Perspective | The Direction of Intention

Keep It Simple

Posted on September 2, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I heard a bit of a conversation today. It was just before tai-chi class and one of my classmates was sharing a story. He said, “I’ve learned that how you treat the trivial moments of your life is how your life treats you.” He followed it with an example: he said, “Someone cuts you off in traffic; how are you going to respond? Such a little thing yet how many times have I treated being cut off as a statement of power – and I lose!” He laughed. “I get angry and life gives me an angry day. I created the anger so that’s just what I got!”

Recently, Ana-the-wise busted me, saying, “You are just like me, you make things too complex. You look for the deep meaning in everything and so you make even the simple things complicated. Sometimes it is just simple.” I thought of Ana while listening to my classmate. What I put out is what I get back. It is simple. And I need not seek the big moments in life for clues about what I put out – pay attention to the little moments and I get all the information I need.

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Take A Radical Step

Posted on August 23, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I had a revelation today as Alan Seale and I facilitated a Transformational Leadership Coaching forum discussion. Our topic was the power of taking a radical step. Here’s a quote from Alan’s newsletter:

“Many people equate radicalism with violent extremism. However, if violent acts of extremism are at one end of the “radical” spectrum, the constructive power of radicalism lies at the other end. Religious movements as well as great social and scientific advances started out because someone was willing to take a radical stance…. The word “radical” comes from the Latin radix meaning “root.” A radical thought, position, or act is born out of a powerful root belief or value. It is the outward expression of a conviction rooted in the core of one’s being. Conviction turns to action when it can no longer be held silent.”

A radical act is seen as doing something counter to the main stream, going against what is popular. The kid who said, “The Emperor has no clothes!” was most likely shushed by his parents. The neighbors probably glared and the kid learned that speaking truth was not tolerated in polite society. His comment was not a radical act; however, when, as an adult, he is once again in polite society and can no longer hold his tongue, when he speaks the truth and knows that he might be ostracized…, that is a radical act. Rosa Parks knew that sitting at the front of the bus might get her killed and she did it anyway. That is a radical act.

Here’s my revelation: radical acts often look small in the doing. I coach people and everyday hear stories of immense courage and the necessary action, from an outside observer, appears small but the impact is enormous. Speaking your truth, putting down a cigarette for the last time, saying “no” (or “yes”), changing the-story-you-tell-yourself-about-yourself, seeing opportunity in an obstacle, allowing yourself to be seen: Rosa Parks sat on a bus. Every avalanche begins with a single pebble.

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Let Go Of “It”

Posted on August 22, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I’ve started drawing again. Each day, every day, I flip the elastic band off my moleskin sketchbook, open to a new page, and draw. Or scribble. I make marks and circles. I draw mostly from my imagination; sometimes I look at things and sketch what I see as a starting point and then rearrange the elements: I compose. I don’t see much difference between drawing from imagination and infusing my imagination into what I see. They are the same action; the direction is slightly different.

I am no longer interested in “capturing” reality – primarily because I don’t think there is a reality beyond what I perceive. In a sense there is nothing to capture. There is only interpretation. There is only imagination. To be clear: what I call reality is what I perceive; there is stuff out there (and you will waste a lot of breath trying to convince me that “it” is separate from me: I will giggle if you tell me that there is an objective reality) and I assign “it” meaning; simply by assigning a word to “it” I have abstracted “it.” If I describe “it” I have interpreted “it.” If I describe “it,” I no longer see “it;” I see the word that I’ve attached to “it.” So, when drawing “it” why not go with the flow – interpret, compose, imagine. Scribble, scribble, play. Sharpen the pencil and repeat.

The word “it” provides a perfect example: use these two little letters in the proper sequence and all the magnificent motion and moving beauty of the universe is frozen – “it” fixes flow in time: I can convince myself that a verb is a noun, a river is a thing, a person is knowable, all because I squeeze the miracle into two tiny symbols and think I know “it.”

Alan suggested that I do a self-portrait. It has been over a decade since my last serious attempt. He said, “Peer into those eyes for a while before starting and then ask yourself, ‘Who is this person?’” He asked me to draw with my heart and not my head. Alan is wily and that is why I love him so. He knows what I believe and why I draw. He caught me in a net of my own making. How can I now look in the mirror and possibly believe that I can “capture” what I see?

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Get Tired

Posted on August 21, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

It is very late and I am too tired to write. It is a surprisingly yummy feeling to be this tired, to know there are thoughts in there somewhere – some might even be coherent – but the layer of fuzz wrapped around my brain makes the thoughts just slightly out of my reach. There are many paths to illumination and I will dub this route “stupid Zen.” Of course, the problem with stupid Zen is it’s not trustworthy: life is, according to the Balinese, a shadow puppet play. We only see the shadows, the illusion, so riding the horse of exhaustion into the illusion of illumination seems counterproductive.

It is not so much an altered state as much as…a state. In the absence of coherent thought there is no need for alteration. With reason tucked in for the night, thought is more apt to go off the trail and lose itself in the forest. The cool night air, the sound of the waves against the seawall are more available; I am more able to give myself over to the little things which, I know, are really the important things: when I am this tired I can be no where else but here.

I heard this quote today, I can’t remember where, but it just bubbled to the top and I’ve just decided that for sheer tenacity this will be the first verse in the book of stupid Zen:

“I prefer to be wrong, it is so much more interesting than thinking I am right.”

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What’s At Your Feet?

Posted on August 20, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

For the past several months I have been interested in the marks we make on the ground. I often wander the streets with my camera and take photos of the ubiquitous marks at my feet. City engineers spray alien looking symbols in green and orange paint on sidewalks and streets. There are symbols everywhere if you pay attention: the universal walking man to demarcated crosswalks and walkways, bicycle shapes indicating lanes for things with wheels, “stop here” in bold letters, lane lines, curb lines, crosswalk stripes, chalk drawings, sprayed messages, stencils, scratched names and dates. I imagine I am an alien from another planet gathering samples of culture and ponder what does this overwhelming impulse to make marks, to define and apply symbol on the ground say about earthlings in the USA, 2012? They are beautiful when you pretend that you don’t know what they mean. My inner alien has sometimes exclaimed, “These earthlings like to draw on everything. They have an extraordinary impulse toward beauty and expression!”

Someone once told me that the unique challenge facing our culturally diverse democracy is that we must constantly define ourselves; we do not share a common narrative, we certainly have wildly divided ideas even about the simplest of terms like “marriage” and “patriotism,” so each day we must work hard to know where we fit, we must daily reinvent ourselves to know who we are in the absence of really knowing. We debate, not to clarify, but to know what we believe. The good folks on Madison Avenue, working so hard to sell us stuff, would have a miserable job if we truly knew who we were (secure in our identity, we would laugh at the notion that red shoes or a new car would make us more appealing).

The marks made by the engineers are practical: the sewer line goes here. The crosswalks, bike lanes, lane lines, directional arrows, etc., are also practical if not highly revealing; my inner alien eventually comes to recognize, much to his chagrin, that these marks are not art but rules: walk here, ride here, go this direction, look both ways; the earthlings in the USA, 2012 are an ordered bunch! Despite their rhetoric and emphasis on individualism they like their rules. They prefer the pre-determined path; they like to know which way to walk and when. They value conformity and compliance; this, at least, does not warrant a debate: all the evidence you need is waiting at your feet.

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Take Your Foot Off The Brakes

Posted on August 12, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

This is an old theme revisited. The word of the day is “belief.” For the past few days I have been with Lora at her class reunion in Tucson and I’ve listened to many conversations about belief: belief in self, belief in fate, belief in fortune, belief in friendship, belief in future, belief in love. We give this word, “belief” a good workout and a lot of power!

Like all words, “belief” is an abstraction. Just as the word “tree” is not a tree – the word is an abstraction of something – the word “belief” is also an abstraction; it points to something that you decide/create with in you.

We play as if we need belief before we act. The notion that belief precedes committed action is a misunderstanding, an inversion. This misunderstanding is used as a reason to keep both feet on the brakes, “I can’t act before I believe….” Just watch a toddler explore the world! Curiosity is the name of the game, no belief required.

Belief in your self has nothing to do with fulfilling your dreams or bringing 100% of your self to your life. Curiosity is all that is required. The good news is that curiosity is natural to all human beings. Explore to explore. Act to see what happens. Color outside of the lines. The only thing necessary is to take your foot off the brakes.

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

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Create The World

Posted on August 11, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Random thoughts on a morning walk: Without my eyes translating it into a story, the earth (the universe) is action, pure fluid motion without distinction. It is energy in motion.

The birds chase. The waves roll. The fog lifts. The sun breaks through. The jogger waves at me. The cop sits in his car, the engine idling, he reads the morning news. A break? Hooky? The osprey hunts. The gulls complain.

This is what the old masters and gurus mean when they say, “we create the world.” Without my eyes translating, there is no bird chasing, wave rolling, or fog lifting. There is a single motion. There is no bird separate from wave as distinct from fog. I give it coherence. I give it separation and story.

How does this help me? I am certain that I will continue to story everything I see. It happens in a nanosecond. I believe storying is what makes us human: we are storytelling animals. It helps when I see the extent to which I tell my own story. Then I see that I have infinite choice in the story I tell.

A person can walk in gratitude. They can walk with anxiety. They can lose themselves in thought and miss the day entirely. We can be mindful. Mindless. We can be late or just be taking our time. We can try to please or simply do our best. We can try to change the world or recognize that world is motion, pure fluid energy.

Maybe, just maybe, the world is fine without my story. Maybe what needs changing is how I story what I see.

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

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Wink At Your Bully

Posted on August 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

It is a mistake to assume that you will someday shed yourself of inner resistance. The voice of resistance is there for the long haul. It will be barking at you all the way to the dirt nap. Trying to eliminate it will only make it stronger; resisting resistance reinforces resistance – say that six times fast.

Resistance is like the bully in elementary school; it says it wants your lunch money but what it really wants is to see you cower. It wants you to stay in your place because that makes it feel powerful and in control. The bully’s game is control. The bully fears who you might become if you show up in a big way.

A step toward your dream is often a step into the unknown; it requires vulnerability and a release of control. This will bring out the bully every time. The inner bully is handled in the same way as the outer bully: Laugh at it or love it, but do not listen to its trash talk. Name it and keep walking. A bully only has power if you cower – it only has power if you believe its threats. It will call you all kinds of vile things and all you need do is hang onto your lunch money and take another step into the unknown. You empower it if you take the threats seriously; it dissipates if you smile and say, “really?”

Resistance is a sign that you are taking a step. It jumps up because you are daring to fulfill a dream. You can cower and run back into the cave or you can step through it and see what is on the other side.

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

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Create It Now

Posted on July 31, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Clients often say to me, “I don’t know what I want?”

This question, “What do I want?” is hard for most people to answer. It is hard because we assume that the answer is an outcome, a thing (a noun). We assume it is achievable; somewhere down the road is a place called happiness and if only we knew what it looked like we might be able to get “there.”

What if we are making it harder than it really is? What if we have the wrong premise? What if the assumption beneath the question is actually a verb? What if what we want to create is a better life, a better relationship with ourselves, a quality process of living? Then the question is easily answered.

If what we want to create is a better life it is useful to recognize that life is not something we will “get” or achieve by tomorrow or the next day or the next. Life is not something we create later. Life is the process that is happening now while we are fretting over the thing we think is missing.

What if we are not separate from what we want? What if a full experience of life is actually the intention? There is no better time or place to begin a full experience of life than the present.

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

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Gather On The Beach

Posted on July 26, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Once, I saw Rex Ziak build a map of the earth with post-it notes as he told the history of exploration and mapping of the world. It was an odd sensation as I was delighted to see the continents slowly take shape – I got to discover the world – but I also had a feeling of tremendous loss – as if the earth was being gobbled.

A few weeks ago the pirates landed on Alki beach like they do every year. It is a ritual invasion that marks the beginning of Sea Fair festivities. Hundreds of people packed the beach. Canons were fired. Parrots sat on shoulders, families cheered. There were vendors of every shape and size hawking pirate patches, plastic swords, t-shirts, pirate flags, lemonade, ice cream, bike rides, boat rides, airplanes pulled advertisements overhead…everything was for sale.

Last night Todd, Lora and I were walking. It was early evening and I’d just finished teaching a class; I often walk to clear my mind. As we approached Alki beach we saw several tribal canoes paddling in a line toward the shore. Each year the tribes of the northwest coast gather, a ritual remembrance and celebration of the time they would come together and trade. Before landing, each canoe glided close to shore, guided by songs of welcome and someone in the canoe ritually asked permission to land from the local elder, “We are tired and hungry and ask that you might welcome us to rest…” The elder, standing at water’s edge replied, “We welcome you to share in our bounty….” Dozens of canoes approached, each asking the blessing, each ritually welcomed. There were no vendors, no helicopters, no fanfare, nothing was being sold; it was simple. It was about people coming together to share their bounty.

The final post-it notes completing Rex Ziak’s map defined the northwest coast of the United States of America. It was the final unexplored/unmapped territory and was completed after the Corp of Discovery expedition of Lewis and Clark. The maps were complete, the trade routes were known, the resources identified, the pie cut into slices. I finally understood why Rex’s beautiful map brought such a conflicted feeling to me: the people that gathered on Alki beach for the pirate landing were there to get something, that is the ritual way of people-of-the-map. The people that came in their canoes gathered to bring something to each other, that is the ritual way of people-of- potlatch. Rex mapped in post-it notes their inevitable collision.

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