Let’s Dance

Posted on March 14, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from my cartoon series, FLUB

from my cartoon series, FLUB

[This is a response to my dear friend who believes he will someday be worthy to call himself “artist.”]:

There is a trap that every artist must negotiate: the mistaken notion that “artist” is something you achieve. “Artist” is something that you are (and every child is an artist, wouldn’t you agree?). Art is an exploration of life. Some of the greatest artists in history had no training and no experience. They, like you, enjoy playing with various colors and never followed a textbook or a guideline because art doesn’t happen in textbooks and the only guideline that ultimately matters is in the heart of each individual artist. Art is an exploration. It is a relationship with the mystery.  It is not a prescription. There isn’t A WAY to do it. There is your way. And my way.

Art is an engagement with something intangible and if it is life giving to you, that is all that matters. It gives you life and you bring it to life and that dance of giving and bringing life is the work of the artist. The viewer will never see what you see because they do not have your eyes or your life experience or your heart. They will see what they see and interpret it according to their life-filters. Some people will love your work, some will hate it, most will be indifferent – and that has nothing to do with you. You can’t (nor should you) determine what they see. A painting or photograph is like a doorway: the viewer can step through or not. They can choose to engage or not to engage and you have no power over what they  do or see or feel or think. And, it is vital that you understand that because the notion that you can control what they think is the very thing that leads you to believe that you must pass some credibility test to be deemed and artist. When a viewer engages with a work of art they cease to be a viewer and themselves become an artist. Engagement with art is never passive; it is creative. They enter their own dance of creation. They become creators. Yours is to offer the doorway, not to push people through it.

In truth, the shadow side for the artist in trying to control what other people think is that they give away the essential thing: what they think. Why assign to other people the responsibility for your identity as “artist.” If they like your work then you are an artist? If they hate your work then you are not? You can either serve your heart (art) or please other people but you cannot do both.

I’ve coached a legion of people who set up great studio space for themselves and then never go into it. People are great at creating separation from what they want. They can get close to it (set up the studio) but fear stepping into it (picking up the paint brush) because the act of making art is the act of releasing control. It is to offer without condition. It can be a scary thing to give voice to what you see. It is vulnerable to show your heart to the world. It is only scary until you own it and get out of the trap of valuing other people’s point of view over your own.

Another form of separation is to say, “I will be an artist when I sell my work.” Selling your work does not make you an artist. Making art is what makes you an artist. Acceptance does not make you an artist. Making art is what makes you an artist. 10,000 hours in the studio will make you better and better (meaning freer and freer to express) but it will not make you an artist. You are an artist in the first hour and an artist in the 10,000th hour because you are exploring your relationship with life. You might have better mastery of the tools in the 10,000th hour but “master of tool” and “artist” are two distinctly different things. The  artist uses the tool, the tool does not define the artist.

You have the courage to go to your studio and get lost in an exploration of life through image and color. You lose all sense of time because your relationship with the mystery is pure. And, in the end of the day, who cares if anyone sees you as an “artist;” who cares if you see yourself as an “artist.” All that matters is that you enter that sacred studio place and open yourself to the mystery and say, “Let’s dance.”

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Or, go here for hard copies and Kindle (Amazon)

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

Serve Life

Posted on March 12, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
Untitled by David Robinson

Untitled by David Robinson

I’m writing language for a website. In the past my website reinventions felt like an exercise of the same old cereal in a new marketing box. This time it’s different. I am a new cereal and I’m not certain that I want a box. It makes a difficult task of telling people what I do when I’m fully invested in container resistance. As I wrangled deep into the night with clever but remarkably meaningless marketing language, I had two mini-epiphanies:

1) Last year, unlike the captain of the Titanic, I sailed my ship directly at an iceberg so that it would sink. I sank the ship with all of the fine china, the gold bars and diamonds in the safe, the furniture, the clothes and fine food. It all went to the bottom of the ocean. I wanted off the ship so why would I now build for myself a new ship? I didn’t bob around in my raft in the vast ocean spearing tuna and catching rainwater so that I might someday step back on to the bridge and do it all over again. What, exactly, am I building?

2) I have tried my whole life to squeeze myself into too small of a box (as, I suspect, all of you have, too). I have worn the jacket of coach, of facilitator, of teacher, of director, of actor and waiter and painter. I am none of these and all of these. I have made websites complete with testimonials and classes, nice pictures and e-books, workshops and retreats. The process of building a site is a two-agenda process: first, locate yourself in space and time for other people so that they might find you and, second, orient yourself toward other people’s concern so they might know why they should seek you. In other words, 1) this is where I am and, 2) this is what I provide. The pronoun is “I.”

What, exactly, do I provide? I am not a plumber or a pizza maker. Every marketing person I’ve ever known has advised me to brand myself. Brand myself as what? Brands are made up. A year ago on New Year’s eve, tarot woman told me that she didn’t see a career for me. Rather, she saw lots of expression. “Brand that!” I thought to myself. Last night I reasoned, “I am not a brand.” Neither can I reduce what I do to a pithy phrase or clever visual. That’s precisely why I sought an iceberg and sank the ship!

I’m an artist (a painter and performer) and I write. I like to write a lot. At the center of all that I do is…disruption or change or spirituality or transformation, words that sound great but what do they mean on the concrete, day-to-day experience of living. I deal in heart, intuition, and soul. Great. I hold people’s hands and walk with them into their dreams. I dive with them into their past so they might let go of their story and sit solidly in their present. I help them unbuckle the weight belt of their story so they might surface for air. Brand that.

To ask, “What do I provide?” is to ask the wrong question. This question will always lead to too tight boxes.

Joe sent me some links: short films of Stephen Jenkinson (The Meaning of Death and Making Humans). Stephen Jenkinson says that humans are made, not born. He speaks eloquently about the necessity of dying to our childhood – which means recognizing that our short lives are limited. That’s the recognition necessary to grow up. We can only really fulfill our gifts when we understand the necessity to serve life, not our life. We end. Life continues. Martin Prechtel writes of his community’s male passage rituals; young men learn that they can only serve their community when they recognize their mortality. The passage ritual is meant to bring them to the realization that they are finite. Only then can they understand the imperative to serve something greater than themselves: life. Tonight in the Taize service, Pastor Tom read a passage about losing yourself to find yourself. It is the same concept wrapped in biblical clothes.

Here’s what I want to say on my site: when you are willing to stop trying to save your life and ready to start giving it, call me. No box necessary.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies (amazon)

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Face The Sun

Posted on March 11, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
Lake Michigan frozen

Lake Michigan frozen

Standing on the sea wall, the sun on our faces, the frozen Lake Michigan looked like a vast field of broken glass, shards akimbo, glistening in the morning light. The shards popped and crackled, moaned and snapped; it was the first warm day in months. The birds frolicked. It was a small taste of spring, a gift before winter’s return tomorrow. I closed my eyes, faced the sun, and drank it in.

Kerri and I had just walked across the harbor. We watched the ice fishermen drill holes in the ice. The bit dropped more than two feet before breaking through. The fishermen assured us that the ice was very thick. “I’ve lived my whole life here and never seen the ice this deep,” the man said, sipping his coffee and looking at the lines he’d dropped in the water. We stepped out onto the ice, making a pact to rescue the other – and walked across the harbor.

The sea wall is on the far side of the harbor and usually requires a boat to reach. It is constructed of enormous boulders, some still encased in ice and looking like something the artist Christo might have created. On our water walk to the sea wall we snapped photographs, splashed in newly formed puddles, and left footprints in the snowy spots.  We laughed. We waltzed around an old fishing hole. We looked at each other and said over and over, “I can’t believe it!”

On the wall, listening to the ice chorus, my eyes closed and soaking up the sun, I photo-1remembered a conversation that I had years ago with Father Lauren when I was a student at The College of Santa Fe. We had great conversations because he knew I was not a believer in his faith. In many ways we saw the world from diametrically opposed points of view but rather than wrestle with winning the other to our perspective, we asked questions to try and understand. Father Lauren saw the earth as corrupt. I saw (and see) it as magnificent. We were talking about reincarnation and he’d just asked, “What kind of god would punish people by bringing them back to this place?” I responded with a phrase I’d recently heard in a lecture Joseph Campbell delivered about the gnostic gospels, “The kingdom of heaven is on earth and men just do not see it.”

Father Lauren closed his eyes and tried to spin his paradigm around. He asked, “So, we are already in heaven and simply need to open our eyes to the beauty of it all?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I believe.”

He smiled, “I just can’t believe it.”

Standing on the sea wall, Kerri took my hand. The ice sang. She whispered, “I just can’t believe it.”  I wanted to reach back in time and tell Father Lauren, “Yes. That’s the thing! When you open your eyes and see heaven on earth, what you see is impossible to believe.” Heaven has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with what you choose to see.

“Me, too,” I whispered, the sun on my face. “It is unbelievable.”

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies (Amazon)

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Listen To The Window

Posted on March 10, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
'Dancing In The Front Yard' by David Robinson

‘Dancing In The Front Yard’ by David Robinson

I am having an ongoing conversation with a stained glass window. Perhaps it sounds odd but I sit in the choir loft, across the sanctuary from it, and I listen. Without fail a thought always jumps into my head. Sometimes it’s a feeling and if I continue to listen, if I ask questions, breathe and get quiet, great insight follows. My conversations may be the fodder for my next book.

Here’s what I heard today: Stories can be the heaviest thing on earth to carry.

“Tell me more,” I prompted, staring at the red robe that serves as the visual focal point of the window.

After a few moments I heard: So many stories are fear-based. Fear stories are the centerpiece of angst and depression. They are monumental. If you pay attention you can see the weight of the story that people carry. Closed hearts and furrowed brows, burdened shoulders and bad backs: these are bodies struggling under the weight of the story they carry. Stories of shame are heaviest of all.

There was silence but I know enough to sit still, breathe, and listen. After a few moments, the stained glass window continued: No one need carry the burden. Every story can be set down. A story can be left behind.

“Why do we choose to carry the weight?” I asked.

I heard almost immediately: Everyone has experiences that inform the arc of their lifetime. Sometimes it is a wound. Sometimes it is a loss. The story is often the account of “something happening to me.” It forms the great helplessness. It is the victim story. People confuse their life with the story they tell of their life. They think they need the story to know who they are. Without the story they would have to own their choices. Both feet in! They would have to start living. People are life, not the story they tell of life.

“People tell stories. It’s what they do!” I responded.

The light poured in through the window. The clouds must have shifted across the sky. I imagined the window was chuckling at me as I heard: Stories can be the lightest thing on earth to carry….

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies (it’s Amazon;-)

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Step On The Stage

Posted on March 9, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
My performance with the Portland Chamber Orchestra of "The Creatures of Prometheus. I wrote and performed the piece for PCO.

My performance with the Portland Chamber Orchestra of “The Creatures of Prometheus.” I wrote and performed the piece for PCO.

Craig is laughing at me and with good reason. Through a post he asked a simple question about people building boxes around themselves. He issued a singular challenge: to apply what I found in his post to my writing. I’ve had more ideas and random ruminations than I know what to do with; he opened a big can. Before I let it go, I want to wade into the last part of his question: when did I know to create my stage?

Craig positioned a stage (showing up) as the polar opposite of a box (hiding) so I read his question as asking when I decided to show up. I’ve learned that a stage can be a strategy for hiding, too, so “showing up” means much more than just being visible.

Many actors get on the literal stage because they are seeking appreciation or approval from the audience. When anyone mounts a stage, either literal or metaphoric, to seek approval, they split themselves. By definition, they must hide their intention (to seek approval) and in so doing, give away their power and potential. Young teachers often pass through a growth phase in which they seek the approval of their students; they want to be liked and their need for appreciation neutralizes their capacity to teach. Ironically, in both cases (actors and teachers), the moment they cease splitting their intention they become great at what they do and their respective audiences can’t help but appreciate them. That’s the way power works.

Several years ago I was working with a corporate client who was upset because he felt uncomfortable with what he’d learned from my workshop. I told him that I could either serve him or please him but I could not do both. I understood that my job was to help him grow and that necessarily required discomfort. If he wanted to be pleased he needed to hire someone else.

I hid for years. I split myself for decades. My dear friend Roger once said that one day in his middle 30’s he realized that he was no longer becoming someone. He was someone. Everyone navigates the “becoming.” It is a necessary and vital growth phase and is often filled with fears of inauthenticity and split intentions; everyone wants to be appreciated and everyone sacrifices their primary intention in a mad dash for approval until one day, if they are lucky, they realize the only approval they need is their own. My revelation came when I was preparing to go on stage to perform. I realized that I was steeling myself against the audience (preparing to hide). I was assuming that they were going to judge me, which is a form of approval seeking. It was like a cold slap. I’d never had a bad experience with an audience. I’d only ever experienced appreciation and support and wondered why I was steeling myself against the very people I was there to serve. My need for approval dropped like a stone. I went on stage, perhaps for the first time in my life, present and powerful. I didn’t need anything from them. I was bringing life and my gifts to them and that was all that was required. My whole world flipped. No armor. No mask. No need other than to offer my gift on that day to that specific group. Whether or not they accepted my offer could no longer be my concern.

I’ve since learned that discomfort is a very valuable thing. It is present anytime learning and growing is happening. In fact, if there is no discomfort, there’s no learning. And that is the plaque nailed to my stage.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies (Amazon;-)

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Hear Your Words

Posted on March 7, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

[continued from EAT WELL]

Craig originally wrote a post about the boxes people construct around themselves and the alternative choice of creating a stage.  After his post he challenge me to enter the fray and muck about with boxes and stage and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I have to say – I’ve followed the thread for a few days and will probably keep following it for a few more. It’s a rich exploration!

Yesterday I mentioned that I had the opportunity to work with Skip’s Human Centered Design class at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. I tossed the group into several exercises and experiences designed to help them understand how people story themselves. Specifically, we took a look at language as the building block of perception. We captured on video portions of my time with the students so rather than write about it, here’s clip from the day. [Note: the real riches start about 2:30 minutes in but I thought the students questions might be of use to set the stage so I left it in the cut. They’d just completed an exercise of misnaming things]. Let me know if you find some juicy bits about the boxes we build around ourselves and our attempts to “step outside of the box.”

[to be continued]

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies (it’s Amazon…)

Filed under: Awakening, Identity, Language, Perspective, Play, Possibility, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Eat Well

Posted on March 6, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
"Lovers," a work in progress by David Robinson

“Lovers,” a work in progress by David Robinson

[continued from LOOK BEYOND THE BOX]

I’m looping back to Craig’s questions concerning boxes and stages. I think the next question to wade into is about what I see from my stage and when did I know to create my stage.

This is the view from my stage. It may sound bleak at first but stay with me:

Yesterday I had the opportunity to travel into Chicago and work for a couple of hours with Skip’s class at the Illinois Institute of Technology. They are budding entrepreneurs. There’s lots of energy in the world today bubbling around this word, “entrepreneur.” Accelerators and incubators are popping up everywhere. We are now a society gorging on new technology; since we are modeled on the Rome of the Caesars we have little patience for digestion (it takes time) so we prefer to vomit what we just consumed to make room for the next course. We are living at the time of an idea feeding frenzy and mind blowing technological advances. Folks with resources but few ideas are hungry to link up with folks with ideas and no resources. Everyone is insatiably hungry. No amount of gorging will satisfy the hunger.

In our world of rabid consumption, nutrition isn’t necessarily a high priority. I mean that literally and metaphorically. For evidence, look at what the networks call “news.” Long ago we realized that entertainment is more profitable than reporting so reporting is now entertainment. It matters little if there is substance to the story so long as people consume it. More evidence: one of my favorite rants of the past decade came from Dane, a neighbor, who was sitting on his stoop eating a bag of potato chips. He called me over to look at the ingredients listed on the package. High on the list, in fact the second ingredient listed, was sugar. Dane screamed, “There’s more sugar than salt in my chips!” He fumed, “I’ve been reading the ingredient lists on everything and there’s sugar in everything. It’s more important to get us hooked than to feed us anything of substance!” Of course, the punch line to the story is that he ranted with his mouth full of chips. Another bit of evidence: I stopped counting the times I’ve heard a politician say, “We have to weigh our interests against our values.” You can find a variation of this statement in the news of the day everyday. You can find an example of it in your life each day, too. How do you weigh your interests against your values?

This consumption/nutrition question is the epicenter of confusion for lots of people. It is the reason many boxes and stages are constructed.

Most people that I work with are seeking greater meaning. They want a richer experience of life. They want to fulfill their potential. In the midst of their consumption of time, they feel consumed. They have little time to breathe. They have little capacity to develop deep, meaningful relationships. They are finding that their stuff doesn’t fill the void. They are finding that their achievements are hollow unless they serve the real needs of others. They always find that what they seek is something that they’ve had all along: relationships.

There is no magic to sustenance. Slow down and enjoy your meal: literally and metaphorically. Slow down and make the meal: literally and metaphorically. Slow down and make the meal from food that hasn’t been processed: literally and metaphorically. Care for the soil and you will grow healthy food: literally and metaphorically. This requires slowing down. All of these are about the relationship you have with your world. All rich relationships require lingering and the riches are always in the relationship. Always.

Substance is always about a relationship. Relationship can’t be consumed; it must be entered and/or engaged. Tend the relationships, especially the relationship you have with yourself. In this way, the box or stage you construct will be built from self love and self love is the wellspring of love for others.

I see riches in the relationships all around me and a species (homo sapiens) trying to remember what it means to eat from the tree of life.

[to be continued]

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here to get a hard copy (it’s Amazon)

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, entrepreneur, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Look Beyond The Box

Posted on March 4, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
one of my paintings (untitled) from the Yoga series

one of my paintings (untitled) from the Yoga series

[continued from SEE THE BOX]

Craig’s question is bigger than a single post can accommodate. He’s both reflecting and asking several questions about the boxes people construct around themselves, about building personal “stages” and what becomes visible to us when we open ourselves to life without editor or inhibition. He’s asking deep river questions about the assumptions we make when we look at others through the lens of our own experience. He asked about what I see from my stage and when did I know to create my stage. And, here’s the kicker question, “When was the last time you stepped up and saw something you didn’t know was there?”

I want to start with the last question first because I believe it colors all of the other questions. At this point in my life, there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t see something surprising or new. I know that sounds like a superficial dodge until you consider that it wasn’t always the case. Like everyone else, I was schooled in a long series of mistaken notions: 1) that people need to know where they are going before they go there, 2) people need to know what they are doing before they do it, 3) knowing is something that happens in the head, and 4) that truth is singular and knowable; believers in right/wrong paradigms are especially fond of this point.

It took a few years (okay, decades) to realize that “knowing” is a process and not an arrival platform and, therefore, no body knows. People build boxes around themselves because they think they must know what is unknowable. People build boxes around themselves because they think they must look a certain way or think what others want them to think. People build boxes around themselves in an attempt to control what they can never control. No one really knows where they are going (well, everyone knows where they are going but dying is an existential question – a topic for another post). No one knows what tomorrow will bring. As Marshall McLuhan wrote, people step into the future with their eyes in the rearview mirror. We make sense of today through yesterday’s eyes so we can only “know” what happened, not what will happen. The day before September 11, 2001 people walked into airports to greet their friends and relatives at the gate. And then, the very next day, like millions of people, I sat in front of a television and watched a plane fly into the World Trade Center. That day I understood that what I thought I knew was basically useless.

Each of us has, at one time or another, had a personal September 11th. People learn. They grow. They have experiences and then make meaning of their experiences. People change. Life is a moving target. At one point in my life I started my own school within a school. It was experiential and filled with filmmaking and theatre and performance art. At the beginning of that era of my life I thought I would run that school until I the day I died. Three years later, I was done with my exploration in education and I surrendered my cushy tenured position and ran for the air of uncertainty. People story themselves according to inner imperatives through lenses of past experiences. The idea that we are primarily rational and reasonable is…not rational or reasonable.

At some point, when you cease thinking you know stuff, your eyes open. You see beyond what you think. Everything is surprising beyond the dull-wit of thinking. Thinking (a language-based activity) will always be an abstraction. Put a word on something and you delude yourself into thinking that you “know” what it is. This is especially heinous when applied to other people. People build boxes around themselves because of the words placed on them or the words they place on themselves.

Mostly, people build stages for the exact same reason. Saying, “I’m not going to be influenced by others; I’m going to act independent of others” is also a delusion constructed from notions of “knowing” or trying to determine how others will see you. Most stages are constructed from the desire to control. Sometimes the biggest box looks like a stage.

When you no longer need to know anything, you see surprising things everywhere you look.

[to be continued]

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Go here for hard copies (it’s Amazon, don’t be afraid;-)

 

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Emergence, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

See The Box

Posted on March 2, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

‘The Box’ by Kerri Sherwood from her album Blueprint for My Soul Craig sent me a link and a challenge. The link was to his recent blog post, Break Down The Box. It’s about how people build boxes around themselves. “Instead of building a box that may later require extra work to remove,” he writes, “I suggest building a stage.” What a great image! His challenge to me was to apply it to my writing. He texted, “It’s relevant to your general topics.”

My question back to Craig was about the word “apply.” Is he challenging me to write about boxes and stages? Is he challenging me to build a stage and stand on it? Both? His challenge came on a day that I said aloud to myself and the universe, “I’m feeling boxed!” His timing was impeccable.

Self Cut outWe’ve not finished our correspondence so I don’t yet know what he means by applying it to my writing. To stall I will write what I know about boxes:

1) Everyone has one. Don Miguel Ruiz writes that we come into this earth as free, uninhibited spirits and then the adults around us begin impressing rules and random philosophy upon us. They teach us constraint and we comply. We are a pack animal, after all, and must operate within the greater needs of the community. That’s why there are traffic lights and a proper fork to use when eating a salad. Our greatest need is to belong; The GAP, Old Navy, or Abercrombie & Fitch could not exist otherwise. The need to belong is the driver behind box building. It’s a paradox. Somewhere amidst all of the compliance we begin to assume that we are no good or start making comparisons to others or create standards of perfection that are impossible to inhabit. So, we build a box called, “should be”. The paradox is that, in order to belong, our action is to hide.

2) Growth comes from constraints. No box is built without the need to deconstruct it. That is the opportunity of the box. Joseph Campbell would call box deconstruction The Heroes Journey. In the great mythologies of the world there is a tension between The Right Hand path (what society expects you to do) and The Left Hand path (following your bliss). Both are necessary and, in the end, we all must find the middle way between the two paths. The middle way is known in mythological terms as The Holy Grail. Bliss always needs the participation of others. We are pack animals and need the pack to know where we fit.

3) Constraint is necessary for creative fulfillment. School boards around the nation have the misguided notion that art is the absence of rule and/or discipline. It must be a requirement of school board participation to attend the symphony without recognizing that the musicians on stage have given their lives to discipline and constraint. It might come as a surprise to most people but artists outstrip the military in rule adherence and rigid discipline. The disconcerting aspect for the school board is that the rules and discipline of the artist are self-imposed. They are inner imperatives. Artists do not need a drill sergeant. They need constraints to push against, boundaries to overcome, rules to challenge, and patterns to disrupt. Watch a kid on a skateboard try to learn a new skill (oh, yes – they are artists, too). They might break their arm in the process but the break will just fuel the need to improve.

4) No one sees clearly their box. To return to a Don Miguel Ruiz-ism, we are the stars of our own movie and can never know the movie of another person (and they can never know our movie). The paradox is, of course, as the star of your movie you never get to see your life from any meaningful perspective until lots of time affords you some distance. Even then, you’ll interpret your movie through the lens of having lived it. If you have an inner monologue, you are center stage of your movie and your movie is your box.  Here’s the beautiful thing about movies/boxes: they all come with flaws and the flaws are almost always the location of the opportunities. As I recently learned, the Amish intentionally place a small flaw in every quilt because they believe that the flaw is what lets the spirit in. The same might be said of boxes.

I’ve been privileged in my life to work with and direct a bevy of actors and most had to learn to stand on a stage. In fact, the stage frightens most of the really good ones. They understand the power of being seen, the responsibility that comes with visibility. It is simply this: be present without the need to control the thoughts or emotions of another. Be present with them. Offer them a story without the self-protection of trying to control what they see. All stories are maps out of boxes. Or, more to the point, stories are maps out of one layer of box to a lesser layer of box. So:

5) Boxes are like onions. A stage is merely a layer.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You

Go here for hard copies or Kindle

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