Flawed Wednesday | The Direction of Intention

The Real Promise [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 27, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Too many of us still believe our differences define us.” ~ John Lewis

I confess, it has been a life-long fascination. Seriously, since I was a little kid, I’ve been amused, confused, and periodically gobsmacked by the swirling contradiction of identity-messaging in these un-United States.

Because we are the single most individualistic culture on the planet, we place high importance on being unique. We are encouraged to stand out. And yet, the first lesson I learned in school was how to stand quietly in line. We buy clothes that are meant to express our own distinct style while hyper-market-pressured to fit our image to the latest trend.

I spent years and years working with people who spent thousands of dollars outfitting home art studios so that they might express their own unique artistry…and then froze in their newly built temple, so fearful of what others might think of their creation. How many times have I heard someone, dressed smartly in their latest Ralph Lauren, tell me that they were looking for their voice?

It’s untenable. It’s no wonder we are perpetually self-discombobulated. The dreadful shadow of our national commitment to bewilderment is the game drawn along the color line that we’ve played since our nation’s inception: If they gain, we lose. If we gain, they lose.

We-the-people wrestle by placing the accent on the hard line of our differences. We wrestle with reaching across the hard line of difference to find our common ground: most recently our reaching has been known as DEI. Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. We strive to be one in our campaign to be individual.

If there is one universal truth I learned in my life as an artist, in my work with people struggling to find their novelty and power, it is this: unique voice is found in service to others. Unique expression is available when the self-serving ego gets out of the way. It’s a paradox.

Personal voice is meaningless unless it helps other people. To guide. To question. To recognize. To join. Actors perform to unite us in a shared story. Poets write to open us to universal truths. Musicians play to bring us together in a common experience. The real power, the promise available in these United States is no different than the promise bubbling inside each individual. Rare and special voice is found in service to the common good.

Artistry and governance share this trait: grace and power is always found in uniting and is invariably lost in dividing. We may someday realize the great promise in these United States if/when we at long last lay down the tired game of manufactured division and find our true, unique and powerful voice by uplifting all unique, diverse, and beautiful voices, a chorus in service to a common center called democracy.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE BLACK SHEEP

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Power | Tagged: artistry, color line, common center, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, DEI, Diversity, division, governance, individual, John Lewis, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, promise, service, story, studio melange, the melange, voice | 1 Comment »

Beautiful. Perhaps.[David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 20, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ~ Leo Tolstoy

We have watched Barney-the-piano change over these many years. As he ages and falls apart we discuss how he has become more beautiful. It is a sentiment that we do not allow for ourselves as we have also aged and changed over these many years.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ~ James Baldwin

There are days that I do not recognize myself. I look in the mirror and see my grandfather. I look in my heart and am surprised by what I see. In these past months I have discovered my intolerance and I am proud of my intolerance. I have discovered my hard lines of belief. I do not believe that masked men should be plucking people off the streets. I do not believe we should scrub history to make white supremacy palatable. Now, when I look in my heart, I know exactly what I believe. And I like what I see.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” ~ Nelson Mandela

I recently wrote a play about this nation’s resistance to education. Educated people ask questions. Educated people are not easily drowned in propaganda. Educated people do not fear learning that they are wrong because the point of education has nothing to do with right or wrong answers and everything to do with expanding hearts and minds. Minds that expand reach toward the unknown. Minds that close stagnate in the safety of what is known. Entropy, the gradual decline to disorder.

“Change is the only constant.” ~ Heraclitus

Barney is beautiful. He has been home to chipmunks. He is a resting spot for squirrels. Birds revel where he once sported keys. He has dropped all illusions of grandeur and each day reveals his true nature. He makes progress toward earth. He does not resist his natural path. That is the secret of his beauty.

“Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.” ~ Maya Angelou

Master Marsh once told me that when caught himself complaining about something that he had three choices. Shut up (stop complaining). Do something about it. Or leave. In the current reality of our nation I am not able shut up. In fact, I feel it is necessary to raise the volume. That is what I am doing. We write and write and write. We ask ourselves every day, “What more can we do?”

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ~ Albert Einstein

In their advanced age both Maya Angelou and Albert Einstein arrived at the same conclusion. They agree with Leo Tolstoy: to be better on this earth, we need to change our thinking. We need to think about changing ourselves. Looking at our nation (ourselves) doesn’t it beg the obvious questions: What are we thinking? Are we capable of changing our thinking?

Perhaps, as we dissolve, as we crumble like Barney, we will discover at the core of our national story the rot of exclusion. Then, perhaps, we can face our dysfunction, root it out, and change our thinking. Perhaps we can become the inclusive home that our nature – and our founding ideals – intended us to be. Beautiful. Perhaps.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BARNEY

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective, Possibility | Tagged: albert einstein, artistry, beauty, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, Heraclitus, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Leo Tolstoy, maya angelou, natural path, Nelson Mandela, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | 3 Comments »

What I Remember [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Memory is a funny thing. It’s almost never accurate. Over time we revisit and restory our life experiences, scrambling the order of events, forgetting essential details while hanging on with white knuckles to specific moments that we understand as truth.* This happened. It matters. I remember it.

I re-member it.

Joseph Campbell introduced me to a phrase, an aspect that is present in all creation myths: the paradox of dual focus. “…so now, at this critical juncture, where the One breaks into the many, destiny “happens,”but at the same time is “brought about.”

Kerri and I have an ongoing conversation about the paradox of dual focus. For instance, our coming-together-story seems fated, as if it was part of the grand-plan all along. “It was meant to be!” we exclaim. And, at the same time, we ask, “What are the odds?” Our meeting was a happy accident in a vast chaotic universe.

Both/And.

It just happened. And, it was meant to be. It depends upon how we re-member it. It depends upon how we want to story it.

A Balinese man told me that, in Bali, when two people crash their cars into each other, their first thought is “I am supposed to meet this person.” Insurance claims and blame are not priorities. Fate orchestrated a fender bender. The strangers emerge from their cars and greet each other as if fortune had just smiled upon them; they are two pieces of a greater puzzle come together.

Supposed to happen. Accident.

The greater puzzle. The essence beyond the fragments. The One that breaks into the many. Focusing on the small stone does not negate the truth of the mountain. The single blossom is an expression of the plant, which is nourished by the soil and rain and seasons and critters…

Memory is like that. It is both stone and mountain. Blossom and ecosystem. The order of things is less revealing than the essence, the relationship to the whole. We grow and change and so that what might have at one time seemed a hardship now seems a course correction, a blessing. Kismet.

It happened. It matters. That’s what I remember.

*(It is a sign of our times that I feel it necessary to distinguish my thoughts on individual memory from the facts of history. We live in a time when those in power are actively editing, scrubbing and rewriting history. They concoct a narrative that has little to do with the actual history of our nation. This is not dual focus. This is white supremacist fantasy-creation.)

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLOSSOMS

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Story | Tagged: accident, artistry, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dual focus, essence, fate, focus, happy accident, Joseph Campbell, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kismet, memory, one, plan, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Re-Right The Un-Real [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 30, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

She teased herself, saying, “Look how many posts I’ve written lately using the word “Real” in the title!” There were 3 in the past few weeks.

“Of course you have.” I said, “We’re living in a time that reality is just damn hard to believe.” For instance, our current president has his very own Wikipedia page listing the numerous accusations of sexual assault against him, dating back to the 1970’s. It’s a lengthy list. One of the women on the list was thirteen years old when she claims he raped her at one of Epstein’s parties. Of course, this page, these accusations, have been available for all to read for years. How unreal is it that he is being protected by the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court, those who call themselves Christian – all the while the red-red-party loudly proclaims moral authority and trumpets their mission of “protecting” our sons, daughters and wives against the evil Woke?

Un-real.

It is one of the reasons why we planted the sweet potato vine. First, I was awed by its color and luminescence. Seriously, I’ve never seen a plant glow or grow like this vine. Each day I step out back and stare at it, saying, “Unreal.” It’s more beautiful than I can believe. In an upside-down era it re-rights the world. It is real.

Recently, as if it intended to delight me to my core, a single caladium leaf emerged from the field of sweet-potato-vine-vibrant-green. “Look! An outlier!” I called to Kerri.

“Just like us,” she said, admiring the misfit. We poked around the plant to make sure this lone caladium leaf was really emerging from within the sweet potato vine. It really is. It, too, is real.

Real (adjective): 1. actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.

What’s real? Our current president is an adjudicated rapist, a convicted felon, a serial liar with a wiki-rap-sheet of sexual assault accusations that takes more than a single sitting to read. Those are facts, not imagined or supposed. Even so, his sycophants are doing back flips to keep we-the-people from seeing what is really in the Epstein files. They claim – as they have for over a decade – that what’s real is fake and what is fake is real. Apologists for the unforgivable. Apparently, accountability is nowhere in their party, nowhere in their plan, nowhere in their president, thus we are hit each day with a tsunami of conspiracy, chaos and blame, a festival of the fact-free, the supposed fantastic, the un-real.

Is it any wonder that each day we shake our heads and huff, “Really?” And then we head outside to check in with our sweet potato vine and outlier caladium leaf in an attempt to re-right our topsy-turvey world, affirming for ourselves what is actually real – and what is blatantly not.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE CALADIUM LEAF

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Seeing | Tagged: accountability, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Epstein files, fact, felon, fiction, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, outlier, rapist, real, reality, serial liar, story, studio melange, sycophants, the melange, upside down, wikipedia, woke | 1 Comment »

Each Other’s Destiny [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

This tiny white clover flower, no bigger than my fingernail, is an entire universe unto itself. It is a miracle of pattern, designed to attract pollinators. Although I am certain is doesn’t waste a moment of its existence pondering its purpose, it serves as a nutrient to soil and through its vast root system it prevents erosion.

When I write that it is an entire universe unto itself what I really mean is that it is intimately connected to everything. Although we have given it a name and dissected it to the last atom, it does not know itself as separate from the sun that feeds it or the bees and mammals that feed on it. It serves and is served. Both/And. That is the nature of the entire universe. We have words for it: interconnection, flow, movement, relationship.

Words separate this from that. That’s the whole point of a word: to make distinct. To make distinct for us and for our purposes. And, because we think our thoughts in words we can’t help but think of ourselves as separate, distinct. In our word-infused minds we lose contact with the connection. Is it no wonder that we spend much of our time pondering our purpose? Having blunted the experience of interconnection is it no wonder that we story ourselves above it all?

That we name things has given us the illusion that we are higher beings, better than the white clover flower. Hubris is most often the cause of civilization’s collapse. Our capacity to name things comes with a matching capacity to deny – that is to lie and lie until we lie to ourselves. We are both the spider and the fly entangled in the web.

Leave it to a poet to capture in two sentences what I have not captured in paragraphs:

“The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves – we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.” ~ Mary Oliver, Upstream, Selected Essays.

***

we are trying to regroup, rethink and refocus our melange blogpost writing a bit. we – like you – know what is really happening in our world and do not need one more person – including ourselves – telling us the details of this saddest of descents destroying democracy and humanity. though we know our effort will not be 100% – for there is sooo much to bemoan in these everydays – we have decided to try and lean into another way – to instead write about WHAT ELSE IS REAL. this will not negate negativity, but we hope that it will help prescribe presence as antidote and balm for our collective weariness. ~ xoxo kerri & david

read Kerri’s blogpost about WHITE CLOVER

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Transcendence | Tagged: artistry, connection, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, distinction, hubris, humanity, interconnectivity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, langauge, Mary Oliver, separation, story, studio melange, sustainability, the melange, transformation, words | Leave a comment »

Do! [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 16, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Since I asked a question in our most recent smack-dab, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind: “What actions – beyond awareness-raising – will effectively save our democracy…?”

If you are like me, you are sick-to-death of reading posts from our elected democratic leaders decrying the latest moral-offense and breach of the Constitution of the republican administration. It’s become something of a game to read the first comment which inevitably is something like, “I know this already! So what are you doing about it?”

The operative word is “do”. The question for our elected leaders should not absolve us of responsibility and would better read, “What are we doing about it?”

We are aware. What are we doing?

Raising awareness is not action. It’s a step toward action but is not itself a useful action. Crying, “The house is on fire!” is necessary but if it doesn’t prompt a call to the fire department it is useless.

When I asked the question on my saturday-morning-smack-dab post I did not have a clear set of answers. I know the first action-set has to protect our elections since the current occupant of the white house has been manufacturing crises since day one so he might circumvent congress. His authoritarian power grab is nearly complete. All that remains is to rig or stop our next election. His party is already erecting voting barriers to women and people of color.

I want to be inundated with posts from democratic leaders detailing potent action rather than shared-awareness-alarms.

I do not have answers. I have ideas. Lots of ideas. I’d welcome conversations about doing that arrive at specific actions aimed at specific targets. I’d cheer if our democratic leaders went on offense rather than perpetually playing defense, reacting and responding. Stop telling me the house is on fire. I already know. Take the ball back. What’s in the playbook?

The morning glories are out. They line sections of the trail. They have a very short blooming season and so have come to represent transience. They caught my attention as we walked and I pondered my question about effective action. Because the morning glory grows in complex environments, the flower has also come to represent the overcoming of adversity and renewal. Our democracy need not be fleeting.

I realized the morning glory is the perfect symbol for my meditation/question. Don’t take this – our democracy – for granted. It will die. Renewal is our job. We live in a time that our job requires immediate action, targeted action meant to overcome authoritarian/republican adversity.

The house is on fire. We already know it. We can stand by and tell each other about the heat of the flames or we can get busy working together to douse the flame.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MORNING GLORY

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor | Tagged: action, artistry, authoritarian, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Do, elections, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morning glory, raising awareness, renewal, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, transience | 1 Comment »

Bolt! [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 9, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The caterpillar ate the dill,” she said. I laughed. It sounded like the first line in a children’s book. “No matter,” she said as she watched the caterpillar munching, “With all this rain and heat the dill has already bolted.” I raised my eyebrows. Not being up on my garden lingo, “the dill bolted” also sounded like the first line in a children’s book: the dill sprinted from the garden bench!

I thought but did not say: “I’d bolt from the room, too, if I discovered a caterpillar was gnawing on me.” Kerri puts up with enough of my random-mind-wander as it is. I’ve learned to keep some of it to myself.

Though, in my silence, I wished I’d had a pencil and paper to jot down the ideas but my hands were covered in mud. With the recent heat and rain, the weeds were eating the yard (I know! I know! Another great first line for a children’s book!) and I was waging a fruitless campaign to hold back the onslaught. No matter. Ideas come and go. I’ve let plenty of good ideas – and bad ones, too – slip by unrecorded. My muddy hands probably saved me from myself.

It’s worth mentioning that one of the many definitions of “bolt” is to “eat quickly.” To gobble or gulp. Watching the caterpillar eat I think it’s fair to suggest that it was bolting. Essentially the caterpillar and the dill both bolted and neither of them left the yard. It was a reminder to never assume to understand a single word someone else utters. Kerri might have meant that the dill was gulping rather than what I presupposed, that the dill was now dormant. I confess to looking up from my weeding to make sure that the dill was still in the pot and that the pot was on the bench.

Someday soon the bolting caterpillar will possibly fly through the yard as a Black Swallowtail butterfly. It quite literally will have bolted from one way of being into another way of being. Do not assume that you know what I mean. After all, I used the word “bolt” with clear intent to scramble the possibilities.

On the day we see the butterfly I will say to Kerri, “Hey! Look at what your dill produced!” She will give me “that” look and I will, of course, have no alternative but to make-like-dill and bolt.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CATERPILLARS

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Random | Tagged: artistry, black swallowtail butterfly, bolt, caterpillar, children's book, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dill, gobble, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Look Closely [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 2, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Look closely. The dill wilts under the heat dome. Unusually high temperatures and humidity leave it unprotected.

Look closely. Once upon a time we enjoyed an FCC policy called The Fairness Doctrine. It was also known as the “truth in media” regulation. It required broadcast media to present contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues. It was intended to promote public discourse while preventing biased media agendas. It was largely successful. Rupert Murdoch hated it. Ronald Reagan repealed it. “The demise of this FCC rule has been cited as a contributing factor in the rising level of party polarization in the United States.” The demise of The Fairness Doctrine stimulated the divisive info-bubbles that we now inhabit. It opened the door for the rise of the toxic Murdoch fox and his ultra-conservative copycats. It has left us unprotected.

Look closely. We did not arrive here by accident. Party polarization. Divisive echo chambers. Biased media agendas. The absence of civil public discourse. 24/7 commentary and opinion uprooted from reality and meant to foster outrage. It’s fertile ground for dark money purchasing politicians and supreme court justices.

Look closely: the celebration of media bias. The interruption – the dismantling – of public discourse. The unbridled magnification and normalization of lies. Polarization is great for profiteers but deadly to democracy.

Our media carries the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Are we really hyper-biased, polarized liars so enraged that we’re incapable of public discourse? Is there truly no common ground?

Look closely. The regulation of traffic – the law – makes us capable of safe travel. The regulation does not inhibit us. It fosters necessary cooperation. Building codes are regulations ensuring that our dwellings and places of business are safely constructed. The regulations do not inhibit us – they protect us. They establish and maintain a high quality standard.

A regulation like The Fairness Doctrine was neither conservative nor progressive. It didn’t inhibit us. It ensured that we were not made victim to bad information. It established a standard for truth-in-media and engendered respect for differing perspectives.

We know how to exit our echo chambers. We know how to ensure that we are acting – and voting – on unbiased information. Healthy public discourse is the epicenter of our democracy. Healthy public discourse relies on truthful information and civil debate. We know how to foster a better field of discourse and it requires adequate regulation meant to prevent media exploitation and manipulation.

Regulation. The Constitution is a document of regulations. It is neither conservative nor progressive, it establishes simple rules for how we safeguard our values, how we live and thrive together. Breaching the boundaries, ignoring the law, like removing all traffic laws, serves to expedite our confusion and fiery demise.

Look closely. Granting presidential immunity from law is a breach. Eliminating due process and habeas corpus is a breach. Consolidating power in the executive branch is a breach. We are unprotected. ICE plucks innocent people from the streets. Congress intends to pass a bill – make a law – that impoverishes the many to enrich the few.

Integrity is the word that comes to mind. It has two relevant meanings. First, having strong moral principles. Moral principles are akin to regulations – they define shared values and provide the basis for society’s laws. They foster cooperation. The second meaning is unity. Wholeness is a result of a shared story based on common values and moral principles. The second meaning of Integrity – unity – is the blossom of the first. Division and discord are the blossoms of the collapse of shared values and breaches of communal moral principles.

It’s worth asking again: are we really hyper-biased, polarized liars so enraged that we’re incapable of public discourse? Do we really hold our democracy so lightly? Or have we been poisoned by the biased toxic fables we daily consume from the free-for-all media-stream? Are we intoxicated on the outrage daily pumped into our brains from a media the grows wealthy on our dysfunction?

Look closely. We are unprotected.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WILTED DILL

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, bias, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, law, media bias, outrage, polarization, regulation, story, studio melange, The Fairness Doctrine, the melange, Truth In Media | 1 Comment »

Know The Difference [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Public education does not serve a public. It creates a public. And in creating the right kind of public, the schools contribute toward strengthening the spiritual basis of the American Creed. That is how Jefferson understood it, how Horace Mann understood it, how John Dewey understood it, and in fact, there is no other way to understand it. The question is not ‘Does or doesn’t public schooling create a public?’ The question is ‘What kind of public does it create?'” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School.

It’s important to know the difference.

In the forests and fields through which our walking path winds, there is Cow Parsnip, Queen Anne’s Lace, and Hemlock. All sport umbrella-clusters of tiny white flowers. They are all members of the carrot family. To the untrained eye – like mine – they look similar. They are dangerously different.

Socrates was sentenced to death and was made to drink Hemlock. It’s very toxic. Queen Anne’s Lace is edible and used medicinally. Cow Parsnip can be eaten “if handled properly,” however a combination of sap and sunlight can cause a painful rash.

It is important to know the difference. It is why education is so important. It is why asking questions, stoking curiosity and looking deeper – beyond the superficial – is invaluable. The point of education, as Neil Postman reminds us, is not to get a better job, it is to be a well-rounded human being capable of making informed decisions.

“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.”

Republicans since Reagan have been actively undermining our public schools. Cutting budgets, hyper-emphasizing testing (answer-driven rather than question-inspiring), and waging a foxy campaign against “the woke,” a term referring to people who are curious enough to question what they are being told – a skill useful in learning. The demonizing of education and the educated has without doubt led us to this moment: a gullible, angry and easily distracted citizenry. I almost wept the day the young man, an expectant father, told me that he was going to home school his child because he didn’t want his son’s head to be filled with “any of those crazy ideas” that they teach in the public schools. He didn’t want his boy to be woke.

I wanted to tell that young man that democracy is an idea. So is fascism and communism and authoritarianism. It’s important to know the difference.

The fox and Republicans have been for years weaponizing the term “socialism”, an accusation they level when their wealth is threatened by those who question why taxation is unfair, who ask why Republicans cheer when government creates programs uplifting corporate America but snarl when government creates programs that uplift private citizens. Socialism is an idea, too. Asking questions, protecting civil rights, and believing in the promise of democracy is not socialism. It takes some study and questioning to know the difference.

There’s a reason that the cartoon symbol for insight is a light bulb illuminating brightly over a character’s noggin. Letting in the light.

Discernment. Distinction. Knowing the difference between indoctrination and education. Knowing the difference between character and corruption, value and vice, wisdom and hogwash. Knowing how to discern news from propaganda would seem to be essential – democracy-saving. Life saving.

And so, here we are, awash in a cult movement called MAGA, enabled by a feckless Republican Congress, that worships incompetence and promotes ignorance. It shields itself against even the most basic of questions and eschews responsibility for, well, anything (blame is their game). It howls in indignation at the very thought of learning. It is a celebration of the dim-bulb. Drinkers of toxic hemlock, totally incapable of discerning the difference between the deadly and the medicinal, the truth and a lie.

“Because we are imperfect souls, our knowledge is imperfect. The history of learning is an adventure in overcoming our errors. There is no sin in being wrong. The sin is in our unwillingness to examine our own beliefs, and in believing that our authorities cannot be wrong.” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DISCERNMENT

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Filed under: Education, Flawed Wednesday | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, difference, discernment, ideas, ignorance, incompetence, insight, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Neil Postman, questioning, responsibility, schools, story, studio melange, The End of Education, the melange | 4 Comments »

Love Is. [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 18, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve decided love is like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The more we try to nail it down, the less we actually know about it. We know it when we feel it yet it is impossible to describe. If we know its location we cannot fathom its momentum. And vice versa. Poets and priests have been trying to wrap their fingers around it for centuries to no avail:

“All we need is love,” ~ The Beatles

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude…” ~ 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

If you want to jump down an bottomless rabbit hole, consider the religious views on love as articulated by the world’s many, many, many religions. As a boy I read and reread a thick book on comparative religions. It was my dad’s from a course he took in college. It left me with the impression that the more the religious try to lay claim to love the further away from it they travel. Carl Jung famously wrote, “One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.”

It does seem to me – especially now – that people not only seek protection against a direct experience of love but actively erect fortresses against it. The word “love” is often used to justify its opposite. For instance, the “love” of country is currently the go-to rationalization for the brutal rejection of others. Hurting others has nothing to do with love of country or love in any sense of the word.

The more we try to nail it down, the less we actually know about it. The more rules and laws passed to define it, the more “moral authority” is proclaimed to own it, the more the bible – or any religious text – is used to parse it…the less love is actually understood.

The message painted on the window read, “Love is. Love.” It’s not so complicated. Not really. Love is. It has no opposite. That’s what makes it so hard to grasp. There is no separation, no capacity for comparison, no black-and-white, no division from love that is not manufactured. Love is all inclusive. No law can slice it. No poet can contain it. No priest can claim it.

Love is. The rest – what we do with it – is of our own making.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOVE