davidrobinsoncreative

Grasp The Impossible

Posted on August 5, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

For the next few days I’ll be at the gathering of my clan. My papa turns 80 so I’m reposting from the archives. This one was post 406:

Yesterday David and I were supposed to talk about teaching opportunities but instead we fell into a great conversation about communal narrative, the power of belief, quantum mechanics, and the incomprehensible size of the universe. If you want to experience the sacred all you need do is look through a telescope or a microscope. Or, better yet, take a walk and pay attention. Or, even better, look into the eyes of someone you love. Or, even better still, look into the eyes of someone you don’t know and allow that their hopes and dreams and desires are just as big and potent and real as are yours. Incomprehensible! And that’s precisely the point: if you can grasp it in its entirety it is probably not worth knowing. How might we tell our story together if we allowed that it is impossible to grasp the enormity of any living being?

Just before I went scuba diving for the first time Lora was giddy but she couldn’t tell me why. She was an advanced diver and knew the revelation that is available for first time divers. There is the surface of the ocean in all its beauty and drama and that’s what most of us see; ask most people about the ocean and they will talk about the surface or what they’ve seen in National Geographic. The first dive beneath the surface, not just seeing it but being in it, there is beauty and color and the shocking infinity and power of life that opens when you go just a little ways beneath the surface. There are no words. Your inner world changes when you recognize how little you really know of the outer world.

What was even more shocking for me was returning to the surface after my first dive. What was true beneath the surface was also true above it. I’d stopped seeing the beauty and the color and the teeming life above the water line because I had generic words for it: I assumed I knew so I stopped seeing and experiencing how incomprehensible (sacred) is this world we inhabit.

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Force Nothing

Posted on August 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

For the next few days I’ll be at the gathering of my clan. My papa turns 80 so I’m reposting from the archives. This one was post 402:

Today Saul talked about moving through life with more than a dull force. It was an amazing clear image to me, a community of people who only know how to move through life using dull force. Not sharp force, not intense force: dull. I imagined the word ‘dull’ to mean a few things: 1) unconscious and 2) blunted from feeling; life as dull color.

Many years ago just prior to moving to Los Angeles my friend Dwight gave me a how-to-drive-in-LA lesson. He said, “It’s all about forcing traffic to do what you want it to do.” We laughed as my usually benign and peaceful friend Dwight morphed into a self-centered road demon forcing traffic to his will. His lesson was more than insightful, it was prescient: I found drivers in LA to be mostly aggressively unconscious of others and aggressively protected against feeling the impact of their hostility: accidents and a violent city was always the other person’s fault. It was, to me, the city of moving-through and very hard to be present-in. It was the image that hopped into my mind when Saul said, “dull force.” Rodney King, road rage and marshal law; I imagine the land upon which the city was built to be in shock with dull force; all of those orange groves paved over, the hills and blue-blue sky choked with the exhaust of automobiles driven by people trying to be some other place.

Saul bent over to demonstrate a point, pretending to tie his shoe, he said “If you allow there are options other than trying to force your way through your day, you might actually be in your day; you might see that there is no stress necessary to engage with the tasks before you. Rather than dull force you might actually participate within your day!” The idea tickled him and we laughed.

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Pass Through Zero

Posted on August 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

For the next few days I’ll be at the gathering of my clan. My papa turns 80 so I’m reposting from the archives. This one was post 403:

This morning Mark wrote a comment about my recent post on Zero. His thoughts and question made the top of my head blow off. Everything from the eyebrows up is gone. I have substantial eyebrows (from my father’s side of the genetic pond) so I will attempt an eyebrow comb-over to cover the crater that used to be my cranium. If heads were volcanoes I’d be Mt St. Helens. I may need to invest in hats.

In my post about being at Zero I wrote, “As choices go, Zero can be utter stillness, the wasteland, lost in the woods, a score on a math test, or the moment before the big bang. It most certainly is a state of mind.”

This is Mark’s comment:

“If the Big Bang occurs at the very moment that the universe knows all that is knowable, and the subsequent explosion forcibly disperses that knowledge in the formation of the rapidly expanding new universe, that next infinitesimal moment represents one unit of knowledge gained. Therefore, the journey has begun whether or not you know it. You’ve passed through zero already. What do you learn next?”

Sitting in front of the Fremont Library on a sunny spring afternoon I mentioned to Scott that I was at Zero and he hit me between the eyes with poem by Hafiz. I wrote about being hit by Zero and Hafiz and Mark shot from the hip unloading both barrels of E.O. Wilson at point-blank range. I’m not sure what I learn next but this is what I just learned: 1) Zero is provocative! 2) I have amazing people in my life, and 3) my new dish shaped head is great for carrying a full half pound bag of peanut M&M’s; I’m never far from a tasty treat.

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Be Zero

Posted on August 2, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

For the next few days I’ll be at the gathering of my clan. My papa turns 80 so I’m reposting from the archives. This one was post 401:

I told Scott that I was at zero; all around me was a blank slate. He smiled and said, “That reminds me of a poem by Hafiz I recently heard:

Zero
Is where the Real Fun starts.

There’s too much counting
Everywhere else!”

I laughed and he said, “You’re right where the real fun starts.” How does this always happen: seeking sympathy my pals hit me with a poem and I realize with cartoon stars swirling around my head that I am again standing right where I want to be! Zero is the beginning of the adventure. As choices go, Zero can be utter stillness, the wasteland, lost in the woods, a score on a math test, or the moment before the big bang. It most certainly is a state of mind.

Once, I was represented by a gallery whose owner was also a painter. His home was his studio and in one of the seasonal fires sparked by humans and blown into conflagration by the Santa Ana winds, his house and all of his paintings burned. He was at zero. He said, “There’s nothing but space around me and I’ve never felt more alive.”

Scott watched my thought train and said, “It’s a good one isn’t it.” I said, “Now that I know better, Zero is the only place I want to be.”

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Receive The Message

Posted on August 1, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Images from this magic day:

The space needle disappeared into the fog. A jogger saw it and jogged in place for a full minute before pointing at the shrouded space needle and mouthed, “Holy Cow.” He touched his heart and spun around and then jogged on.

A young man stood very still until the pigeons gathered around him. And then he slowly started to spin and the pigeons lifted off the ground, swirling around him. He laughed a belly laugh and then he stood very still until the pigeons again gathered around him.

A child from another life touched my heart. She had my eyes and hair that she refused to comb.

Skip glanced at his phone. His face, for a moment, looked as if he’d seen a ghost. It wasn’t possible but his infant granddaughter had sent him a message. He caught the mischief and burst into laughter.

I took a walk as the sun was setting and the night grew still as the sky melded pink into purple. Gratitude like a rushing river gushed from me and overran my banks.

She asked me the best question I’ve ever been asked: “What keeps you from receiving this with joy?”

The biggest shooting star, the kind that you can actually see the flames right before it disappears, arced across the night sky at just the right moment. I received the message.

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Consider Laughing

Posted on July 31, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

For every FL!P cartoon I also write a short bit of commentary that will someday blossom into a blog post. I pass the commentary to Skip and magician that he is, he jumps into an incredibly complex process to enter the strip and commentary into the FL!P site for publication. I give him the commentary on a separate document and identify for him which strip goes with which comment by the last line in the strip. Tonight I was preparing the next batch of commentary and saw the list of last lines as a kind of poem or theme map. Here’s an example of 6 last lines in sequence:

Are the edges cutting you?
They forget to use their precious time creating relationships.
Now, no one has enough time and everyone is looking for money.
I think it’s been a while since you made contact with humans.
Wouldn’t it be easier to ask people what they want?
Shoot me an email and I’ll get back to you.

I laughed when I saw it. I’ve known for a while that I am producing micro series of cartoons based on themes that interest me in the moment but I had no idea how clear the themes actually were.

I learned in school that humor is all about other people’s pain. We laugh at the guy slipping on the banana. A pie in the face is funny as long as it happens to someone else. Beneath the mask of humor lives the mask of tragedy. The reverse is also true. Tricksters are in the world to help us not take our selves or our gods too seriously. Every bloody king needs a court jester. Beneath the tragedy runs a river of humor. You’ve heard the phrase, “I laughed, and otherwise I’d have cried.” The mask of humor and the mask of tragedy work together like the vine and the soil. They provide nutrient for each other. They also provide relief from the other. That’s how polarities work. They are dynamic.

Skip and I started FL!P because there are conversations in the world of entrepreneurs that people aren’t having because they are taking themselves too seriously. We thought that if we poked some fun at the whole affair we’d be able to surface some of the deeper conversations. Humor creates movement. Humor creates chaos and chaos moves toward order. I’m of the opinion that most of our world could use a bit of the trickster. Our national jammies are wound too tight and could use some counterclockwise rotation. The issues won’t go away. The tragedy will wait for the laughter to stop. I think it’s time we made some contact with humans.

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Meet The Opponent

Posted on July 30, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

On the white board Skip wrote, “The enemies.” We were planning our business and as we moved deeper into specific details, the forces of opposition became apparent. Skip listed them as “enemies” rather than “obstacles” because forces that rise against clear intention are not passive. A boulder in the road is an obstacle. A tide of opposition is an opponent and the strategy for meeting an opponent is different than that of meeting an obstacle. Both strategies begin with respect and then the paths diverge.

Innovation will always bring a tide of opposition. Several times in my life I have seen “the system” crush the very innovation that it purports to seek. It smashes the innovators that work to improve the lives of all involved. Their innovation would necessitate change and the fear that change inspires in a system is lethal to change makers and the advances that they bring. Tom used to say, “You will know the worth of your work by the size of the tide that rises against you.”

On the list of enemies Skip wrote “The Four Overcomings.” This is a reference to one of Carlos Casteneda’s books. The Four Overcomings are 1) The Fear of Learning, 2) The Fear of Clarity, 3) The Fear of Power, and 4) The Fear of Old Age. In the book, Don Juan tells us that very few people move beyond the first fear. A true learner must open to change. A true learner must embrace the unknown and become practiced at stepping into it. One in ten will face this fear and overcome their need to know. The majority will seek safety and grasp firmly to what they know.

Learning brings clarity. Of the people that move beyond the first overcoming, only a very small percentage will face their fear of clarity. As Skip explained, those who become clear are dangerous to the status quo and are ostracized or worse. It takes courage to speak truth in a society dedicated to maintaining the safety at all cost. Most will hide their clarity. They will pretend ignorance. A very few will embrace their clarity and give voice to what they’ve learned.

If one is able to face the fear of learning, move beyond the fear of clarity, they become potent. They become powerful. And the powerful must embrace their power. They must not deny their power and in fact must willingly use their power. Fear of being power defeats almost all people. As Marianne Williamson famously wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” All people are powerful beyond measure but would rather measure than be powerful.

The fourth and final overcoming is old age. Skip smiled and said, “By the time you get beyond Overcomings 1 – 3 you will be old. And no one overcomes number four.

Learning, clarity, power, and old age are forces. They are not obstacles. They are not passive. They are opponents and to overcome them one must begin with respect – not for the opponent but for one’s self. And then you must ride out to meet them on the field of your life.

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Listen To The Dragonfly

Posted on July 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

859. 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 note to the blue dragonfly that marked the path today. I am given to seeing metaphor and symbol in almost everything. Serendipity and synchronicity hold hands everyday in my life. Karma meets coincidence. All year I’ve told people, “There have been helping hands all along this path.” There have been harbingers and guardians. To me, a few of my friends look a lot like angels.

Dragonflies have been present throughout this time of wandering, too. One year ago I came to a leaping point in my life that was marked by a dragonfly. It was singly dedicated to staying by my side. I have come to think of that particular dragonfly as a threshold guardian. I was ready for the passage so it accompanied me as I stepped through the water (the deep memory) and into unknown lands. I literally passed through a watercourse with the dragonfly as my constant companion. He left when I made it to the far shore and leapt.

A week ago, I was visited by an orange and crimson dragonfly. I’d just emerged from the faery ring when it came calling. This was a visitor of another sort. It felt like reassurance. If it could have spoken it might have said, “Did you feel that? The faery ring signals a change. The cycle is shifting with this new moon: the centrifugal will become centripetal. The hard growth is nearly done. The fruit of your labor will ripen now. All is spiraling back to the center.” This dragonfly was a harbinger of the return. “You are almost home,” it whispered with its wings.

Today the dragonfly was blue. This, I believe, was Hermes. He is the messenger of the gods, walking freely between the world of mortals and the divine. He is also the protector of travelers and I think he came today to give comfort, protection and to deliver a message. The message read something like this: despite what you think, you do not walk this path alone. I am with you.

And so to the blue dragonfly, thank you. The message was clear. Keep stepping into the unknown. I know that there is no other direction. I know that my intellect and reason are of no use on this path. There is no sense to be made. Intuition is all.

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Embrace Your Discipline

Posted on July 28, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

858. 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 occurs to me that during this phase of my life I am learning discipline. Not that I’ve ever been undisciplined but a short gander at my current daily activity looks like a masters class in self-direction. I laughed out loud when a few minutes ago I looked up “discipline” in the thesaurus and the word “punishment” topped the list. The other choices are regulation, self-control, and subject (as in field or specialty). I generally resist rules, am not in to punishment, and am a generalist to such a degree that I have no field or specialty. So, discipline must be necessary to help me come to some semblance of balance before I’m too old to balance. All will be lost the day I wear pants with elastic waistbands and Velcro shoes but until then some balance may be possible.

Two years ago I decided to write posts every day. I decided to take on a daily writing commitment because the need for fodder opened my eyes. I had to pay attention to all the colors of life swirling around me if I was going to have something to write about. Little gestures of kindness became visible. The world is much more vibrant than I understood before I began paying attention. I’ve always been a painter so I’ve practiced “seeing” all of my life but a new kind of sight opened when I decided to write. Also, I’ve never considered myself a writer so my sub-intention for writing each day was to learn to write. Double discipline: open my eyes to see and become a better writer.

Two months ago I committed to publishing a daily cartoon strip for an audience entrepreneurs. Although the strip is crude (by design), each panel takes a few hours to complete and in just a few months I’ve drawn over 120 panels. Today, like most days, I spent the afternoon drawing and inking cartoons. I’m trying to get two months ahead because the strip publishes everyday, seven days a week. It is not lost on me that since beginning the cartoon I find that I am listening with a new set of ears. I’m becoming a world-class eavesdropper. Everything is fair game for cartoon material and everything – especially the most serious conversations – sound like a cartoon. People have no idea that they are riotously funny. In cartooning I’ve already learned that few things in this life warrant the weight that we give to it. Our addiction to drama and blaming is a comedy gold mine. I am my own best source for a good yuck. The discipline is to listen and laugh.

Walking home from tai chi this morning made me realize that I also have a daily tai chi practice. I began my study almost 2 years ago and I love it. I start each day with my practice and I am changing in some fundamental ways because of it. The discipline is to root over what Saul calls “the bubbling spring.” Connect to the chi and empty of all forms of pushing. The discipline is to empty and listen.

Listen. Empty. Laugh. See. Balance. Punishment is nowhere in sight. Alan says that the root word of discipline is disciple –and today I take great delight in my chosen path of discipleship.

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See The Color

Posted on July 27, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Occasionally, for reasons I can’t explain, I become fixated on the words people use to describe their experiences. Language is powerful and we are rarely aware that in using specific language to describe particular experiences we are, in fact, defining ourselves.

Today I was struck by the predominance of phrase polarity I heard in my conversations and travels. People were “effective” or “ineffective.” Experiences were “good” or “bad.” We “liked” or “didn’t like” an idea. I heard, “Are you in or out?” A frustrated pedestrian shouted at a young woman who’d stopped to adjust her ear buds, “Walk or Don’t Walk!”
This or that. Up or Down. Black or white. More or less. Main Street or Wall Street.

It is comfortable to pretend that things are simple and easily defined. It is probably efficient to pretend that there are only two available options. We are, after all, a society of laws and in a legal preset there must always exist a clear line though we learn again and again that the line is never clear. Who honestly believes that Justice is blind? Context complicates even the smallest decision.

Dogma is not spirituality. Data is not knowledge and is miles from approaching wisdom. Wisdom is complex. Data sorts to the simple. There are an infinite number of points between those two poles. The question remains: how is your language defining you. Do you define yourself as data with two points or do you allow for more complexity? Listen to how you story yourself and your world.

The challenge with phrase polarity is that the points are often pitted against each other. It’s as if data and wisdom are two distinct paths so you can have one or the other but not both. The phrase “effective or ineffective” recognizes no middle ground. It eliminates any common ground. The same holds true if you define yourself as either good or bad. Do you have worth or are you worthless? Are you identified with a red state or a blue state? Can business have heart? Can data support wisdom? Can wisdom translate data?

Isn’t life sweet with only two choices! In such a paradigm it is easy to be the good guy and so by default the “others” are bad. In such a paradigm, when rushing to your very important meeting, all the “others” are in your way. My way or the highway is a bleak and immature paradigm.

The important questions do not live at the poles but are in constant movement in search of a balance point. Balance is available in the center and the center moves all of the time. Do you love your children? Do you want to make a better world? Do you want your life to have meaning? Is it possible that people in the other color states also want the same things?

Coloring outside of the lines requires crossing lines. It requires a desire to work with color, lots and lots of color, which opens the capacity to see a multitude of options. Everyday I work with people searching for the greater meaning in their lives. The first thing they come to realize is that they have choices. Not one or two but many, many choices. They have a full palette of choices. And they can only see the multitude of choices when they stop telling themselves that the world is black or white. They can only see the rainbow of possibilities when they get off the pole of rightness or wrongness and step toward the middle. Living a rich and varied story begins when you start telling a rich and varied story. Language is the building block of story. It matters.

Filed under: Language, Seeing, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: complexity, mattering, poles, simplicity, story | Leave a comment »