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]

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Step Toward It

Posted on January 28, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from the cartoon series, FLUB, by David Robinson

from the cartoon series, FLUB, by David Robinson

[continued from Expect The Possible]

Change processes are funky in a society wholeheartedly dedicated to maintaining comfort. Comfort and significant change are rarely bedfellows. Real change might include a sigh of relief or a temporary feeling of elation, but melting down an old form and forging it into something new requires plenty of heat and a sizeable hammer.

If the first Great Impossibility in transformation is the expectation of knowing “how to do it” before you do it, an insane expectation, the second Great Impossibility is insanity with thorns. It, too, is based upon a false expectation: the walk into the new thing will be a cakewalk. It won’t.

Pain plays a role in the body. It alerts us that something is wrong. Pain plays the same role in a psyche. It alerts us to discord. It wakes us up. It makes us look for options. It prompts us to seek health and the relief of pain. It motivates us to consider trying something new.

In story cycles, it is pain and discomfort that prompt the protagonist to step away from safety and the known and go on an impossible journey. Going into the belly of a whale is not supposed to be a party. Discomfort shakes the tree of perspective. It opens our eyes to whole new and previously unseen fields of opportunity.

To remove the discomfort is to stall growth and minimize potential.

In organizations there are people whose job it is to manage change. The change manager is supposed to make the change as painless as possible. It assumes the horse of change wears a rein. It doesn’t. Unless you are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, change cannot be managed.

Often in organizational change, people lose their jobs and that is the equivalent of an identity loss.  In personal change, people lose their way. Being lost in the woods or not knowing who you are is rarely fun. It is, however, painful and there’s nothing like discomfort to fuel movement toward something new.

Expect it. Court it. Walking into a fear is never fun but slaying the dragon you find in the fear is triumphant. The walk into fear is necessary to find the dragon. They go together. Just as life is not vital without the knowledge of death, transformation is not possible without discomfort. You might find that most of the pain actually comes from the attempt to avoid the pain. Step toward it.

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Honor The Crow

Posted on September 7, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

In my studio are two wood, wire, paper and found-object sculptures of crows I made a few years ago. I made them at the time that crows were plaguing me. For a few years crows were a potent and ever present force in my days, dive bombing me when I least expected it. Once, a murder of crows circled my studio for hours. There were two fledglings in the yard outside of the studio door and I suppose I was perceived as a threat. I perceived the crows as a threat.

I’d like to think that I was in my personal version of an Alfred Hitchcock movie – and sometimes it felt that way – but in truth I think the crows did me a favor. They woke me up. If it is possible for a subconscious to manifest itself then my subconscious came at me in the form of crows. It began one day on Alki beach when a crow went berserk on me and would not let me go home. I’m sure I was the talk of the sidewalk as I fled to the beach and found a stick so that I might defend myself. My animal instinct kicked in and I sought open ground and a weapon to use for a fair fight (crows have beaks). The crow left me alone if I walked away from my home but unleashed a full aerial assault if I tried to walk in the direction of home. Finally, I fled to a coffeehouse and hid until the crow flew away (the time it takes to drink two Americanos and eat a chocolate chip cookie).

Crows have facial recognition so I told myself that someone who looked like me had treated the crows poorly. More than once they picked me out of a crowd and hit me from behind. Crows are masters at surprise attacks. But deep down I knew differently. They weren’t attacking me. It wasn’t malice. It was a wake up call. They were helping me.

As is my custom, I searched the symbolism of Crow and this is what I found: “Crow is the guardian of ceremonial magic and healing. In any healing circle, Crow is present. Crow guides the magic of healing and the change in consciousness that will bring about a new reality and dispel “dis-ease” or illness…. Do not try to figure crow out. Crow represents the power of the unknown at work, and something special is about to happen.”

Something special did happen. Something special continues to happen.

For some reason today, I have been hyper aware of my crow sculptures. I’ve found myself staring at them and remembering the original impulse to make them. I wanted to exorcise the aggression, rid myself of their attacks. Now I see them differently. Given the vast changes in my life this year I see them as harbingers of change. From this vantage point I can see how the unknown was at work and, I believe, continues to work. This year I’ve not had a single crow incident.

I laughed out loud this morning when I realized that every shirt I own is black. I’ve internalized my crow medicine. The crows are to me as bees are to Beowulf. What was once my nemesis may someday become my greatest ally. I hope so. That would mark the closing of a circle and the beginning of a new adventure and I’ll be able to bring my crow medicine with me into the next unknown.

(Post 894. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.)

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Flip It!

Posted on September 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

890. 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 has been a summer of flips. Things that seemed so difficult a few months ago are now easy. Things that seemed so easy a few months ago are difficult. My paradigm is flipping. For instance this morning I had a difficult conversation that ultimately became about the necessity of giving voice to the hard-to-say stuff. What seems confrontational often goes unspoken because it doesn’t feel safe. I’ve often withheld what needs to be said so that I might remain safe. Here’s the flip: hiding (not speaking) is an acknowledgement that you do not feel safe. It might feel safe to withhold your voice but it’s not. What goes unspoken festers and grows. It becomes a monster that gobbles you up. In truth, what goes unspoken is fundamentally unsafe. Giving voice to the most difficult stuff is the safest thing you can do. Giving voice in the difficult moments is like shining a light into a dark corner. There may or may not be a monster lurking in the corner but you’ll never know until you shine the light on it. I’ve lost many a precious relationship by withholding my voice, by not saying what needed to be said.

It’s not lost on me that during this time of flipping that I am partner in a business start up, appropriately (and coincidentally) named Flipped Start-up. The original purpose of the company was to flip the perspective of new start-ups. They generally focus on the wrong stuff and step into some obvious potholes because of it. However, there was a false premise lurking under our original intention. I’ve known and taught ad infinitum that you can never control what another person thinks, feels, or sees so to create a company based upon the premise that we could change what people see was…clumsy. It seems that the purpose of Flipped Start Up was to flip me.

People do not change. They grow. They learn. They look into dark corners. They learn to speak. They see that the monsters that they imagined are, indeed, imaginary, self-made monsters. And the primary thing we learn to do when we become powerful is to illuminate, to reveal, to give voice. To show up, not as we think we should be, but as we truly are.

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Pick Up Your Ordinary

Posted on July 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

In his book, The Pilgrimage, Paulo Coehlo writes that the path to wisdom can be identified by three things: 1) it must involve agape (love), 2) it must have practical application in your life, 3) it has to be a path that can be followed by anyone. My pilgrimage this winter has brought me face-to-face with the third characteristic.

I’ve many times taught the phrase, “Put down your clever and pick up your ordinary.” This concept comes from the world of improvisation and it reveals the path to full uninhibited expression. What you label in yourself as “ordinary” is actually your most extraordinary and potent gift. You think it is ordinary because it is natural to you. Because it is natural to you, you assume that everyone has it. They don’t. In addition, trying to be clever or smart pulls you out of the moment. It creates a façade. It pulls you away from your extraordinary gift. To put down the need to be clever or right actually allows you to show up. It’s a paradox, to put down your clever and pick up your ordinary is the route to extraordinary fulfillment. It is the route to presence.

The path of the ordinary is a path that can be followed by anyone. To distinguish or attempt to be above the herd is an excellent way to block the flow. It is a remarkably effective strategy for creating inner poverty. This winter I have been summarily stripped of my many devices for distinguishing myself. I have been expert at keeping myself aloof and above it all. I have preached a path of unity while investing in a devoted separation. I isolate myself in a studio, walk like a ghost across a city each day, belong nowhere and refuse to join. And since I desire to walk a path of wisdom I have necessarily been crushed and ground into a fine powder. I have, in the process, crushed others in my confusion, acted poorly and been reintroduced to the ugly side of my nature – the part that makes me ordinary and human. I have been messy and brutal and can no longer be above it all.

I have no clever left to heft. All that remains is basic, essential and very ordinary. And now, because there is no more illusion of “special” or “different,” perhaps I can begin. Perhaps my artistry will find its community because I am no longer attempting to be distinct. Artistry is about joining. And this brings me back to the first characteristic, agape. Love cannot exist in a world of better or worse. Love is never found in the separations; separations preclude agape. Agape must include everyone, no exceptions, even when the exceptions are self-imposed.

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Step Into Nonsense

Posted on June 25, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

828. 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 took a break from work today and turned on the radio. The first words I heard were, “Is the government doing enough to stop intelligence leaks?” It’s an old joke but it got me anyway and I laughed heartily. Governing is hard. However when the same people who got embroiled in the debate about whether or not pizza is a vegetable are the crew with their finger on the scary red button, it is an important question for the public to ask: Is our government doing enough to stop the intelligence leaking from the ears? And, more to the point, is it a slow leak or do we need to pull off the road and change the intellectual tires?

In all fairness, I am drawing cartoons today. On these days everything becomes fair game. I look for the ridiculous in everything, especially myself. I have been on a literal and metaphoric walkabout for months. The more I try to make sense of things the less sense I make. Truly. It is like a mathematical equation. Try to make sense = no sense. Perhaps there is no sense to be made. There are only choices. And when the available choices make no sense it is time to put on the cartoon artists eyes. Or, it is time to stop trying to do anything and sit still. The intelligence has long since leaked from my tire-brain and I am miles from the nearest air pump. I am like a cartoon character that tries to clean the house and ends up making a mess of everything. Dr. Suess would love me. Lately I have Cat In The Hat tendencies.

There is a moment in the Sisyphus story when Death knocks on Sisyphus door and in a grand moment of tricksterism, Sisyphus chains Death to a post. With Death held captive all motion stops and the world begins to suffer because of it. Sisyphus has no idea what to do so he sits. He does nothing and considers his options. He comes to see that his choice is really between two types of death. The first is death by all things known. This is the death that most people choose. It is death by boredom, slow and predicable. It is to hang on for ten years until retirement. It is an imagination killer. The other kind of death is to step into the unknown. It is unpredictable, fiery, and fast. This type of death fuels his imagination. It runs wild. He chooses the unknown, the death that brings life. He releases Death from the chains, unleashes Death on himself.

The metaphor is clear. When transition comes knocking and we choose to hang on to what we know, intellectual and spiritual death will come slowly through boredom and control. Let go, step off the edge, embrace the unknown and the death will come quickly but so too will the transformation. It’s a cycle. Life feeds life. Winter only looks like death when, in fact, it is a necessary part of the cycle of life.

On the surface it makes no sense to unlock Death. It makes even less sense to keep Death chained up and continue the suffering and boredom. None of the choices makes sense because growth is never in the direction of the known. Growth has nothing to do with sense. Growth is always on the path through the unknown.

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Get Messy. Get Human.

Posted on June 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

823. 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 shocked me when she said it. “Roles are clean. People are messy.” On the surface it doesn’t sound very radical. However, spend a moment considering how many roles you play in your life, how often you pretend things aren’t messy, how often you sand the edges off of what you think (to the point of saying nothing) and you’ll find yourself standing in a large pile of radical revelations. Who are you separate from the roles you assume? And, how does that impact what is yours to do or yours to say?

Her follow-up question almost killed me: “What would it take for you to put down all those nice clean roles and just be a messy person?”

It is messy to say what you want to say. It is messy to say what you need to say. It is messy to say what you think. It is messy to disagree, to have an opinion, to defend an unpopular point of view. It is messy to say, “We can do better. This is not right.” Go against the grain. Break the chain of easy mindless action. Roles are constructed on the “should” principle. Roles are necessary to know where you belong in the herd. Stepping out of the role is scary because it reveals the person behind the curtain.

Recently I’ve been learning that innovation is the blossom of disruption. Steve Blank writes that entrepreneurs need to learn to navigate and thrive in a constant state of disruption. Disruption opens eyes, disturbs patterns, shakes the complacent awake. The vice president of sales will probably not cause disruption. The bank president will sustain the status quo. The teacher or principal are not likely to stir-the-pot as disruption will threaten their paychecks. Roles are clean.

Her third question dropped me to my knees: “Why are you so protected against being a person?”

“What is it,” she asked in conclusion, “what is it about the messiness of being real that makes you seek safety in your role?”

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Invite The Soul

Posted on June 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

815. 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 811, 12, 13, 14]

Bali Journal Excerpt #5
Madeleine asked me if I would go with her to see the Balian. She wanted me to scribe for her – to take notes of her session with Jero Manchu. I’d written off my previous experience at Jero Manchu’s compound. I didn’t listen to the inner voice. I ignored the imperative to, “Ask the Balian what was missing.” Now, I sat with Madeleine before the Balian. The Balian sang, breathed incense, and was quiet for a moment or two. Then, she turned and began speaking to me. I’d not asked a question. I was there in support of Madeleine.

Jero said (through a translator): “The one in you wants to be purified at the beach. One is pulling you there; one is pulling you in another direction. This is why you feel at a crossroads. I suggest you pray to the one not committed to you. Pray at the beach before the sun is rising. Invite the soul – he is still in the water – invite him into your body. Ask him to be happy in you.”

I was stunned.

It seems, thirteen years later, my work in the world is to invite the soul. I did my ritual on the beach (it is a journal entry coming soon) and my soul eventually came out of the water and into my body. He is very happy and getting happier each year.

The lesson or action is universal to people, organizations, communities,…the internal tug of war reveals the split gate, the investment in being right. It reveals the place where we divide and pull in opposite directions. Power over or control are usually the drivers of the split. There is nothing worse than having two experts come to dinner. There’s nothing better than having two masters come to share a meal.

Heal the split by stepping into the space between. This is to invite the soul into the body. Heal the split by shifting the focus from the points to the vectors, from the fixed to the fluid, from the staid to the movement, from the particle to the wave. Invite the soul. Ask him or her to be happy in you, as you.

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Come Home

Posted on May 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

790. 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 generally tell stories about others and lately my pals have been asking me to turn the story mirror around and have a crack at myself. I am aloof. Tom once told me in frustration that I was the only person on the planet more aloof that he was. I wanted to deny it but couldn’t so my only recourse was to laugh and accept that I am often a balloon floating just out of reach. If you knew Tom this would be a profound statement because no one in the history of humanity was as aloof as Tom. That is, until me. I chose my mentor wisely. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about his accusation. I am not naturally aloof. No one is naturally aloof. We are pack animals. One of our strongest impulses is to belong. Perhaps “aloof” my way of belonging.

I sit comfortably at the edge of the village. I watch. I translate between worlds. I bridge without knowing it. I have deep diving conversations at the most casual dinner party. People I do not know betray their deepest secrets to me and wonder why. Balloons that hover just out of reach are safe. We balloons are conduits to the spirit world. We are transformers. Someone recently told me that I am a magnet to the island of misfit toys. And aren’t we – all of us – misfit toys?

During these past several months two words have repeatedly thundered down upon my head: 1) receive and 2) availability. These are big words especially when, like me, all established patterns come together in the word “aloof.” With so much thunder the message for me is clear: to grow, to fulfill this big voice, I must walk to the center of the village. I must sit and receive. I must open and become available to the community. This one-way communication is nice but two way communication is relationship and to thrive I must open the two way channel. I will always know how to do aloof. I will always be a transformer. Now I must learn to be accessible, too.

In Holland Chris guided us through a constellations exercise. The entire community gathered in a circle and I remained aloof. When I was beckoned and joined the circle, I quivered and quaked with conflicting desires: to belong and to run. To step in and step out. I have wandered my whole life. I am on a pilgrimage that, until recently, had no destination. And today, like a light turning on in my heart, I understand that “receive” and “availability” will be obtainable only after I finally arrive home. Home is the end of my pilgrimage. Home is a person. It is a place. It is a place inside me and outside me. I can see it from here. So, to my pals, I am soon to sit in the center of the village. Come join me there. I’m ready to come home. I have lots of stories to tell.

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Listen Beyond The Wall

Posted on May 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Megan told me that there are cultures that never talk about disease. They believe that the spoken word has power so rather than talk about the disease they speak about the road to health. Or, they assume health and speak about it in the present tense, thus creating health.

We walk a path defined by our assumptions. We see what we expect to see. We see what we believe. When we talk about not being creative or not being good enough, that is what we reinforce. That is what we assume so that is what we create. Or that is what we create so that is the role we assume.

I learned again today (apparently a lesson with no stickiness) assumptions are tricky because they are hard to see. Assumptions are the rules for the game we play, they are the guidelines for the roles we believe we must fulfill. At the base of every miscommunication is a dueling set of assumptions.

People withhold their voices because they assume they know how others will perceive what they say. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” is a statement steeped in assumption. Can you ever know how others will hear what you say? People diminish their truth because they believe they know how others will react. Can we ever know?

Assumptions are scary to challenge because they orient us. We locate ourselves in the world through the assumptions we make. It takes some fortitude to suspend our assumptions. It takes a desire to reach beyond what we think we know. The skill of listening is really about hearing beyond the noise-wall of our assumptions.

I can say, “I love you” and you will hear that I am cold. You can say, “I want to be near you” and I will hear that you are pushing me away. This is the power of assumption. We crush what is dear when wrangling with our assumptions and not what was actually intended. And so the story goes.

The spoken word has power. The internal monologue has power. When Richard Bach wrote, “Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours,” he was writing about assumptions. He was writing about the power of the word. Implied in his caution is the flipside of the coin: argue for your liberation and sure enough it is yours. The message is the same: flow happens when we can see and step beyond our assumptions.

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