In January I will launch the blog Truly Powerful People, a more formal meditation on power – fuller explorations of what I’m writing here. This blog will remain my back room, the place where I will rant, where we can play cards, throw peanut shells on the floor and say things that could get us expelled from school.

And, as serendipity would have it, the jewel that dropped in my lap today is about being seen and the connection between vulnerability and power. It comes from a discussion in class today, master coaches talking shop. Most of us steel ourselves against the world; we protect ourselves from the perceptions of others in case they don’t like what they see. And then, we get frustrated because we feel we’re not being seen as we are. To be seen as you are you must drop the steel. To be seen as you are, to be powerful, you must introduce yourself to vulnerability. It is your choice. Steel usually leads to negation of yourself and others. Dropping the steel affords the possibility of collaboration and creation; therein lives the power.

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Posted on November 1, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

235.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

[continued from 234]

From the archives as I mine previous writing to inform my current pondering, here is part 2 of a remake and an update of a ghost-of-rants-past:

What if you will never be valued? What if other people find no worth in what you do? Does that mean it is not worth doing? Should Van Gogh have put down his brushes? He was a pariah in his time. To what post do you hitch your story of value and self worth?

It is a story.

We all want to be valued for what we do. All of us want to be paid; it is how our culture demonstrates value. However, as an artist, the odds are against it regardless of the scope of your talent and dedication to your craft. If you’ve ever been to a casting call in NYC you’ll know what I mean.

We live in the age of technology and that affords everyone with a mouse and a keyboard the opportunity to design, to photograph, to movie-make, and to manipulate images and sounds and perceptions. It opens the artist door broadly; it overturns the mistaken notion that artistry is only for the few.

It is the rare arts organization (or artist) that makes a living through the sales of what it produces –ticket sales will never pay for cost of the play. Donations, grants, not-for-profit status and cheap payrolls make the arts viable in a free market economy. The artist is the last to be paid and is usually paid the least. If you are an artist, you will create anyway.

We live and create in a culture that has managed to link morality to money, to make a commodity of it’s prophets and sacred days, and that has convinced itself that the greatest act of citizenship is to buy stuff. It is upside down and that is precisely why we need artists! Think about it, in this nation of immigrants we yammer on and on about things like family values as if those values were simple, absolute, articulated and expected from all people in every family, regardless of ethnicity, religious preference or sexual orientation. We celebrate the individual but insist on conformity.

What we value as a culture is at best conflicted and complex and as artists we are meant to embody, engage and explore that conflict and complexity. So value your art and do your work. Stand in the conflict. Put your fingers around the complexity and begin to mold it. Launch your work out into the world because you value it – it’s your responsibility to maintain the balance between what you create and how it is offered. Focus on what you bring and not on what you get. The rest is out of your control and fretting about it takes energy that you could otherwise use to create.

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