Perspective | The Direction of Intention

Dear Momma [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Dear Momma,

I was awake most of the night thinking about our phone conversation. Something was troubling me and as I lay awake I realized what it was – so I want to share a few of my midnight thoughts with you. [It is important enough that I decided to change my post for today – something concerning crowns.]

It’s best to begin at the beginning. During our call we shared two sentiments on which we are in total agreement: 1) we are afraid for the survival of our nation and 2) we think the country deserves different candidates on both sides. Since we sit on opposite sides of the political divide, I was taken aback that you had not heard of Project 2025, that you had no idea what I was talking about. That was the seed of what troubled me through the night. I wondered how something so present in my information and news streams (and conversations) was so absent in yours.

So, I need to take a step back and offer some context for what’s troubling me:

Social media is ‘smart’ – which means it ‘learns you’ – it responds to your preferences by feeding you more and more of what you like. That’s a terrific thing if you are shopping for shoes or like to see cute puppy videos. It’s a terrible thing if you want to be informed about what’s going on in the world. Your stream is fed by what you like, not by what is factual or by what may offer a differing point of view. It encases us in bubbles of agreement, in tribes of likemindedness, and we confuse shared opinion with fact or truth or what we used to call news.

Television news operates on the same principle. It’s driven by ratings – another word for ‘likes.’ As a nation we no longer seek news for its veracity, we tune in to the sources that report what we “like’ and opinions with which we agree – and disparage the sources with which we don’t agree. If you think about it, news based on agreement is, in fact, not news at all. It is entertainment meant to keep you hooked, to garner likes. It is a recipe for disaster. That is why you’ve not heard of Project 2025. Inside your bubble, you would not like what it portends. Click on the link I provided and you can read it for yourself (and, since I know you won’t – it is too long – I offer this link to a Wikipedia summary. You can also Google summaries but remember, Google will sort to what you like – so I offer this 6 minute summary from the PBS News Hour for you to watch).

Since it is not my intention to lobby for one team or the other (to change your mind – I know that is a fool’s errand) – and I know PBS is generally vilified by folks inside your bubble, I want to give you two tools or suggestions that will, if you use them, make you capable of reaching beyond the prison of ‘likes’ and check things for yourself:

First, check your media sources. Here’s an example. This is a media bias chart. It rates all media according to left/right bias and fact/propaganda reliability. Note that PBS News is high on fact reliability and in the center so is mostly without intentional bias. Fox News, on the other hand, is strong right and barely above the propaganda line. Here’s an article on media bias charts if you want to know more about them.

Second, check the truth of what you are being fed. We use Snopes.com almost every day. It’s easy to use and you simply need to type in a question and will get the latest fact-checked information. Here’s an example of a question I asked – for you to see.

Like you, I am afraid for the survival of our nation and, as we discussed, it hinges on the choice we make this coming November. In a free nation we are fortunate to go to the polls and vote for our choice. I believe with all my heart that it is not enough to go to the polls and vote based on opinion, driven by our ‘likes.’ We have the obligation – if we are truly afraid (and I am) – to reach beyond the thick wall of our bubbles, ask questions, verify answers, and find out exactly what and who we are voting for.

During our call you wondered how our nation has become so divided and politically antagonistic. It’s a great question for your community’s Situation Room conversations. My belief is that we are too comfortable inside our bubbles – agreement is easy when in a room of like-minds and easy agreement is made easier when the opposing point of view is understood as the enemy. The antidote for our divide is simple but requires us – all of us – to cease living inside our lazy bubble-reactions. Each-and-everyday, we need to take the few minutes required to check the truth of what we are being fed. To stop running our affairs on likes and easy agreement – and seek substantial truth regardless of whether or not we like it or our friends agree with it. In that direction we’ll find middle ground, compromise, and the road to a healthy national – and local – dialogue.

I love you. Thanks for considering my late night thoughts.

David

read Kerri’s blogpost about CROWNS

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: ad fontes media bias chart, artistry, bubbles, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, election, fact checking, Fox News, information, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Likes, misinformation, PBS, PBS News Hour, political divide, popularity, Project 2025, snopes.com, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | 1 Comment »

All But One [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 9, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Is it about the subject, the seagull feather, or the overall composition? It’s a more relevant question than you might imagine.

Of note: another word for ‘composition’ is ‘constitution’. Framework. Anatomy.

Begin here: the Supreme Court just ruled on a question of presidential immunity. Was their ruling about the subject (presidential immunity) or the constitution (the framework that fundamentally defines our national identity)?

Hint: In school we learned to speak The Pledge of Allegiance. “…with liberty and justice for all.” With this ruling, with hands over hearts, the words spoken daily by children and adults alike must now be, “…with liberty and justice for all, but one.“

In taking up the question of presidential immunity -a puzzling choice on their part at the outset since the answer to the question of immunity is already deeply imbedded in something sacred that every American school child recites by rote at the beginning of each school day – the Supremes altered the composition of our picture. The very constitution of our democracy. All, but one.

In his weekly newsletter, artist Nicholas Wilton writes that we must see our work as telling our story. With this ruling, the work of the Supremes, on our behalf, set course for a much different story. A fundamentally different composition.

When was the last time that you read and considered the power and import of the Preamble to The Constitution? “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We the People (the composition). All, but one (the subject). The Supremes reversed the subject and the composition: All but one is now the composition. Where does that leave we the people? It’s a more relevant question than you might imagine.

Hold your nose and say it with me: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all but one?

read Kerri’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday

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Filed under: Perspective, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, composition, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Framework, identity, immunity booster, justice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liberty, presidential immunity, story, studio melange, subject, the melange, The Pledge of Allegiance, The Preamble, The Supreme Court | Leave a comment »

The Greatest Weapon [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The timing was uncanny. While on a slow walk in the park, deep in a conversation about our discouragement – no, our despair – for loved ones sucked down and seemingly lost in the dark, angry MAGA hole, we passed a group of girls engaged in an emphatic conversation and overheard the phrase, “I don’t know you like that!”

The phrase came like a slap. Kerri took out her phone to capture the slap in her notes. “That’s exactly it,” she said. “That’s precisely what is so troubling. It’s what I want to say: I don’t know you like that.”

I am lately haunted by the words of H.G. Wells: “Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.”

There is a reason that the template outlined in Project 2025 includes the elimination of the Department of Education. There is a reason that governors in red states are (and have been) waging a war on education. Educated people ask questions. Educated people check the veracity of statements hurled their way. They take time to check facts and sources of information. In a democracy, an educated populace would never sign on with an autocrat exploiting their anger. They’d ask questions of their anger -and so would be impervious to exploitation. An educated populace would demand ideas from their leaders, respectful debate, reasonable compromise, adherence to the Constitution. They’d demand the same of themselves. An educated populace would see through the ugly name-calling and victim-squeals of a would-be dictator. An educated populace would pay no heed to the cries of “fake news” because they’d have learned to check it out for themselves. They’d hold news organizations to a higher standard. They’d care enough to question and verify information before jumping onto a hate-train. In fact (hear those two words) they would not so easily jump onto any train other than the truth-train because they were dedicated to living-in-facts that transcend bubble-gossip and tribal tittle-tattle.

This morning I had an HGTV revelation about our current political choice. It’s my latest metaphor illuminating the dangerous nonsense running around our nation in a red hat. I’ve learned in my HGTV viewing that demo-day feels good, takes very little time, very little thought, and requires only a sledgehammer. Anyone can do it. Destruction is easy. On the other hand, building the house is hard. It takes ideas, time, thought, planning, cooperation, collaboration, flexibility, knowledge, well-researched choices, skills, process and patience. Wisdom. All are the results of education.

Destruction is not complicated. It asks no questions, requires no learning. Destruction is the center of the red hat campaign.

Creating something beautiful and long-lasting is hard. It takes skill, the capacity to question and learn from mistakes. It takes a plan, forward thinking, and complex considerations, not fantasies sought in the rearview mirror of some imagined sitcom past. And it is never done. Building a better house is the center of the blue team’s campaign.

The red hat and company certainly espouse a plan, Project 2025, but an educated person would only need to ask the authors of the plan a pair of questions before rejecting it outright: 1) Why would you tear down the shining-city-on-the-hill and replace it with a dark prison? 2) Why are you trying to hide your plan from voters?

People I love, those caught in the undertow of the red swirl, empty of fact but full of shared-victim-anger, gulping and then spewing mouthfuls of toxic-fox-swill, waving their flags, raging with a dedicated ignor-ance…I don’t know them like that. I wonder how they came to know themselves like that.

“Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.”

Let us learn about truth: Truth is not what we hear or see in the stream. It is not something verified by people passing memes around our social bubbles or validated because we share the same opinion and invest in the same misinformation sources that cater to our opinions. Truth is what we find when we question what we hear. It is verified by exiting our bubbles and questioning what we think we know, examining the foundation of our likemindedness. Truth is learned when we fact-check our own opinions and especially challenge our rigidly held beliefs. Rigidity is a red flag, a marker that something false is hiding.

I have learned to remember this: an opinion shared with great passion or rage is still just that – an opinion. Any strong belief held without question or reflection is, in fact, weak and makes us easily exploited, easily led. Lemmings. Fools. Learning the truth requires constant effort and personal responsibility – especially in our age of easy misinformation. In learning truth, our greatest weapon, there is never a need to fill the communal cup with fear-mongering. Truth dispels fear. It dissipates gossip, and, because it demands personal responsibility, affords no room for blame.

Truth is a common center. Education, the art of questioning and discernment, is the compass that gets us there.

read Kerri’s blogpost about I DON’T KNOW YOU LIKE THAT

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Filed under: Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, choice, civilization, collaboration, Compromise, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, exploitation, fact checking, gossip, H.G. Wells, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, learning, personal responsibility, politics, questions, respect, respectful, responsibility, story, studio melange, teaching, The Department of Education, the melange, truth, veracity, verify, verity, wisdom | 3 Comments »

Puff, Puff, Poof! [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” ~ Alan Watts

I recently read an outrageous statistic. The average American by age 20, across all available media, has seen one million commercials. I can’t confirm it but a quick consult with the oracle Google, produced some equally eye-popping numbers. Regardless of the actual number, we are awash in advertisement. My favorite synonym for advertisement: puff (British, of course).

In my recent foray into software development I read that 90% of the world’s data was generated in the last two years. My particular favorite phrase describing data: units of meaning.

We are living in an angry time. It’s a vicious circle: our units of meaning are often – if not always – absent of context or continuity, rendering them isolated. They’re like asteroids hurtling through space.

People seek meaning. It is a uniquely human activity. Meaning-making requires context and continuity. Our ‘puffs’ would have us believe that we will certainly find meaning and connection if we buy what they are selling – but we soon realize that what they are selling, relative to meaning, is just that – a puff. Like me, you will never find lasting happiness in a new car or your identity in your brand of blue jeans. Perhaps you will experience satisfaction for a fleeting moment – which is roughly the lifespan of a unit of data-meaning. Is it any wonder that we are angry and grasping at any ole’ context that conspiracy theories and propaganda might provide? Anger is an expression of fear, and the fear: that we are hurtling through life without meaning.

“And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words… As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.” ~ Alan Watts

The lesson of our times (and past times): there is always a populist grifter ready to exploit anger and ignorance, making promises of meaning-fulfillment pulled from an imagined past like a rabbit from a hat. A political puff.

Sometimes I think this is why Kerri and I walk on our trails. To get quiet, to unplug from the incessant info streams, the madness of news-delivered-like-a-commercial. Puff, puff…poof. To re-enter substantial and lasting context. In nature, in the cycles we participate with and experience, we regain – and rejoin – continuity. We stop hurtling through our lives grasping for ‘puff’ fulfillment or trying to make sense of nonsense. We stand in something more tangible. Eternal.

“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.” ~ Alan Watts

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LUSH DAY

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Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: advertisement, alan watts, anger, artistry, context, continuity, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eternal, fear, fulfillment, grifter, hermit, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, moment, populist, Puff, story, studio melange, substantial, the melange, units of meaning | 1 Comment »

Goodness Is Quiet [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

What is it to do good? It may at first seem like an inane question until you consider how completely unmoored from simple kindness that we’ve become.

It’s the best concluding sentence in a non-fiction book: “For in the end, he [Aldous Huxley] was telling us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” ~ Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Like many of my friends, I did not watch the most recent presidential debate. I knew, like we all knew, that it was not really going to be a debate of ideas or an opportunity for serious comparison of party platforms for moving the country forward. It was an entertainment. It was billed with all the hype of a UFO wrestling match. It featured referees called moderators who mostly did nothing but pose and let the contestants trade blows. Think about this: we do not think it odd or sad – or reason for disqualification – that one candidate requires a real time fact-checker because he is renowned for outrageous lying and is a famous bully. He draws a crowd, ups the ratings, and that is more important and far more entertaining than an a thoughtful exchange of plans. One need not be credible if drawing a crowd is the criteria.

“…they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.”

What is it to do good when we do not expect good from our leaders – or ourselves?

Here are synonyms for doing good: behave morally. Act virtuously. Behave virtuously. Be kind. Do the right thing. Act in good faith. Conduct oneself ethically…There are many, many variations.

Yesterday was our local 4th of July parade. The man who drove around the assembled families in the brown truck with a large flag waving with from back, “F*CK BIDEN, certainly was not concerned with doing good. How did it not occur to him that there might be children at the parade? How is it that he didn’t care? He was, like his role model, not at all concerned with conducting himself ethically. I assume he thought he was doing good for his team and that is precisely my point. Where is the expectation of good? Lost in the entertainment. The bully behavior mirrors the bully behavior.

Here are other synonyms for doing good: stand out. Steal the show. Boom. Reign supreme. Make the big time…There are many, many variations.

What is it to do good?

It is no more or less than what we expect it to be. What we allow it to be. If we want better, we must first be better. Our candidates mirror us, not the other way around. Right now, in the absence of serious debate, awash in noisy entertainment posing as political discourse, all we know is that we have competing ideas of what it means to do good. One is concerned only with itself. One is concerned with helping others.

For me, booming may draw a big crowd, it may be entertaining and sell abundant advertisement, but I will go with ethical every time. Kindness, like genuine goodness is quiet and has no need to draw attention to itself. Doing good, the kind that is focused on helping others, does not grow old.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DO GOOD

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: Aldous Huxley, Amusing Ourselves to Death, artistry, be kind, behavior, Brave new world, bully, bullying, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, doing good, entertainment, good faith, goodness, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Neil Postman, story, studio melange, the melange, virtue | 1 Comment »

Exactly The Point [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Chris wrote that he was taking a break from Facebook. “I’ve spent too much time in this space.”

I told Kerri that after I was finished with my slow re-read of Amusing Ourselves to Death, for a while I was only going to read books that filled me with light. “I’ve had too much of darkness,” I said.

Walter Lippmann posited that “…distorted information was inherent in the human mind. People make up their minds before they define the facts…” In other words, we are more gullible and impressionable than we care to admit, and are too soon planting our belief-flags in the sand. In other-other words, fact checking is not a human forté. Gossip mongering is.

Kerri and I often walk arm and arm along the waterfront, an old-world evening constitutional, a stroll taken slowly enough to notice, an opportunity to say “Hello,” when passing neighbors and friends. More and more I think it an essential to regularly set aside those little screens that dominate our viewpoints, and clear our minds. Every painter knows that perspective is gained by stepping back. I can read streams of opinions all day long but nothing beats the affirmation of real community than a hot summer night, people sitting on porches and a neighborhood mosey.

Families filled the park. The cool breeze off the lake drew them to the shore. Barbecues. Children chasing balls and each other. A feeling of respite was pervasive. Laughter. Shared space. We passed two teenage girls sitting on a bench with a bucket of colored pencils between them, coloring their books and chatting.

The sky morphed from orange and blue to purple and pink. A single bird arced across the sky. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” she said. “I’m just enjoying the moment.”

I smiled, thinking, “Yes. And isn’t that exactly the point?”

read Kerri’s blog post about THE PINK SKY

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Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: affirmation, Amusing Ourselves to Death, artistry, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, distortion, in the moment, information, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mosey, neighborhood, neighbors, Neil Postman, perspective, presence, shared space, story, stroll, studio melange, the melange, Walter Lippmann | Leave a comment »

The Smallest Thing [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday was a hard day for me. It sometimes happens that the smallest thing – a comment, a slight – rubs, becomes a hotspot, and blisters. The rub became the focus-of-the-day and I made myself miserable. Obsessing. I blistered.

Until the sunset.

Sunset came like a soothing balm. Towering storm clouds passed through earlier in the evening. We heard the thunder and saw flashes of lightning (emblematic of my inner state of mind) but the system moved to the north so we had nary a sprinkle. And, just before sunset, the clouds parted. Suddenly vibrant yellow and orange clouds danced on a field of light cobalt blue. By the time the purples appeared, I was back in-my-right-mind. The rub vanished with the waning sun. The blister began to heal. I sighed and was careful not to ponder why I gave away the day to the smallest thing.

The smallest thing. What other people think. What happened yesterday. What I fear will happen tomorrow. What I think (ask Kerri, I have more than my share of opinions and perspectives and I sometimes lack an internal editor. If you are a compassionate human being you will immediately send to her your condolences).

What I think. The sunset dissolved my roiling inner monologue. And, again, I learned that what I think is… just that. No more, no less. I heard this phrase a hundred years ago and again last week: where your thoughts go, so too will your energy. Yesterday my thoughts went into a very dark place. So, too, went my energy. A day of my life.

The sunset brought me to a lesson I learned a hundred years ago and apparently needed to learn again yesterday: I have choice. My thoughts need not be reactive. I can aim my focus anywhere I choose. I can attach my thought like a barnacle to any-old-whale-of-an-idea-stream that I desire. And, the deep dark secret to making the thought-choice-of-the-day easy? Recognize that what I think is just that – what I think – no more and no less. Lose the import. Drop the judgment. Let go the valuation. Recognize it for what it is.

The smallest thing.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUNSET

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, focus, focus placement, ideas, judgment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learn, learning, lessons, obsession, story, studio melange, the melange, The smallest thing, think, thinking, thought, turmoil, valuation | 1 Comment »

Never-In-My-Life [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Never-in-my-life did I imagine that I’d sit on a deck and wile away a day peering through binoculars at a crow’s nest. We cooed and awed at the babies when they showed their beaks or flapped their young wings, the diligent parents flying to and fro to feed the bottomless bellies of their hatchlings.

Never-in-my-life did I imagine that discovering a turtle’s nest, the eggs newly hatched, could inspire the depths of wonderment that we felt. It was such an unusual find that, at first, we had no idea what we were seeing. We pondered what kind of bird nests in the ground and then it hit us. We were witness to an ancient birth rite, turtle eggs cracked open from the inside. With no mother to guide them, feed them or protect them, the newly hatched turtles somehow knew where to go, what to do. They scrambled to the safety of the river, at least that is what I imagined. We were giddy with excitement.

Last night we watched – again – the movie About Time. It remains my favorite movie of all time. Even after multiple viewings I laugh aloud and struggle not to sob along the way. Even knowing what is about to come, I am deliciously caught by surprise. It makes me yearn to go back and do things differently AND to not change a single precious moment. Both/And. Every single time we watch it. Never-in-my-life.

Enjoy life. Morsels. Alan Watts might say, the ever-present now. Last night, while setting up the coffee for the morning, I wondered how many bags of Cameron’s Velvet Moon Espresso Roast I have ground and thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe hundreds. Lately, I’m paying attention to how much I enjoy the evening ritual of closing our day by grinding coffee, the smell and the anticipation. Watching Dogga wind-down by following the chipmunk trail across the yard one last time. Never-in-my-life did I think I would love so extraordinarily so much…ordinary.

Kerri is sitting next to me – her writing interrupted, caught in the hate-stream and disbelief of a conservative’s rhetoric. It brought to mind a quote by Neil Postman, written in another era but prophetically describing our era: “…irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane.” Entertainment posing as the news-of-the-day. Noise without substance. A manufactured thrill. Contextless content. Like a drug it is meant to keep us hooked. Nothing more, nothing less. Never-in-my-life did I imagine…

Never-in-my-life did I think I would so thoroughly delight in living upside-down, so appreciate my quirky capacity to question, my driving desire to detach from the noise. It is no wonder that I find the reality of the crows nesting so refreshing. The smell of the coffee so grounding. The miracle of turtles emerging from the earth to find the water so utterly hopeful.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ENJOY LIFE MORSELS

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Navel Gazing, Perspective | Tagged: about time, alan watts, artistry, Cameron's Coffee, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, enjoy life, entertainment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morsels, Neil Postman, relevance, rituals, simplicity, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Turtle-Slapped [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 11, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

A turtle appeared on the path at just the right moment. As I like to say, our “jammies were in a bunch” and we were about to go over the edge and fall into a dark abyss of circumstance-dissatisfaction. We rounded the bend as our discontent began spiraling out of control, and then we saw the turtle.

Everything changed in an instant.

She cooed, knelt, and stroked the turtle’s shell. Not expecting a tsunami of affection, the turtle retreated into its fortress. But after a moment, realizing that this assault was indeed loving, it peeked and then poked its head out into the light. It slowly pivoted so she might get a better angle for her photoshoot. The turtle was a patient model and didn’t seem to mind her multiple-broken-promises of “Only one more, I swear,” as she continued snapping photographs.

We admired the orange markings, outlined in black, set in the field of green. “Gorgeous,” she whispered, tracing the markings with her finger.

After an appropriate visit, we left it to return to the marsh, and continued on our way. “What were we talking about?” I asked.

“I can’t remember,” she said, her prior frustration having completely dissipated. Mine, too.

In truth, we both remembered but no longer needed to grouse about what we could not control. We probably didn’t need to spin frustration tales to begin with. Thankfully, we were turtle-slapped into the recognition that what we needed most in our dedicated-exasperation was to slow down and appreciate our walk.

The wisdom of distraction. A turtle suddenly appears on the path at just the right moment…

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TURTLE

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Filed under: Gratitude, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, circumstance, context, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discontent, frustration, Gratitude, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, perspective, presence, recognition, story, studio melange, the melange, turtle, turtles, wisdom | 1 Comment »

Be Woke [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on June 8, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Tonight we will go to Pride-Fest Milwaukee to see our son Craig perform. He’s an EDM artist. His star is rising. This night, he’s performing with his friend and collaborator. Together, they perform as The Doggpound. We couldn’t be more excited or more proud.

This morning I read an angry response to a post (not mine). As a conclusion to her tirade, the woman wrote, “Aren’t you ashamed to be woke?” I admit to being perplexed to the point of mystification. Why should I or anyone be ashamed to be alert, aware, and concerned about all forms of discrimination and social injustice in our nation and the world? My idea of a better world means “liberty and justice for all.” Equality. It is the vibrant promise of this nation. It is the ideal behind our struggles. It is, after all, our pledge. Indivisible with.

I would be ashamed if I wasn’t woke. I find nothing to be proud of in dedicated ignorance.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRIDE