Random | The Direction of Intention

Read To The End

Posted on August 27, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

When I was a kid I was baffled when the characters in children’s fables and stories opened their doors to the wolf. The little pig would peep through the spy hole and the wolf, not cleverly disguised as an old lady, would ask for a cup of sugar. I’d think, “Even I know a wolf when I see it. Don’t open the door!” And the little pig would always open the door. So did Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. “Oh! Another little pig goes down the hatch!” I’d say, closing the book. The pictures were always my favorite part even if the story seemed implausible.

9 months ago I received a letter from the IRS congratulating me on my random selection for an audit. The nice letter told me the audit was for instructional purposes only. “How nice.” I thought until my accountant screamed, “Don’t be like the little pig in the story. This is the wolf at your door.” Oh, how I wish I’d paid attention to the story! What did the pig do when it was eaten? How did the pig emerge whole and happy from the belly of the wolf? I closed the book too soon! I enjoyed the pictures but ignored the lesson. Is there a nice woodsman in my future that will recognize that the large bump in the antagonistic wolf’s belly is me – and cut me out of this dark chamber?

As I sit here in the belly of the wolf I’ve had plenty of time to ponder the national debt and also learn the patterns and practices of my wolf host. I’ve added together the hours my wolf has spent on this audit and have realized the poor thing is truly starving to death: not only has he not found in my meager account any delicious hidden food morsels but the amount of money he may or may not recoup from me will never come close to meeting his enormous energy output. My wolf is losing money, our money. Additionally, every time there is some communication I receive no less than 9 letters, each letter comprised of 3-5 sheets of paper with legalese (single spaced) – each telling me that we’ve communicated – something I already knew; I actually read the first wave and although my inner lawyer was thrilled with so much language used to say almost nothing, I was left wondering how brevity and sense-making escaped the tax collection arm of the government. And, best of all, I now have some concrete suggestions for how to solve our budgetary woes and still maintain social security, medicare, and host of other worthy social programs.

I told my story of woe to my pal Patricia the photographer and she rolled her eyes; she has been engaged in a prolonged battle with her IRS wolf who insists her daughter is not her daughter; she has a birth certificate and dna to back her claim – not to mention a daughter who looks just like her – and yet her audit also continues into perpetuity. Like me she, too, receives 9 letters of of 3-5 single spaced communication affirming that communication has occurred with each communication. How many people-hours does it take to manufacture so many duplicate letters? Artaud could not have written a play this absurd.

Even though I have learned the error of closing the fable book too soon, I’ve gleaned enough to know that the wolf always gets his due in the end (the pictures made that abundantly clear). It is the wolf’s greed and hubris that brings its demise and I take comfort from my dark belly chamber knowing that we must be very close to the inevitable end of this insipid fable.

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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.”

Filed under: Perspective, Random, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Be A Rejuvenation Fairy

Posted on August 18, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Dear Lisa,

A promise is a promise. Since I learned that your summer was absent of any real and lasting rejuvenation, you’ll remember that I volunteered and made a commitment to invoking rejuvenation on your behalf. Essentially I have dedicated myself to being your rejuvenation fairy.

I will not leave quarters, dimes, or dollars under your pillow – at this stage of the game it would be inappropriate for you to lose teeth to put under your pillow especially for such low rewards. No, my intervention will be more surprise oriented. You might, for instance, note that I spent the evening smearing paint on a very large canvas and then covering the canvas with tissue paper and Mod Podge. This was an invocation event. Therefore, you have, probably by now, experienced an undeniable desire to paint with your fingers; I take no responsibility for the friends, pets, or family members that might get in the way of your sudden imperative to slap Mod Podge on tissue paper with an enormous brush. It was exhilarating for me so I assume, now that the power is turned on, that you will collage electric! Prepare yourself for waves of inspiration that will overtake you for I plan to dance and fling paint like a happy Jackson Pollock (I apologize to Harry ahead of time for what you may do in the grips of your uncontrollable paint throwing to the newly painted walls in your newly painted house). Remember, rejuvenation fairies have a deniability clause in their contract so if you go too far and too fast into renewal you are on your own to explain it. I have never been able to explain it so, even without the clause I’d simply shrug my shoulders and say, “…don’t know.”

It is not beyond me to organize a collection to supply you with Liz dates (the most amazing massage therapist ever) and, as you know, your clan is not beyond kidnapping you and delivering you to Liz (she is formidable so struggling is not recommended). Consider yourself on notice that a rejuvenation kidnap event might happen at any moment. Liz may be warming up; she might already be ready for you.

Here’s the thought to keep in mind: Just like good deeds done in the world are for the benefit of all, just as one member of the community cannot improve themselves without the entire community benefiting, so it goes with rejuvenation. Deplete yourself and we are all depleted. Rejuvenate yourself and we will – each of us – feel the benefit of your brilliant and powerful light. Do it for yourself because you are doing it for us.

With great love and admiration (buckle up),

Your Rejuvenation Fairy.

Filed under: Random, Surprises | Tagged: rejuvenation | 3 Comments »

Look At Your Labels

Posted on August 14, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

The first time I stepped over a person sleeping on the street I was horrified. I grew up in the burbs; if someone was collapsed on the street it meant they needed help. It was early in the morning, my first day in San Francisco. I was 22 years old. I rushed to the man laying on the cement and my friend Roger grabbed my arm, “Keep walking,’ he said, “There’s nothing you can do.” I stepped over the man and kept walking. It was unnatural. I didn’t believe that there was nothing to be done. And, I kept walking. Roger was quick to point out the people asleep in doorways, on benches, beneath cardboard,…; once my eyes were opened I saw people scattered all over the city, hundreds of people asleep on the street. It was as if an earthquake hit the city and its residents were afraid to go back into their homes. “What happened?” I asked. “Reagan cut funding for the shelters,” Roger said. “The economy sucks.” Even then those answers seemed too simplistic, completely void of responsibility.

This is how we learn the rules of community.

That was 1983. Today I walked by the courthouse in downtown Seattle. The park next to the courthouse was like a refugee camp. Every park bench served to support makeshift cardboard shelters. People slept beneath every tree and formed a line adjacent to the fences. Sleeping during the day is necessary if you have no home to return to at night. For a moment I thought it was a performance art piece, the actors having placed themselves on the ground in an orderly composition. They were so still. I felt no horror and had no impulse to help. Instead, I was more concerned with looking at them for too long; I am not supposed to notice. I am a man of my times and have internalized the rules of community.

Earlier in the day I’d read a passage about Marshal McLuhan: he wrote of the human tendency to dismiss an idea or experience by naming it. He called it “label-libel.” Attach the right label to it and you needn’t think about it any more.

“Homeless,” I said, feeling nothing. “The economy sucks,” I intoned. “Nothing to be done,” I whispered, wishing for the days when I had access to my horror.

[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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Set A Thought Trap

Posted on August 5, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

514. 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 am a master of writing myself notes. I fill multiple notebooks every year. They are choked full of excited scribbles, enthusiastic lines and arrows, doodles and stars: all attempts to catch my thoughts before I lose them. Thoughts are slippery devils that jump into my path and then disappear while I look for a pencil.

I have a variety of strategies to capture them. I track them through the dense forest of my mind. Sometimes I set traps for them. I dig tiger pits. I have sexy decoys and have learned mating calls: an evasive thought like “the default story” will come out of hiding when I tempt it with the amorous cry of “the necessary action.” Easy prey!

Of course, there is a serious flaw in my thought-hunting prowess. Open any notebook in my stack, flip to a random page, point to any note and ask me what it means. I will stare at the excited scribble – often a terrific phrase, perhaps useful for a line of poetry, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was supposed to cue for me. What was the revelation, the connection, the greater ah-ha?

Even when captured those trickster thoughts leave a small alphabetic footprint, a cryptic mark and somehow the greater meaning slips away.

[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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Tickle Dr. Freud

Posted on July 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

The blue ribbon for word slippage goes to Lora. Doctor Freud would be most proud of her today. Not long ago Lora was telling Megan-the-brilliant that I am sometimes useful as her repository of knowledge. Though, instead of using the word repository she inadvertently substituted the word “suppository.” Doctor Freud spit out his pipe with the force of his delight. I am now and will be forever known as the suppository of knowledge. The phrase stuck. It’s what I get for tossing around expressions like “crap thinking” these many years. Megan’s brilliant ice-hot blue eyes were on fire with the torture possibilities. I could see her imagining speaking at my funeral, a eulogy that she’d waited years to share, “He was many things but above all….” She will never introduce me at a conference if I can help it.

And then, this very afternoon my dear Robert, ally in all adventures, friend for life, keeper of secrets, he-who-can-play-the-bagpipes-with-no-bagpipe told me that he’s always seen me as a horse of knowledge – but was never quite sure from which end of the horse I was speaking. I told him I was a knowledge suppository and he said, “Everyone knows that!” What I thought was the emergence of a weekly theme was suddenly much more comprehensive!

Like everyone I, too, have searched long and hard for my true purpose. I had imagined something more lofty or profound, something Gandhi-like or maybe Picasso-esque. Apparently I have been looking in the wrong… direction. Now that I have finally discovered what no person should ever know – namely, their true purpose (as Mr. Spock would say, “Having is not so great a thing as wanting.”), I will dedicate myself to honing my craft, aligning my message, polishing my skills – maybe a new website is in order. Please do not imagine the logo possibilities. I intend to have more fun at cocktail parties; now that I know definitively what I do, I at last have an answer to that irritating introductory query, “So, what do you do?” You’ll forgive me if I am evasive by replying, “Oh! Are you certain you want to know? My work can be alarmingly cathartic.”

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Stop The Bus

Posted on July 12, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

The dog came from nowhere. It bolted out into the street and the bus needed to brake hard not to hit it. At first, the bus driver thought it was my dog and gave me a sour look. Through sign language she asked, “Yours?” and I signed, “No.” She made a sign that at first I didn’t understand – her hands went to her throat and it looked like she was strangling herself. She read my puzzled face and mouthed slowly, “Check. The. Tag.”

By now the dog was 100 feet away. It was trotting down the street looking at the odd gestures the humans were making. I could see it was waiting for the chase. I took one step toward the dog and it ran. I stopped and it stopped. The bus driver watched and waited. I took another step toward the dog and it sprinted farther up the street.

The bus driver looked at me in disdain, drove the bus to the next block, and pulled over. I do not know what she said to her busload of passengers – or if she told them why she was getting off the bus. She put on her emergency flashers, turned off the engine, and jumped out. Now the dog was between us. We both assumed goalie position while the dog, ecstatic at its good fortune, turned a complete circle, feigned a move toward the street, making both me and the driver jump, and then sprinted up a driveway and disappeared through a fence.

The bus driver called to me, “Did you see the tag?” She was serious. The dog was never closer than 100 feet to me. I loved her question, the absurdity born from concern, so I replied, “My eyes aren’t that good.” She wrinkled her brow, caught my meaning and tossed her hands in the air, a gesture of disgust and surrender. She turned, stomped back onto the bus and drove away.

I wondered what her story would be as she recounted the experience later in the bus barn. Was it a tale of the inept near blind pedestrian dog chaser? Or perhaps she recounted the drama of almost hitting a dog and attempting a rescue? My story was hopeful. A bus driver with a bus full of commuters stopped her route for a few moments to corral a wayward dog. For a moment she took responsibility for the safety of the pooch. She was gruff, lovely, and absurdly hopeful. As far as I could tell, her passengers sat politely and watched the drama unfold. Of course, I imagine the dog later in the day at the dog bar buying a round of drinks, making his pals howl with the story of stopping a bus and making two humans dance.

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Help Me. Please

Posted on July 9, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

487. 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 the day after the 4th of July in the United States of America and a morning explosion roused my inner sociologist. He is not one for early rising so complained a bit when I told him this morning presented a superb opportunity to study human post-party behavior. “With a walk on the beach?!” he protested. “Where do you think all the human parties were last night?’ I replied. He harrumphed, adjusted his sweater, and reminded me that he wished I were taller so he wouldn’t have to stoop so much when doing field research. “I would wish for a taller host body,” he moaned.

We were rewarded almost immediately upon arriving at the beach. “By the piles of trash it looks like an army camped here!” he observed, reaching for his notebook. The public trashcans were jammed. Additionally, sacks and bags and empty six packs were stacked 3 feet high around every can forming a kind of garbage ring art installation. The birds were frenzied trying to tear open the garbage bags. A particularly loopy gull missed his landing and tumbled down a garbage cliff causing a trash avalanche. “Good heavens!” my inner sociologist exclaimed. “One does not see that everyday.”

The sea wall was literally lined with Roman candle remains, beer bottles tilted to just so to better launch rockets (for the red glare), and remnants of bombs bursting in air. There were hundred of those little red sticks, evidence of a sparkler orgy. I caught my inner sociologist just in time – he was moving to dig in the trash. “How can I truly understand human behavior if I leave so much evidence unexamined!” he complained. I pointed out that the only evidence he needed to note was the presence of the piles, “Look how much stuff people packed in and how un-interested they were at packing it out.” He slowly scanned to area and said, “Yes, too true,” narrowing his eyes, he lifted a single brow, and scribbled another note.

It was then that we spotted the real treasure, proof that there is still hope for humanity. Just across the street standing boldly in the middle of a grass strip was a bright red upright Hoover vacuum. “My, what’s this?” I had to remind him to look both ways before dashing crossing the street. “Unbelievable!” he cried, dropping his pencil. “Have you ever seen anything so remarkable?” It was a rhetorical question but I said, “No,” and stood back to admire the gesture. Taped to the front of the Hoover was a small crayon sign that said, “Help me. Please.”

“Isn’t a little humor refreshing?” he asked, looking for his lost pencil. “It gives me hope,” I replied. “Well,” he sighed, “People surprise me at every turn.”

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Truly Powerful People (478)

Posted on June 30, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

478.
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 the day before I travel. I’ll be on the road for ten days and I’m excited to go; there is a bit of gypsy blood in my soul and it has been too long since my last adventure. I like these packing days because the usual patterns of my life suspend. I prepare; the abstractions fall away, my actions become concrete, there is a specific tangible achievement. That is a rare thing in my life. I generally live in the land of the ambiguous; transformational work is not for the engineer-minded. It is a life built upon discovery and clearing debris. No amount of math will solve for the equations. So, packing a bag for travel is nice. I know when I’m done.

Preparing to go is a combination of cleaning and reviewing. The work of planning the workshop is done. The notes and drawings that litter my desk and circle my chair are now “inactive” – so I can sort, file and throw. I’m an out-of-sight-out-of-mind guy so if I file things prematurely they disappear from my mind forever – thus the nest that rings my chair. The piles are necessary. They are living-thought-articles and although I recognize that it might look like a mess to some, it is never static clutter to me. It is a thing of beauty. It is a moving map of thought. My desk and the surrounding space are like a Jackson Pollock painting: a record of the motion of my work, a paper symphony of the inner workings of my heart and mind. Lovely chaos. Swirling patterns of possibility.

On packing day everything simplifies…. I will take it or I won’t. Do I need it or not. As I sort my piles and put them away I am aware that I am also cleaning the canvas. Not only am I preparing for travel I am preparing for the next “painting.” Making space for the next project. Inviting the next wild idea to come out of the cave and romp with me. Packing day is a perfect ritual of closure, necessary for opening to the new.

Filed under: Creativity, Random, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: ritual | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (468)

Posted on June 20, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

468.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Sometimes I have the ultimate theatre mentality. Once, in college, I was running a spotlight for a musical; the tube from the fan to the bulb housing fell apart in the middle of the show and between cues, to keep the light working, I was able to build a replacement tube with a paper cup and duct tape. Use what you have. It need not be permanent. It only has to work for a while. The show must go on but no one need know how poorly it is constructed. Sometimes that’s the magic.

This used to drive John crazy. He is a real builder, a master woodworker. John built some stage sets for me that will be here long after they drop the bomb; the only thing left on earth will be the sets that John built. I’d say, “John, it only has to look real, no one will know.” He’d say, ‘I’ll know.” Now, that is a true artist! Once I was hired to provide a set for a commercial featuring the Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was a desert scene: I hauled in sand and dumped it on the floor. I pulled some scrub from the canyon by my house and stuck it in the sand. The producer was thrilled. The real non-construction was for a scene in a cave. Since it was a film my cave only needed to hold together for a single day. Old flats, cardboard, the sand from the desert set mixed with some good goop and lots of runny paint. I stuck it all together with a staple gun and duct tape, stood it up and prayed the turtles didn’t hit the walls. I told John about my cave and he said, “I don’t know how you live with yourself.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve designed or built a set. But, my “use what you find” mentality still comes in handy. Today I needed to ship a painting and it was too large to get into my car and too awkward to carry. The shipping place was only five blocks away so I scoured the building for a hand truck. No luck. I hit pay dirt in the basement when I spied an old wheelchair parked next to the garbage. I tied the painting on to the wheelchair with an old rope and like Nurse Ratchet gone rogue I wheeled my patient through the city to the shipping place. I think I added local color to the neighborhood. Some nice Dutch folks took my picture. Some people along the way gasped and parted as if I was the Loathly Damsel. Their horror might have been commentary on my packing job. The woman at the shipping place called my packing “Frankenboxing” though she gleefully applauded my method of transportation. Both were high compliments. Being from the theatre, I knew that, in such a moment of appreciation from a stranger, it was appropriate to take a bow.

Filed under: Art, Random, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

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