Sip It [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 5, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

There are deep, meaningful layers to this story-image. The first is an answer to the all-important-question, “How do we entertain ourselves at a bar?” We make fun contemporary art, of course! Or, we make fun of contemporary art. I’m not sure since the line of distinction is blurred in real life so it is more blurred at the bar, where life isn’t really real and escapism is to be expected.

Have I confused you? It’s simple really. Limit your palette to two bar napkins, two sipping straws, and the fruit remnants from a brandy old-fashioned. Arrange a composition. Snap a photo for posterity. Ask yourself and others, “What does it mean?” And, when you find yourself concocting answers to the great amusement of your friends, you might recognize that the actual art-of-the-moment is the performance of the improvisational play entitled What Does It Mean?

You’ll conclude – if you are honest – that it – your art work – has no inherent meaning – and all supposéd meaning is projected onto the image. It can mean many things or nothing at all. Just like life outside of the bar [that sneaky escapism always loops back to the real stuff!] The composition might simply be appreciated for its clever arrangement and varied texture. It might conjure up fond memories of old-fashioned’s past.

Here’s what it means to me: I could not be considered a local Wisconsinite until I had a palette of experiences, like eating cheese curds or attending a fish boil. On the tippy top of the list was to enjoy a brandy old-fashioned. More, to know whether I preferred my drink sweet or sour. This composition, the scattered remains of the drink-of-the-state, reminded me of the day I ascended to the top of the list and sipped my first ritual old-fashioned. I would anoint this piece with the worthy title BELONGING AT LAST.

read Kerri’s blogpost about POST OLD-FASHIONED

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Comprehend The Incomplete [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Three evenly spaced periods. An ellipsis, “used to indicate the omission of words or an incomplete thought.” This series of ellipses punctuated the horizon, marking the line between the dark night sky and the farm fields.

The omission of words. As I watched the horizon-ellipses twinkle, I wondered how many times I’ve omitted the words, “I love you.” Too vulnerable. Not safe. Revealing.

An incomplete thought. Not surprisingly, this brings to mind a thought about thoughts: namely, thoughts are never complete. Every thought is a running ellipsis, a water drop in a raging river. A complete thought is an oxymoron. Because we are given to writing our thoughts – trying to capture them – we are deluded into believing that the stream of babble that runs though our brains is containable or fits neatly into discrete compartments that travel in a single direction, like the boxcars of a train. This thought is connected to that thought just as this letter is connected to that letter so a chain of meaning might be assigned. Someone, somewhere, wrote that our thoughts are the mother-lode of comedy. Random. Surprising. Multi-directional. Rolling, roiling rivers. Shapeshifters.

My word of the week is “argle bargle.” It means nonsense. Motherlode of comedy. Argle-bargle-avalanche.

In the dark of night I look at the ellipses on the horizon; no one can convince me that love, like thought, is ever complete. I look higher into the night sky at the glittering light-dots that have completely ignored the rules of even-spacing and scattered themselves across infinity. Maybe that is why I sometimes omit the words, “I love you.” it’s too big to comprehend. It’s sometimes too much to contain in my one tiny heart…

read Kerri’s blogpost about ELLIPSES

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Creative Think [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The truth is that I could talk with MM all day. Our calls are few and far between but it always feels as if we’re picking up a conversation from yesterday. His perspective on life is vast, deeply rooted like an oak tree, yet simple enough to play on a banjo. As per usual, he left me with a head-full-of-thoughts-to-think.

One of the thought-rocks he dropped on my head was this: we’ve lost touch with our connection to the humanities. And, we’ve lost that connection, not by accident, but through reckless intention. Years ago I was wide-eyed with disbelief when the local school system stripped history and the humanities from their course offerings to make more room for STEM; science, technology, engineering and math. “Short-sighted and fundamentally stupid,” I said to no one listening. Art was long gone. Music was nowhere to be found.

It’s hard to measure the real worth of the humanities on a test so it was sailed off the edge-of-the-curriculum-world. What , exactly, is the value of kindness, the worth of considering others, the merit of empathy and understanding interconnectivity? How important is it to know where you come from? The origin and cycles of knowledge and the grand mistakes of the past? What might be your intellectual lineage, your moral ancestry? How important is it to consider opposing ideas, to recognize there are many ways of seeing a single event? What happened the last time an out-of-control authoritarian impulse attempted to quash a diversity of opinion? How worthwhile might it be to understand that democracy is nothing more or less than an idea about how humans might create community together? It is not a given. It is not a fact. It is an ongoing relationship. The province of the humanities.

The operative word is “together.”

I laughed aloud the day after my call with MM. Two articles crossed my screen. Because I’m searching for jobs I’m paying attention to articles like The Ten Most Important Skills For Workers. You’ll not be surprised to learn that analytical thinking currently tops the chart but the king is about to be unseated by a new/old champion: creative thinking. Also rising in the top ten are “curiosity and lifelong learning” and “motivation and self-awareness” Of course, “unmotivated and unconscious” have probably never topped the list of desirable skills…though most factory work – and varieties of corporate work – generally produce those qualities in previously motivated human beings.

[I take a moment of silence to recount the multiple times I have, in my life, been told I was un-hire-able because I was too creative. “You’ll see how to improve things and want to make changes,” a manager famously told me. “My job,” he said, “is to keep that from happening. To maintain the status quo.” In another famous jaw-dropping moment, a potential employer told me I was not an attractive hire because I was educated so, “I would want things.”]. A cautionary tale to all those who currently fear exposure to ideas and the other purported horrors of the humanities and a fully educated mind.

Educated = curious = questioning. It’s simple.

Listen to Sir Ken Robinson ask a still-relevant question about whether or not our schools kill creativity. Killing creativity is the same as killing the humanities. Killing our humanity.

Ultimately the horse race between the analytical and the creative is itself symptom of the schooled ignorance. They are not really separate things. The right brain and left brain are only detached for the sake of study and discourse. They are ends of a spectrum and one cannot exist without the other. Like science and art: both are concerned with dancing to the beating heart and movement of the universe. They are two ways of walking at the yet-unknown. They are not oppositional.

Another quote from MM roared into my mind: if you ignore 100,000 years of human evolution, you might-could just miss the fundamentals.

It’s consilience. The unity of knowledge. The whole system. Heart and brain and gut. That’s the loop that MM and I regularly travel. We circle out and return once again to E.O. Wilson.

“One day we’ll figure it out,” posits MM. It’s another reason I adore our conversations: with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he is, all the same, infinitely hope-full.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CREATIVE THINKING

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Meditate On It [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 8, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was struck by how important it felt. How could something so routine seem like such a big deal! We used to do it all the time. Without thought. Nothing special. Now, it felt like a significant passage. A step toward “normal”: we took the train to Chicago.

Covid was the great disrupter. Daily patterns exploded. Social norms obliterated. It changed us in ways that we are only now beginning to comprehend. To this day – without thinking – if someone stands too close to me in the grocery store I adjust, creating distance. A dance of protection. That small adjustment away from someone is a titanic statement about how I approach social situations, about how I feel about being with others. Keep-them-at-arms-length.

In other words, I’m meditating on safety all of the time.

I don’t think I’m alone in my meditation. I believe the central meditation in my nation is safety – rather, our lack of safety. We wouldn’t be arming ourselves to the teeth if we felt safe. We wouldn’t be ripping at the seams or tolerating corrupt bullies or gobbling up conspiracies if we felt secure. People do not willingly plant their heads in the sand when times are good. In good times, people look up, people reach toward each other. Generosity of spirit engenders generosity toward others. A poverty of spirit engenders animosity toward others.

In other words, no one meditates alone. The big meditations are shared.

Of course, it is also true that people rarely make significant change when times are good. The gift of disruption is progress though the first phase is often nasty and necessarily looks precarious. I suppose we are in the nasty stage of change.

It was not so long ago that a gathering with friends began with testing to make sure no one was carrying the virus. Testing became the norm. It was routine. Am I safe? Are you? Do you remember washing your groceries or isolating your mail for 24 hours when we did not yet understand how the virus was passed? It fundamentally reoriented our experience of being with others.

I think about my safety when I enter a crowd. I look for exit routes when I enter the grocery store. And, last weekend, we stepped onto a train for the first time since the great disruption. It felt momentous. A marker in time. Rather than taking a step away, we took an intentional step toward.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and ours was a step onto a train. Each small step toward others, each reach, each moment of listening…matters. It creates the progress borne of the disruption. I look forward to taking many more small steps.

I don’t know about you but I’m more than ready for a different meditation.

read Kerri’s blogpost on THE TRAIN

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Together Thrive [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 1, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art is an illusion that can convey the truth.” ~ Alex Grey

The little boy who was obsessed with drawing eyes – for hours on end – was not attempting to perfect the drawing; he was trying to reach beyond the visual and touch what was inside. Beyond. To the place of joining.

That motive has never wavered. I have always been at-service. For Kerri and me, art-as-service is the impulse behind our blogs. It’s at the center of our many cartoons. It’s the driving impulse in the plays I have yet to write and the few books that haunt me at night. It’s in the music Kerri amasses in her mind and hums when she’s walking down the trail.

We understand art is essential. That’s not an abstraction. Look into the abyss of your death and tell me where you go to wrap your mind around it? Politics? Business publications? Software? My bet is you read the poets. You listen to Arvo Pärt. You stare at The Sistine Chapel. You walk a labyrinth. You read the words of Anne Frank or ponder a psalm. How do you reach beyond what you can see and touch the essence of what is inside? Infinite? How do you make sense of the big questions? If we do good in the world, what does it inspire you to see? If you do good in the world, what does it help us to see?

It’s hard to put a price on it. It’s impossible to put words around it. And it is our reason for being.

Without you, we cannot thrive.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THRIVE

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The Heart Of The Matter [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 24, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Well, there goes wine and coffee…” I thought when I read the headline. At 100 Years Old, I’m ‘The Oldest Living Doctor’ – 5 Things I Never Do To Live A Long, Happy Life. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The good doctor’s advice is sound, simple, and sans finger-wagging.

Several months ago, Dwight started an important ongoing conversation: how do we live well this chapter of our lives? I recently read a quote (that I can’t re-find) that suggests we grow old-in-our-minds because we stop being curious about life and living. The quote speaks to the good doctor’s first Never Do: I don’t spend my days retired. His fifth Never Do is an extension of the first: I don’t let my knowledge go to waste. Bookends, encouraging us to stoke the fires of curiosity and to share abundantly our gifts.

Ann used to say, “Find a need and fill it,” and I suspect her good advice knows no age limit. Margaret, one of my great unconfessed inspirations in this world, makes quilts, makes meals, makes smiles.

Since our dinner with Dwight I’ve been paying attention to the many guides that populate my path. I am surrounded by people either approaching or older than the ‘age of retirement” who are younger at heart than most of the 30-somethings I know. They are fully following their star. Horatio is writing scripts and books and making movies, making art, and has an “ever-growing ” idea pile I call his “mountain of amazing things to explore”. Judy is painting and writing more beautifully now than ever, Rebecca is boldly leading people to simplicity, Master Marsh tends a section of the Calaveras River, plays music, and makes trouble. To be clear: they are not “striving to achieve” – a concept-distinction that Dwight has me pondering – they are engaged with life. They are rooting around on their heart path. Each is finding a need in others and filling it. My list of “those-who-inspire” could go on and on.

A moment ago my thoughts turned to H. He visited me in a dream last night. If ever there was a model for how to thrive in the last chapter, it is H. He sang with his barbershop quartet, was a lively presence in Kerri’s choir and famously rapped a song, encrusted in bling, at age 89. His enormous car filled two parking spaces and after expertly landing his machine between the lines, he’d pop the trunk and retrieve his walker. I learned early on not to ask if he needed any help. The answer is “no.” He died in his middle-90’s, boldly making a mess of new technology, stomping around in this strange new world.

All are embracing the good doctor’s 4th Never Do: I don’t restrict myself. It seems to me that all of the good doctor’s rules are encapsulated in #4: it is the heart of the matter.

read Kerri’s blogpost about 5 THINGS

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Listen To The River [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 17, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Have you learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

I’m not sure why I didn’t recognize it before now but Siddhartha and the Parcival grail epic are the same story. A ferryman. A hermit in the woods. A second teacher that appears and teaches presence – by example.

“The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it. You have already learned from the river that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek the depths. The rich and distinguished Siddhartha will become a rower…” Parcival removes his armor. The great and powerful knight loses himself; he chops wood and carries water.

Eileen, 20’s mom, turns 100 today. Her party was last week. 20 made a beautiful photo board of her long life. The child. The sassy teenager. A vibrant young woman. A mother. A keeper-of-the-books. A grandmother. An aged woman. The full cycle of life. Her granddaughters attended the party. Her great-granddaughters, too.

“Age-and-stage,” 20 often says. Age and stage.

“Is this what you mean? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean, and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?”

“That is it,” said Siddhartha, “and when I learned that, I reviewed my life and it was also a river…”

Parcival turned and was shocked to see the grail castle standing in the meadow behind him. The hermit smiled and said, “Boy, it’s been there all along.”

Happy Birthday, Eileen. 100 years. A moment.

read Kerri’s blogpost about 100 YEARS

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Open And Share [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We have “go” bags packed. One contains our important papers. The other has a change of clothes and the dog’s leash. It’s not that we’re paranoid. During the civil unrest a few years ago – buildings ablaze and murder on the streets just a block or two from our house – the local authorities advised people to be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. We prepared our “go” bags and thought it such a good idea that we’ve never unpacked them. Now, when the tornado sirens wail, we simply grab our bags and the dog and descend into the basement. Easy-peasy in times of scramble.

Each night we watch Youtube videos of people hiking long distance trails. Often the hikers talk about the moment that they “leave” the mindset of the city and enter the freedom of the trail. Everything they need they carry on their backs. They cease dealing with what is supposed-to-be and fully enter life with what is right in front of them. There is a plan and the plan is constantly in flux. There is little to no consistency. What they can and cannot control becomes readily apparent.

What is most important, what is consistent to all of their stories on the trail, is how important other people become to their experience. Leaving the mindset of the city brings them back to the basic tenet of their humanity. They are totally dependent upon the kindness of others. They enter an ecosystem of mutual support. The illusion of “every-man-for-himself” falls away. They open. They share. They fill themselves with gratitude for others. The people who try to go-it-alone don’t make it very far.

I think that is why, at the end of each day, we watch these people on the trail, with their “go” bags on their backs and their hearts bursting with appreciation for their lives and for those who walk with them, if only for a day. They remind us of what’s most important. They cut through the noisy abstraction of news and ratings and likes. They don’t expect their walk to be easy or comfortable or pretty. They remind us to fill our days with gratitude for others, to turn toward our fellow travelers rather than turn away. They offer a hand and accept assistance. They share. They remind us, in our scramble to find safety in the storm, that life in an ecosystem of support is what it’s all about.

read Kerri’s blogpost about STORMS

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Choose A Double [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 3, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The storm that blew through last night was ominous. The thunder shook the house. I lay awake, marveling at the force of nature. And, while I lay awake, counting the seconds between flash and boom, I also counted myself lucky. I rolled gratitudes through my mind, enumerating all the things I was thankful for in the previous 24 hours. There were more than I could count.

It is very easy to get lost in despair. It’s very easy to count all the things that don’t work, go wrong, hurt a lot, and didn’t-go-my-way. It takes a bit more intention and effort to turn the eye toward the good stuff. Counting gratitudes requires aiming focus.

It reminds me of an exercise I used to do with groups, revealing to them how easy and fun it is to blame-the-universe or other people for our woes. Blame is like sugar. It’s addictive. The groups would tell outrageous blame stories and laugh. Blame lightens the load. It’s an easy answer to the mysterious question, “Why?”

It’s much harder to see and embrace participation and choice in a life path. Ownership comes with responsibility. There is circumstance – that which I can’t control. There is what I do within my circumstance – that which I can control. The moment I suggested to the groups that they transform their blame-story into a story-of-choice, they fell silent. Every group. Every time.

Blame requires allies and layers of story; it happened to me. Choice needs no audience. It is the story. I made this happen.

On any other night, between flash and boom, I might have tossed and turned and counted my woes. I am more than capable of diving into dark holes and indulging my blame story. I have and will again drown my sorrows in pity and it’s-not-my-fault denial. But, on this night, during this storm, I was filled with awe for the power of nature, for the abundant good that boomed through my life, for the chance to live another abundant day. A double double of appreciation.

read Kerri’s blog post about A DOUBLE

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Lean Into The Questions [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

A theme that surfaces in my conversations with Rebecca is how unsafe people feel – especially women – to ask questions. At work. At school. Asking a question is too often misunderstood as a challenge to authority. It’s dangerous. Smile. Be silent.

I suppose authority has always been thin-skinned though the idealist in me wants to believe that we’re all in this together. I know without doubt – as we all know – that the way forward is through the field of questions. The best answers open doors to better and better questions. Anyone afraid to be questioned and insisting that their answers are absolute – full stop – should inspire dread.

After eight years on the job, Kerri was handed a contract with the mandate to sign it. She asked a few questions. The description in the contract didn’t align with the reality of the job she was performing or the previous agreements made with her supervisors. Authority did not respond well to her questions. The ensuing assault was incessant. Bullying. Dangerous. For awhile she tried to comply with the only advice offered her: smile sweetly. I wondered, if a man was being similarly pummeled, would he be offered the same advice? When Kerri finally stopped smiling and stood solidly with her questions, she was branded “belligerent” and “uncooperative.”

I doubt a man would be similarly pummeled. To this day, I wonder at all the men and women in the community who watched the pummeling and said nothing. As witnesses to the danger in asking a question, they held-their-tongues. I suppose they learned their lesson. Ask no questions. See no evil. Hear no evil. Look away. Speak no truth.

And, while they weren’t looking, their community fractured and fell apart. All were diminished. Thugs count on division; it’s their secret sauce for establishing control. They engender silence. It’s how they maintain their authority.

And, isn’t that the true danger. We don’t want to bring the the wrath of the gorilla upon ourselves so we “get on board” or “toe the party line.” Smile sweetly. Pretend the bully isn’t beating the woman into submission. Make the assault her fault. She brought it on herself.

Kerri’s experience is a microcosm. The bullies have the microphone. World-wide, authoritarianism is on the rise.

If ever there was a time to lean into the questions, it is now. If ever there was a time to ask aloud, “What are we doing?” and “Why are we doing it?”, it is now. Together, asking questions capable of leading to answers that open doors to better and better questions. We have no shortage of persecutors beating down questioners while screaming that they have all the answers and their answers are absolute.

Perhaps the questions we need to ask together are simple: Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be?

read Kerri’s blogpost about SMILING

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