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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Become The Ocean

Posted on June 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

818. 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, 15, 16, 17]

Bali Journal Excerpt #8
I was not surprised when my dive instructor told me that we would dour our final dives together in Tulamben. It would be an overnight stay. “Tulamben,” he said, “is the place where the sun first touches Bali each morning.” I would do my ritual in Tulamben. I would invite my soul to come into my body and be happy. The Bali gods were taking care of me. Terry, my instructor, and I were sitting on a boat having just completed two open water dives. They were current dives. My lesson of the morning was about giving myself over to the current, getting completely neutral, and letting myself go. “Don’t swim against the current,” he’d instructed, “give in to it. Become the ocean. Experience what it feels like to let the division between you and the ocean disappear.”

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Posted on June 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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[continued from 811]

Bali Journal Excerpt #2:
During the group’s visit to Jero Manchu [Jero was a Balian or shaman], I took pictures for Lora as she worked with the Balian. As I was aiming the camera, about ready to snap a photo, I heard my inner voice scream, “Ask the Balian what is missing!” Missing? And then again, “You need to know what is missing!” The voice railed at me for the duration of our visit to Jero’s compound. “Just ask!” my inner voice implored. I didn’t ask. I was too embarrassed and more than a little unhinged at the battle raging inside of me. I didn’t want to look stupid or display my vulnerabilities. I knew that, in fact, something was missing. I told myself that I didn’t want to impose my needs upon the group. I left the compound stuffing the question inside.

Reading this journal entry thirteen years later made me smile for 2 reasons: 1) I’ve since learned to listen and act immediately when my inner voice calls. I used to treat my inner voice as if it was an “other.” Now, it is not separate. It is my voice. It no longer needs to scream. 2) I assumed that speaking to my needs was an imposition on others. I had no evidence for that assumption. In truth, it was purely my justification for not showing up. It was my way of hiding.

I’m particularly fond of the timing of this excerpt. A few weeks ago my inner voice roared an imperative and I acted immediately. My world will never be the same because I listened and responded. There was no gap between the call and my action. There is no need for inner warfare. Additionally, today was the official launch party for my comic strip, FL!P (Skip has done an amazing job building this site – check it out). Lots of people came, drank wine, ate food, laughed, drew pictures, voted for their favorite strip and character. I loved every minute of it because I showed up. I recognized that I spent the entire day doing exactly what I wanted with no assumption about the impact on others. It is no longer my job to decide what other people need or think. There is so much in my life to celebrate!

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Share A Meal With Jakorda

Posted on May 30, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Jakorda Rai sat behind me. His hands on either side of my head, he read my energy just as he’d read the other students who previously sat before him. Unlike the other students he did not progress to the second phase of diagnosis. Instead, he simply tapped me on my right shoulder and through a translator told me that nothing physically ailed me. My challenge was to open my story. As if to emphasize his diagnosis he tapped me again on the right shoulder and repeated his instruction. Open your story.

Later I would return to his house compound and participate in a ritual. He initiated me into his family temple. I became one of his family line. Only now am I understanding the import of that gesture, the gift that he gave me. The high priests brought me in to his temple and then Jakorda Rai sent me back into the world to open my story. Before I left his house compound he invited me to come back back. Through the translator he said, “Someday come back and share a meal with me.” I thought I’d be back within a few years. More than a decade has passed.

What does it mean to have an open story?

Artists – and by artists I mean all people who are conscious of their actions and choices – flourish when the emphasis in life is moved from “answer seeking” and placed on “question engagement” – the capacity to explore and engage, to sit solidly in uncertainty: that is the environment (and I think it is an internal environment) necessary for humans to flourish and fulfill their creative impulse.

I’ve posted these words before and decided to post them again. My dear friend Sam asked me to describe under what conditions an artist flourishes and this is what I wrote in response:

It is perhaps too simple but this is what I know and experience: the artist in me becomes present (it is all about presence; artistry is not something you do as much as something you are) – there is no past or future, just what is before me (and in me) in that moment and we are not separate: the poem or the painting or the story and I are one fluid thing. The world (my seeing) moves from nouns to verbs, from object focused to process focused. When I am present the environment, my seeing of my environment, comes “alive;” the colors are more intense, the sounds and textures of my space richer and clearer. I guess, in my artist self, there ceases to be a separation between me and my environment, I am not moving through a day, I am in the day. All concepts of “time” disappear. I am the creator, the creating, and the created.

This is what it means to have an open story. And now that I know, now that I am an open story, I remember that I am long over due to share a meal with Jakorda Rai.

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No Story Necessary

Posted on May 8, 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.

Today Alan and I led the final Transformational Presence Coaching class of the year. I always feel a deep sense of gratitude for the group and for Alan in particular when we complete a cycle. I’ve become a steward of his work and have slowly over time embodied the principles. I am especially grateful for this group of graduates because over the past seven months they provided the only real consistency in my life. We’ve met every Tuesday (on the phone) to talk about the learning and experiences of the past week. The class was the single pattern, the touchstone that gave shape to my wandering.

In Bali Jakorda Rai told me I needed to learn about energy and auras. And then I met Alan – and I’ve only just today realized that bit of providence. He taught me about energy – to first pay attention to the energy, the feeling in my body, and not the story that I tell. The story comes second. It is the flip of how most of us engage with life. It is the opposite of the American cultural norm. All life is energy in motion.

Something powerful shifts when thought takes second place to energy. Something powerful changes when we recognize that thought is energy. I know that might sound esoteric but consider for a moment how your life might open if you paid less attention to what you think and more attention to the experience of the moment (Quinn once said, “There are 6 billion people on the planet and you are the only one who really cares what you think.”). What is right in front of you? What is your relationship to this moment?

It is a useful practice to pay attention and work with how you feel before you attach to what you think. Attaching to what you think almost always leads to some form of internal debate – and inner debate is a sure sign that you’ve split yourself and have kinked the energy hose. What could be less interesting than spending your time attending an inner debate?

On the other hand, if you pay attention to the energy – which is neither good nor bad – you can change the direction or work with something more expansive and easy. You can ground it, you can slow it down, stir it up or add color; you can even it out. Energy is about motion and flow. You can trace it back to the trigger and more clearly see the story you tell. If an old story is worn out, you can release it and make room for a new story. You can nurture the flow of energy.

Energy first, story second. It is how our brains work: we have experiences (we feel) and then we story the experiences. As the class discussed today, sometimes there is no need for a story.

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Seek The Open Door

Posted on March 2, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Era’s begin and era’s end. Sometimes the line marking the end is distinct and sometimes you simply discover that a chapter closed. The early phase of a new chapter always feels like being lost. Feeling lost is a certain sign that a new chapter has opened.

When dealing in story you learn that beginnings, middles, and ends are arbitrary designations because they are not linear. Stories are cyclical. At what moment did the infant become a toddler? At what moment does vitality become contentment: when does becoming transition into being? When do we cross into old age?

Once, many years ago, while watching a rehearsal, an era ended. I was the artistic director of a company that I’d nurtured and grown for years. I was directing a play and it was a few weeks before opening; in that rehearsal, in a single moment the door closed, I knew I was done. I knew I needed to leave. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done to finish that rehearsal process and open that play. I had to work very hard to treat the people around me with kindness. I did not know how to leave the people I loved. I did not know how to leave so tried hard to push them away. They knew. Sherry came into my office, sat down, took my hand and told me that it was okay if I needed to go. She assured me that everyone would be fine. Sherry knew the truth: once you are done, it is soul crushing to pretend otherwise and she was looking after the health of my soul. “Take the step,” she said. “You can’t receive a call and not follow it.” A door closing is a calling. It is guidance that says, “Not this way. Look for a door that opens.”

Throughout the fall and winter I have closed the door on an era. And, just when I think the door is fully closed, there is another closure, a further completion (how’s that for a paradox!). It can only mean that another era has begun. Today, I pull closed another door, turn and look to the horizon and wonder in which direction to step. As new doors open the horizon tends to be 360 degrees; limitless possibility and lost-ness often feel the same. I’ve decided that it is not necessary to know which way to step. It is only necessary to step. It is only necessary to listen to the guidance and like a treasure hunt seek the open door.

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Emerge

Posted on February 1, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Old structures do not like to give way to the new. The old structure, whether it is a personal identity or organizational system, resists change.

When I stepped off the plane Moira only said, “It’s bitter.” She meant the temperature; it was 16 degrees and the wind was blowing. We laughed and she drove me to campus to stay in the Illini Union Hotel on the campus of the University of Illinois. It’s a beautiful campus even with the wind chill making my eyes water. The hotel is actually within the student union, a massive brick and white-pillared structure that shouts, “academia!” It is solid and hallowed with history.

This university like all universities is an institution of education in a time that institutions of education are being pummeled by the waves of change. The internet is revolutionizing access to information and the power of the individual to create, pursue, investigate, and participate. The very role of “teacher” or “professor” is no longer relevant in it’s old definition and the new form is yet to emerge.

I’ve heard conversations questioning the very role of a campus in the face of the new world. There is most certainly a role but what is it? It’s emerging. Tuitions are unmanageable and unrealistic. In many circles the question, “Why not to put the money into a business start up instead college?” is leading the way. Experience is the best teacher and there are great business courses online and much information is free. Why not go into debt with something that has the potential to generate income than something that will strain your income for years to come? It’s a valid argument.

In various places around the country teachers are now refusing to administer the standardized tests. Students are refusing to take them. Finally, we are asking, “Why? What is the point? And what are we trying to do?” After all, what does it mean to learn?
This is the new form starting to emerge. The old is fighting back, ratcheting down and trying to contain and constrain. It is only a matter of time.

The old structure will fight the new, even if the old is irrelevant. Even if its existence impedes growth instead of facilitates it. In this way, organizations are no different than people. The imagination is never welcome in the old house but imaginations have a way of taking over and something new, wondrous, magical, and completely unpredictable always emerges.

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Ask “What If?”

Posted on January 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

691. 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 was reminded today that “If” is a very powerful word. It is a magic word that is shorthand for “imagine the possibilities.” When you think that you can’t do something, when you’ve convinced yourself that you will never be able to do…(fill in the blank); ask yourself this magic question: “What if…?” It’s alright, continue to accept that you can’t or will never be able to…; you need not change your disbelief or assault your defenses. In the midst of your wasteland, ask “what if…?” Imagine what you would do if you could? What steps would you take? What is the first step you would take if…?

Take the step. Hold onto your disbelief, invest in your limitation, and take the step anyway. No need to fulfill your dream, accomplish your impossible mission, move your mountain, or realize your potential – those phrases are misleading anyway, new age rhetoric, self-help marketing mantras that imply that your dream, your impossible mission, your mountain and your potential are some other place, things you might achieve, arrival platforms. Hint: they are really verbs, actions, and choices; you are infinitely un-full-fill-able because you are not a container with a limited capacity. You are your dream, your mission, your mountain, and your potential – you are uncontainable. Use upon yourself any ruler you choose, any metrics you think valid and at the end of the day your measurement will be false. Like a photograph you might capture a moment, an aspect, but you will never capture the all of you.

“What if” you started taking small steps without belief? What if you acted “as if” you could? Where might you someday find yourself? Magic and miracles are not dependent upon your belief; they are dependent upon your action. They are dependent on your capacity to realize that you, yourself, are fluid, moving, changing, dynamic,…, a living vital being. “What if” you started stepping in the direction of your “I can’t?”

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i.magine

Posted on January 18, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Skip told me that the innovation of the app store changed the world. We can design our access to information, we can design how we locate and inform ourselves in our daily travels, we can customize how we organize, shop, play and how we connect with our friends. We can design our products before we purchase them. Our options have options.

We look more at our screens than at each other.

In the age of the app the user is not necessarily the customer, the seller is not necessarily the producer. Our buying habits and travel patterns and preferences and impulses are tracked and sold and re-tracked and resold. Advertising is personalized to our computer-generated preferences. The impersonal identifies the personal.

Any 12 year-old with a modicum of computer savvy can construct an app and enter the marketplace. Access to information, to communication, the modes of creation and sharing have never been this limitless, varied or non-local.

Above all, it is fluid, ever changing in form, always expanding. The single most important skill in this geography is how to tell the gold from the dross. What has merit and what does not? Often, the answer to that question is personal.

Design. Options. Personal. Access. Limitless. Fluid. Ever Changing. Ambiguous. Shape shifting. Self-Organizing. Self-Directed. It is an infinite space. It is a way of being.

This is the world that exists right now. I just had a conversation with Sylvia about organizational culture change and the pressures all systems are experiencing to adapt to this changed world. It is a culture change, a perspective shift. Imagine what our education system might look like if it understood the world that existed today – not to mention the world that our students will live in and navigate tomorrow! Can you imagine it?

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Recognize The Adventure

Posted on January 1, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

The calendar tells me that this is the first day. And isn’t that always true. I have a friend that writes me everyday to report on her adventure of the day. This is a good day to start a good practice: decide and live each day as if it was the first day (because it is) and aim to have an adventure on every first day.

A hint: It will help if you do not resolve to do this because a resolution assumes that it has never previously been true; it assumes a change, something different that you must do. That misses the point entirely. All you need do is open your eyes, release the belief that your life is ordinary, and recognize the adventure. Instead of a New Year’s resolution allow yourself to have a New Year’s recognition.

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