July | 2012 | The Direction of Intention

Pop The Bubble

Posted on July 11, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

A few years ago I asked Carol what was the one thing I needed to know before going to Alaska. Her answer took me by surprise. She said, “Oh, that’s easy. When you go to Alaska you re-enter the food chain.” She was right. I had the same impression: a walk in the woods is never just a walk in the woods. Being lunch for a bear is not an abstraction. It is amazing how your priorities shift when you recognize that your position atop the food chain is an illusion. It is amazing how you come alive.

Sean told me that we are always in the food chain but society acts as a kind of bubble; it buffers us from the nature of things. Besides, within the bubble with our natures buffered we are highly efficient at killing each other and ourselves (with stress, cigarettes, etc.). A buffered nature spawns unnatural acts. A buffered nature – or a “culture of comfort” as Martín Prechtel would call it – distorts our story to the point that we forget we are part of and not on top of nature. The “on top” idea is lethal. It is the mother lode of comedy. It is not bears we need fear but the neighborhood watch, the rival gang, the other political team, the police, the banks, and those who are supposed to be governing and protecting our interests. I think I prefer the bears; they are upfront in their intentions.

I suspect the point of having a bubble is to feel safe within it. A city is nothing if not one big campfire. We are supposed to be safer together than alone so why does our bubble, our mega campfire, engender so much alienation and loneliness; all these individual bubbles walking around within the larger bubble? How many times have I met with groups in urban settings who want to “create community?” Too many – apparently proximity to millions of other humans does not a community make. Life within the bubble, buffered from nature, alienates us from…our nature and each other. Bubbles create smaller bubbles.

Outside the bubble, when I was aware that I looked like coleslaw to big furry animals, I wanted other people around. I wanted a lot of other people around. I like my big Seattle campfire – and I wonder what it might be like inside the bubble if we put down the ridiculous notion that we are separate from the natural order of things and stopped pretending that we were somehow above it all.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: culture, nature | Leave a comment »

Where Are You Standing?

Posted on July 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

It is First Thursday, the night that artists across Seattle open their studios. To pass the time as we await the crowd, PaTan, the artist across the hall, shared with me a Life magazine from 1994. It has four articles that, read together, have my head spinning.

The first is entitled, “Saving The Endangered 100;” it is a photographic list of 100 species of plants and animals in America that are, by now, most likely gone. The second article is about the young boy who was identified as the reincarnation of Ling Rinpoche, tutor of the Dalai Lama. This boy will be the teacher of the next Dalai Lama. The third is an overview of Ken Burn’s Baseball documentary series. The fourth is a photo essay called “Eyewitness to Rwanda.”

Genocide, baseball, extinction, and among highest forms of spiritual tradition – all wrapped in a glossy cover under the umbrella name, “Life.” The magazine reads like a spectrum of human capabilities; the greatest horror to the heights of poetry. It is shocking, inspiring, troubling, breathtaking, overwhelming,…. It is life. At least it is life as we report it; it is life as we story it.

I long ago stopped asking why we do what we do. Asking the “why” question almost always brought a fixation on the horrors and injustice so that I’d miss entirely the other end of the spectrum. Asking “why” assumed the existence of “an answer.” What possible answer can there be for mass murder? What possible explanation is worthy of the reincarnation of a great teacher? There are beliefs, assumptions and justifications. There are stories. We destroy and we create; depending upon where you stand sometimes my creation brings your destruction; Oppenheimer learned this all too clearly. Is it right? Is it wrong? I no longer believe anything is clean enough for such small absolutes. Life is messy.

There are better questions and they usually come in pairs. For instance, “Where are you standing?” is a great question. Locate yourself but don’t stop there! Before justifying your actions consider asking, “I wonder what might this look like if I stood over there with you?”

Filed under: Perspective, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Why | 2 Comments »

Help Me. Please

Posted on July 9, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

It is the day after the 4th of July in the United States of America and a morning explosion roused my inner sociologist. He is not one for early rising so complained a bit when I told him this morning presented a superb opportunity to study human post-party behavior. “With a walk on the beach?!” he protested. “Where do you think all the human parties were last night?’ I replied. He harrumphed, adjusted his sweater, and reminded me that he wished I were taller so he wouldn’t have to stoop so much when doing field research. “I would wish for a taller host body,” he moaned.

We were rewarded almost immediately upon arriving at the beach. “By the piles of trash it looks like an army camped here!” he observed, reaching for his notebook. The public trashcans were jammed. Additionally, sacks and bags and empty six packs were stacked 3 feet high around every can forming a kind of garbage ring art installation. The birds were frenzied trying to tear open the garbage bags. A particularly loopy gull missed his landing and tumbled down a garbage cliff causing a trash avalanche. “Good heavens!” my inner sociologist exclaimed. “One does not see that everyday.”

The sea wall was literally lined with Roman candle remains, beer bottles tilted to just so to better launch rockets (for the red glare), and remnants of bombs bursting in air. There were hundred of those little red sticks, evidence of a sparkler orgy. I caught my inner sociologist just in time – he was moving to dig in the trash. “How can I truly understand human behavior if I leave so much evidence unexamined!” he complained. I pointed out that the only evidence he needed to note was the presence of the piles, “Look how much stuff people packed in and how un-interested they were at packing it out.” He slowly scanned to area and said, “Yes, too true,” narrowing his eyes, he lifted a single brow, and scribbled another note.

It was then that we spotted the real treasure, proof that there is still hope for humanity. Just across the street standing boldly in the middle of a grass strip was a bright red upright Hoover vacuum. “My, what’s this?” I had to remind him to look both ways before dashing crossing the street. “Unbelievable!” he cried, dropping his pencil. “Have you ever seen anything so remarkable?” It was a rhetorical question but I said, “No,” and stood back to admire the gesture. Taped to the front of the Hoover was a small crayon sign that said, “Help me. Please.”

“Isn’t a little humor refreshing?” he asked, looking for his lost pencil. “It gives me hope,” I replied. “Well,” he sighed, “People surprise me at every turn.”

Filed under: Metaphor, Random, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Set Foot On The Stage

Posted on July 8, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

When John was in college he was rehearsing a play. It was late, perhaps midnight, and the director wanted to do more work. The student-actors complained. The director asked them to follow him. He led them across campus to the medical school and pointed to the med students visible through the windows, hard at work burning the midnight oil. He said, “Your work is also capable of saving lives. If you are not working this hard you have no business being on the stage.”

Once, when I was assisting a director, he told the student-actors, “Each night on the stage your work will have the capacity to impact the lives of others. That is a very serious obligation. If you take it lightly you will do harm and it is best if you never set foot on the stage.”

This is how I understand art in all its forms. It is meant to change lives. It is meant to hold the central narrative of a community (the identity); the arts are the container of both tradition and change. It is necessary and powerful because it is capable of holding paradoxes. It is potent because is serves the conservative impulse while facilitating the path into the unknown. A healthy society is built upon a living art. A healthy society negotiates its paradoxes through its arts.

Reduce the arts to entertainment, intellectual concepts or a luxury for the elite, remove it from the schools and from daily life, and there is no center. Social gravity weakens with the absence of a coherent narrative – people are like planets and without the pull of narrative gravity they spin off into space and wonder why they feel so alone. Without a common center we will continue to kill each other for bling because we have no concept of what matters and what does not.

Rather than walk away from our arts, telling our selves they are too expensive or merely electives, it might be time to attend to our business, look within (that is the point after all), and set foot on the stage with a gravity worthy of our obligation to others.

Filed under: Art, Education, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Tell A Better Story

Posted on July 7, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I am preparing my notes from Seek The Bear class and thought this might be useful to share:

We are hardwired for story. We can’t help it; it is what we do. We interpret, we judge, we speculate, we remember, we ponder, we investigate, we justify…we story. Meaning making and interpretation are processes of story. Even hard data is a form of story—when we story ourselves we locate: where are we now, where are we going? How we locate ourselves is a process of story.

The story you tell yourself about your self is often hard to see because you don’t see it as a story. It’s your life and you are so used to the inner-narrative that you stop recognizing your self as the narrator/interpreter of the events. You assume that your story is truth; you assume that your story is “normal.” Your thoughts are your story.

The language you use to tell your story determines the world you see or do not see.

Recognizing that you are the storyteller of your life is one of the most potent paths to transformation available. When you recognize that you narrate and interpret every experience, every moment, every day of your life – that your memories are not passive, your imaginings betray a specific narrative point of view; then you can begin the path of creating. What you believe is possible, what you see as a limitation is unique to you: it’s your story and you’re telling it through your thoughts and how they drive the actions of your life. When you recognize this you come to a simple truth – and this one is ancient: you can change your story and in doing so you can change your world.

People have for centuries understood that wholeness, power, and creativity are immediately available once they recognize that life is not happening to them, rather they are actively creating the story of their life. They told stories, not for entertainment, but as guides for the next generation: a map for powerful living; a map for navigating the unknown.

Ask yourself, “What is the story I tell?” And then ask, “Is this the story I want to tell?”

Filed under: Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: locate | 2 Comments »

Do What Is Best

Posted on July 6, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Judy (she-that-I-revere-but-saying-so-makes-her-wiggle) read a recent post about voice-less-ness and mind reading and sent me this gem:

“My 90-year old friend gave me the gift of a lifetime when she taught me the phrase, ‘What’s best for me is…’. It frees me! If someone isn’t interested in what’s best for me, well, then, I may not need that energy in my life. I pass it on, with love. It’s been a long journey to get here.”

What a great statement of boundaries! What a terrific statement of self-love!

On a recent trip I had the opportunity to spend time with several of my elders, people who are in the sunset of their lives. They shared this common trait: They have no time for pleasing. They are clear about what they want; there is not doubt about what they need. The games are no longer interesting to them so they are fairly free to express their thoughts regardless of what others might think. It was refreshing.

It has been a long journey for me to get here, too and I wonder why this simple center is so hard to come by. As Judy said, “It frees me!” Caring for yourself, attending to your needs as much or more than you invest in the needs of others would seem to be a first principle. I’ve learned that you cannot truly serve others until you learn first to do, “What is best for me.”

In some traditional societies the grandparents primarily raise the children. The parents are too busy working the fields and attending to the rituals that sustain the community. The parent’s knowledge has not yet aged into wisdom. With the grandparents ever present the children are steeped in the wisdom of age. Who might we be if, as little children, our 90 year old grandmother looked at us and said, “Let me teach you a phrase….”

Filed under: Emergence, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: self-love, wisdom | 1 Comment »

Take A Peak Beyond Appearances

Posted on July 5, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Pal is a taxi driver. He was the driver at the head of the cue so he gave Lora and me a lift from the airport to our apartment. It’s a twenty-minute ride, no time at all yet enough for the story of a life. In 20 minutes we learned that Pal is from the Pujab region in India. He has lived and worked in the US for 25 years. With the exception of his father, his family now lives in the United States. He was mugged during one of his graveyard shifts at the 7-Eleven because he would not buy stolen property from a man who wandered in one night. He is a Sikh though he no longer wears his turban; he’s cut his hair and his beard. To a Sikh, cutting the hair and the beard are not done without good reason. Pal’s reason is safety. In the United States he has been beaten for his appearance. It’s better to fit in than to be beaten.

Central to the Sikh’s belief are radical notions like the equality of humankind and universal brotherhood. In my twenty minutes with Pal I learned that he was generous, gentle, bright, present, and open-hearted. He was not in a hurry. He loved his family. He worked hard. We unloaded our bags from the taxi and stood with Pal to continue our conversation. He showed us a picture of what he looked like before he went into hiding by cutting his hair and beard.

When Pal drove away I was awash with conflicting feelings. I was so grateful for our magic taxi conversation and his generosity – and equally saddened that in a country that prides itself on individualism, this man, this good man, does not feel safe being an individual. He was not beaten for his actions; he was beaten for his looks.

Once, someone I love but do not understand told me that, “not all Americans want this diversity thing;” an odd sentiment in a country comprised of immigrants. Evidently the diversity in his neighborhood made him uncomfortable and rather than walk toward it and meet his neighbors he chose to close his front door and fear. I wonder if he would have recognized Pal’s kindness or held him suspect because he looked different.

Of this I am certain: those who do not want this “diversity thing” are missing out. This “diversity thing” is a human thing and there are extraordinary treasures (human beings who do not look like you) all around. It only takes a moment to peak beyond the appearance, ask a question, and find the riches.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Diversity, fear, generosity | Leave a comment »

Story Is A Verb

Posted on July 4, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I have a different understanding of the word “story.” To me, story is not a thing. It is not a noun. Story is a verb. It is an action. It is dynamic. I believe we story ourselves. And, because we story ourselves, we can story ourselves toward what we desire to create or we can story ourselves as fast runners from what we don’t want; we can tell a story of resistance.

Last night I taught the first of four classes in a story cycle called Seek The Bear. I have worked with stories my entire life. I integrate my understanding of story in every workshop, every class, every facilitation, every coaching, every performance, and every painting that I paint. It is ironic to me that last night was the first time I taught a class specifically about story. In the class I am telling an ancient story and opening the metaphors so the participants in the class might see their lives as a story – and not just any story – but their version of the ancient story. I am teaching this class so the people in it might recognize that they are not as isolated as they think; that their lives are as universal as they are unique.

I went back to school because Joseph Campbell said in a lecture, “Our mythology is dead. If you want proof all you need to do is read the newspaper….” I needed to know what he meant by that. I learned that we have lost our stories; we have no central living narrative. We’ve legislated the life-blood from our stories, reduced them to rules, a confused morality, an empty ethic. The body of the story remains. The heart will beat again and the blood will begin to move if we remember that story is a living thing. A living mythology requires only this: every story is your story. What if you knew that you, too, have been thrust out of Eden with your insatiable desire to know? Curiosity is our greatest gift, is it not? This story is your story and my story. Each of us walk through a world of dualities driven by our insatiable desire to return to the garden (unity). We are, all of us, Pandora, Eve. The turn around point is a metaphor called the virgin birth – the birth of your heart. As Joseph Campbell said, this is not a story about a weird happening 21 centuries ago; this is your story and my story, it is a guide, a living, breathing, dynamic meant to open our hearts and illuminate our path up the mountain.

Filed under: Story, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Use Your Voice

Posted on July 3, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Sho, Joe, and a host of others have asked me to start giving titles to these posts. Joe told me I wasn’t helping myself. Sho told me it would make it easier for people to find a past post. Both are wise men and I trust their counsel. Both are friends who have my best interest at heart. Both have offered me the gift of the tough conversation, contrary points of view, and some well deserved dope slapping (my head used to be symmetrical. I am a slow study).

When I was younger I placed limits on my voice. I could not ask for what I wanted; I ran from difficult conversations; I feared offending anyone so I offended everyone. Had I a motto it might have read, “Deflect and dissipate.” The family crest would have proclaimed, “In any case, hide.” I saw life as a walk through a minefield. I’ve worked hard at removing the limits from my voice; I knew I had full possession of it the day I told a client, “My job is to serve you, not to please you.” In fact, I have learned that pleasing is often a lousy intention and usually has strings attached. It is not such a great thing to be liked when the price of being liked is your voice. So, having become an expert at treading on eggshells, having tossed away so much power, I have great appreciation for friends who are dedicated to serving me, to helping me grow, and not so invested in pleasing me.

It seems that voice-less-ness has been a theme these past few weeks. I have been traveling and engaging with several communities. I’ve been witness to an abundance of word swallowing. This is how I know: Voice-less-ness never comes to the party alone. Voice-less-ness has a cagey companion, a shadow of a shadow named Mind Reader. They dance together. Try it: withhold your voice and you will almost immediately expect others to read your mind. “They should know…,” is a common inner monologue of the voice-less. Another clue: clamped expression escalates inner chatter; you can see the intensity of monkey mind writ large on the faces of the self-strangled. Energy must find expression so another characteristic of voice-less-ness is manipulation: despite Mind Reader’s expectation, others usually can’t read our minds so we channel our desires into less direct, more insidious routes of getting what we want.

This is what I learned during my years of voice-less-ness: hell is not a place you go for an ill spent life. Hell is a place you create when you plug your voice. Do yourself a favor: taste a little bit of heaven and ask for what you want, say what you think, and cease expecting your mate, family and friends to channel The Great Kreskin.

Filed under: Truly Powerful People | Tagged: voice | 3 Comments »

Truly Powerful People (480)

Posted on July 2, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

480.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

My grandfather is 103 years old. His mind is sharp and his body is worn out. He wheels around his retirement home in a space-age scooter, cutting sharp corners, pivoting on a dime, covering the distance to the dining hall in less time than I could run it. Until yesterday it had been eight years since my last visit, too long. For an hour we sat and he told us stories of his life, this man born into a horse and buggy world.

He is ready to go but insists that hell is full so he’ll need to stick around a bit longer. As he told stories I wondered how this world of computers, cell phones, and the internet must look through his eyes. He was born a few short years after Orville and Wilbur Wright lifted humans into the possibilities of flight. He saw two wars to end all wars that gave rise to atom bombs, nuclear power and the industrial military complex (he was at Pearl Harbor on that day of infamy), the rise of radio that gave way to television, refrigerators, moon walks, microwave ovens, international space stations, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Hubble telescope, and this thing called Google,…he has lived an extraordinary life in an extraordinary era.

It was not lost on me that, when asked about his life, he talked about the day he met his wife, a trip over the pass when the Model-T ran out of gas and people trusted him with a gas can, an aunt that read fortunes and gave him and his new bride a place to stay for the night. He talked of friends and relatives and his children.

Earlier in the day he’d taken a fall and he talked of the woman who held his hand as they waited for the paramedics to arrive. He was fine, reseated in his scooter, and the kindness of another human being became the center of the story. As I listened I recognized that the events and inventions are trappings –miraculous to be sure – but they serve only as the circumstances of our lives. The real story is in the people that we walk with on our passage through this planet and how we are with them. When I am 103 will I spend much time thinking about the gadget that connects me to satellite radio, the anti-gravity chair that zips me to the dining hall? Probably not. I’ll be grateful for the new easy knee replacements and non-invasive surgeries. Perhaps I’ll have new straighter teeth. However, when I fall, I hope there is someone available to hold my hand and wait with me until the paramedics arrive. And later, I hope someone comes to visit so I can tell them my story of the kindness of strangers, of the day I met my love, and the people that made my life rich beyond measure.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

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