Truly Powerful People | The Direction of Intention

Cooperate

Posted on February 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

During my drive from Champaign to Omaha, just after sunset, it began to snow. There was a swirling wind and in a matter of moments it was a white out. The road was mostly invisible. Cars immediately fell in line behind cars. Trucks slowed and set a careful pace. People cooperated without debate, without knowledge of the other drivers’ political affiliation, gender, race or sexual orientation. We needed each other. There was no power game or status imperative. All the silly illusions fell away. We needed each other and we did what came naturally. We cooperated.

There is a collision of two great thoughts that I appreciate. The first comes from my friend Roger, a director of plays and studier of humans; he once told me that denial was one of the strongest human impulses. The second thought comes for E.O. Wilson (I’ve rattled this off more than a few times) who said that the strongest human impulse is to belong. Combine the two thoughts and you get an amazing collision of impulses: a species called humans that need to belong to each other but deny it. This contradictory impulse makes possible The Gap or Old Navy; can you deny that you shop at a chain store to express your individuality as a way to belong? I can only imagine that the Martians are having a hey-day studying us.

And then the illusion drops, the second strongest impulse retreats and only the first remains. We need each other. We drive into a white out. The hurricane wipes our city off the map, the earthquake knocks our houses off their foundations. We pull together, put down our need to be right, and line up to help. We see our belonging. We see this thing called “”the common cause,” namely, survival.

The question, then, is obvious: do we need to wait until we’ve exhausted our fuel supply, depleted our aquifers, or warmed our globe before we suspend our denial and see this thing called “the common cause?” More and more contemporary science is finding that we have it all wrong: survival is not something achieved by the fittest; survival is a cooperative art.

Filed under: Rants, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: belonging, cooperate, denial, illusions, impulse, power, survival | Leave a comment »

See The Magic

Posted on February 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Today I saw thousands of geese fly over the fields at sunset. They were going back to the river for the night. From a distance in the pale blue winter sky, they looked like shimmering strands, forming and reforming, I had the impression that I was looking through a microscope at DNA in flight. And then they flew closer, took on another shape, more dense, all the strands coming together en masse, morphing like magic into a congress of geese. Flying directly over my head their wings took on the gold and purple of the setting sun, shocking me in their transformation. Their direction was specific, intentional, with no visible leader or apparent decision maker; they were of a single mind.

Magic is not the illusion of sawing a person in half; it is not a man who seems to disappear from a locked box. Those things are tricks. Magic is a relationship to something vital and alive. Who would choose to have a relationship with an illusion when it is possible to have a relationship with the setting sun or to participate if only as a witness to a migration that is centuries old? This is why we go to the theatre or visit an artists’ studio; the arts are not illusions they are a relationship to something ancient, a deeply unique human impulse that reaches back millennia. The arts are at one moment both a personal and a shared experience. There is a reason why dictators clamp down on the arts when seizing power: a community with vital living art knows its direction and intention with no visible leader; the decision makers are the stories we tell relative to the actions we take: there is no gap between interests and values. The arts hold the center and when they are lost, the community begins to legislate rather than communicate. Entertainment is, after all, the least of the functions of any art form and become ascendant when rules have replaced stories as the societal glue.

Filed under: Art, Perspective, The Direction of Intention, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: art, intention, living, transformation, viable | 4 Comments »

Live What’s Important

Posted on February 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

712. 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 sitting in the Seattle airport trying to remember the things I stressed about on this day ten years ago. I’m trying to remember the things that I thought were so important that I tensed over, felt frustrated about, anxious or angry. I can’t recall a single thing. If I broaden my view and ask what are the things I got worked-up about in the calendar year 2007, I remember a few events but the horror stories I told myself never came to pass. All the winning or losing in which I invested left only the slightest imprint. I suspect it took a toll on my body but in the end did it matter? Did my stress and anxiety make any difference in the arc of my life? No. Not once.

Today, as ran through the airport convinced that I was late for my flight, impatient for the train, angry with myself for not planning better, impatient with the security lines, I stopped cold in my tracks. I wondered if the story I was telling mattered. In the arc of my life, would it matter? No. What would happen if I missed my plane? It has happened before. I would figure it out. All of my stress was self-induced. I was not on a plane spinning out of control, I was not being chased by a hungry bear; stress in those cases would be welcome. My investment in my small world suddenly seemed silly. Ten years from now, when I am sitting in another airport, I will try and remember if all the things I thought were so important in February 2013 actually mattered. They won’t. I won’t even remember this race to a plane.

I’ve spent the past month writing about choice and becoming aware of the choices we have but do not see. I am, like all teachers, teaching what I most need to learn. I can report that once I stopped cold in my tracks and thought about it, I laughed at my dedication to stressing myself, and then walked very slowly to my gate. Even tempting fate I did not miss my plane.

I do not miss my stress. I certainly don’t need it. I stopped not beat myself up for my planning or lack of planning – that was nice. I took a breath. I even helped a man who lost his cell phone. I asked myself, “What’s really important?” I know I am trying to live the answer to that question.

Filed under: Awakening, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: breath, important, slow, story, stress | 2 Comments »

Lost & Found

Posted on February 18, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

…a long day of writing on the book. Since I have not another thought in my head, here’s another excerpt:

It is probably poor form to start a story in the middle, in a moment of high crisis. When a story stalks you through your lifetime you inevitably learn some things about stories; you unwittingly stalk them, too. One of the first things I learned was that the word “beginning” is arbitrary. An end is always a beginning. A beginning is always an end. What we call a beginning or the middle or an end is really a simple matter of our point of view. It depends on what we see.

Another valuable thing I learned about stories is that they unfold according to established patterns. Beginning, middle, and end is a simple pattern. Within this simple pattern is a more complex pattern structure. For instance, in order to grow, the main character has to leave behind everything they know and go on a journey. That journey can be literal or an inner, metaphoric journey. To leave behind what you know is part of the pattern that leads to trials, confrontations, and catharsis. It’s a pattern and since each of us is the protagonist in our own story, the pattern is alive and at work in our lives. The trick is to become aware of where you are in the story cycle. What part of the pattern are you currently living?

Stories never begin with being found. We hear a call. We pursue it blindly and discover that we are lost in the woods. Stories begin when someone, the main character, you, gets lost or is knocked off balance. In this sense, being lost is always a step toward being found.

Filed under: Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: beginning, end, found, journey, lost, middle, pattern, story | 1 Comment »

Keep Your Eyes Up

Posted on February 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Saul-the-Chi-Lantern talked to us today about fixing our gaze. “Where you fix your gaze often determines how the chi will run through you.” Tai chi is about rooting and alignment. It is like eliminating the kinks from a hose so the water can flow freely. Saul often says, “Receive the gift,” referring to the energy we receive when properly rooted. Rockets thrust into down to lift off and tai chi is like that; root and receive the lift. It is a process of learning to get out of your own way.

It seems like a simple thing to say: where you fix your gaze impacts the quality of your experience. For instance, fix your gaze immediately in front of you, not on the floor, not on what others are doing. Saul asked us to see softly what was immediately before us. As we moved through the form I was aware of how often I look at my feet. When I kept my gaze fixed in front of me, I was easier and more open. I was rooted! It is tangible! Do an experiment: place your focus in various ways, on various spot above and below and feel the impact it has on your posture. Where can you best fix your gaze to unkink the hose?

After class I finished the 3rd draft of the book and as serendipity would have it I rewrote the section on focus placement. I smiled as I reworked the passages about choices in where we place our focus and how potent we become once we realize we have choice about where we place our focus. Focus is like a flashlight, a beam. We see where we shine our light. We interpret what is in the beam. We cannot see beyond the narrow confines of our focus so the choice of where we place our light is important and very powerful.

As Saul said this morning, “Keep your eyes up and the energy will have someplace to go.”

Filed under: Energy, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Pay Attention

Posted on February 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Marcia sent me a gift. It is a small notebook that her father, DeMarcus, made when he was a student. The calendar pasted into the front is from 1922. The leather binding is falling off, the pages are fading, and the notes, written in pencil, are smeared. But the thoughts are clear and sometimes startling. DeMarcus became a great artist in the theatre. The notebook dates from the time of his becoming with no notion of how his desire to be an artist would play out in his life.

The notebook came sealed in a baggy, a note from Marcia was tucked inside that read, “Pay attention to his thoughts on color. They are astonishing. Magic” I’ve not yet read his thoughts on color because I was so taken by the first page. This young man, nearly a century ago, diligent in his dream, wrote to himself: “Pay attention! The details matter.”

It was the exact thought I needed to receive today, a day lost in thought and overwhelmed by my swirling story, caught in the fast moving current. Pay attention. It came from the boy DeMarcus who wanted to see. So I stopped the swirl and stepped out of the fast moving stream. I watched the sun set over the city. I listened to the gulls fight over scraps from the market. I ate an orange slowly, making sure I tasted every bite. I smelled rich dark coffee.

On a large pad of art paper across the room, a line from Emerson is written: When the half gods go, the gods arrive. This is what I learned in paying attention: the half gods move really fast and would have us believe the worth of life is in the pace; the gods arrive when we step out of the panic and into our one single precious moment and pay attention.

Filed under: Gratitude, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | 4 Comments »

Love Until It Hurts

Posted on February 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

LOVE UNTIL IT HURTS
708. 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 have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” Mother Teresa

Today is St. Valentine’s Day – though you will read this the day after.

When I was a kid in school we decorated sacks and wrote valentines for everyone in our class. By the end of the school day we had a sack full of I-love-you notes and a belly full of cupcakes and sweetheart candies. Some of the valentines in the sack mattered more than others. For instance, in 1st grade I was in love with Nancy and when she put a valentine in my sack I was elated. And then I was scared: was she as excited by my valentine as I was by hers? I delight in Valentines Day because it is (or can be) a festival of the irrational; a day acknowledging the transcendent power of love. All day I thought of people I love dearly and although I only told a few, I basked in how many people on this planet I hold dear in my heart and wanted to send sweetheart candies printed with the phrase, “Be Mine!” Valentine’s Day is a celebration of things that cannot be measured.

All day I’ve smiled at the men passing me on the street carrying large bunches of flowers or strings of heart balloons. These rough tattooed or polished business suited men basically carrying a large sign signifying, “I AM IN LOVE,” looked sheepish and vulnerable to step beyond their macho and publically share their tender heart. It was refreshing to wander through the financial district surrounded by normally steely-faced men in ties blushing in excitement and fear: would their Nancy return their affection? As I passed through the metal detector in the Federal Building a box of heart cookies was delivered to the security staff. The men and women in badges grinned and shared; they were thrilled.

The Odyssey is one of the great pieces of literature in the western world. It is the story of Odysseus trying to return home to his wife Penelope after the Trojan War. He tries for years to return home with the gods and elements working against him. He loses his ship and his crew. He survives monsters and Cyclops and witches. He is stranded and held hostage. He suffers terribly. He loves until he hurts and in his hurt he finds more and more love. This greatest of Greek epics is a story of the triumph of love.

Stories of great love are not stories of ease. Stories of great love are about reaching through fear, the irrational, the elements, stepping into the unknown and with the gods stacked against you, and yet you continue; still you persevere. Step into the hurt. Reach across the fear and take their hand in yours. Take a chance and say, “I love you so much that it hurts.”

Filed under: Love, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Show Up

Posted on February 14, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

707. 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 one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” Neil Gaiman

The clichés are ubiquitous: fingerprints and snowflakes, each of us is unique in the universe. There will never be another like you and if you’ve ever looked through a telescope into the universe you will recognize how profound a recognition that is. The universe is vast and you are unique in it. You are vast.

The paradox of our uniqueness, of course, is that we want to fit in. As E.O. Wilson suggests, the strongest human impulse is to belong. The question becomes do you need to sacrifice something essential to fit into someone else’s idea or is bringing to life your unique perspective the very thing that will make you belong?

I recently heard a speech and the speaker was making a case for self-love. She spoke of the myriad of opposing opinions she’s heard and sometimes entertained about who she should be. Like most of us, she spent many years trying to conform herself to those conflicting ideas – other people’s ideas of who she should be. Aesop wrote a fable about that and the moral was clear: you will lose it all if you don’t listen to yourself. No one has the capacity to love you like yourself. When you come upon your idea of who and what you want to be, and strive for that, there is no conflict or sacrifice. You will fulfill it all when you listen to yourself. This, too, was the speaker’s conclusion.

To me, the shorthand is to orient your life according to what you bring to it and not according to what you get from it. Show up as you know yourself to be not as anyone expects you to be. Let yourself be seen as who you are: unique in all the universe.

Filed under: Identity, Perspective, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: belonging, essential, impulse, unique, universe | 2 Comments »

Touch The Eternal

Posted on February 13, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

706. 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 my last evening in Anacortes and I sit with the lights off watching the grey northwest sky fade into night. The trees lose their dimension and move into silhouette. There is a slight breeze and the silhouettes sway. The colors are cold and my little oasis is warm. I do not want to move from this spot.

Jim Edmondson told me that people go to the ocean to touch the eternal: the waves have been rolling into the shore for millennia and will do so long beyond our short lives. I have this small moment, this blink of an eye and tonight I know I have come to this guesthouse, home of my dear Horatio and Teru so that I might touch the eternal, too. The sun drops in the sky every night and has done so for millennia and will do so long after I am gone. Tonight, on the eve of my next wandering, I watch and know. I touch it and recognize that we are all wanderers here for a moment. My heart breaks and becomes whole in the same moment with the beauty of this sunset and the realization of what I touch.

In a moment it will be full dark and I will stand and leave my oasis. I will walk across the lot to the big house where Horatio is making dinner. We will laugh and talk about art and learn about the man Teru interviewed this afternoon; she writes personal histories. She captures stories for families before the storyteller is lost, before the story fades into silhouette, sways and is gone. Her work is sacred though I think she does not know it.

Yesterday Megan-The-Brilliant sent me a short video that she shot one night a few weeks ago. It is of Lexi and me coloring with crayons between our toes. We called it foot coloring and cheered when we drew with our toes on the page. “We did it!” we cheered, arms waving, hooting in triumph as Lexi jumped onto the paper saying, “I have to dance on this paper!” Small treasures. Simple moments. Touching the eternal and so very grateful for this blink of an eye.

Filed under: Awakening, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: awareness, eternal, Gratitude, simplicity, sunset, touch | Leave a comment »

Play For Meaning

Posted on February 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Horatio took me on a whirlwind tour today. We met his art teacher, Jo, and I listened as they discussed artists like Sylvia Plath and Diane Arbus, artists whose work explores the darker shades of life. Both women killed themselves. Horatio posits that their artistry in some ways chronicled their march toward an inevitable conclusion. Like a raft caught in the current, hurtling toward a waterfall, they determined that there was nothing to be done, no greater meaning to be found, and went over the falls.

Horatio and I often stray into the topic of meaning making. What’s it all about? What is the greater purpose and meaning of this experience of life? I’ve decided that meaning is something we make and not something we find. Meaning is something we bring to the dance. However, we come to the dance with great expectations. We look for someone to dance with, we look for an experience that might lift us from the ordinary routine, we yearn for someone to notice us, we want food to eat, a future to create; we seek experiences. We want more. Life is made sweet in the yearning.

We get lost when we think someone else has what we need or that someone else can fulfill our yearning. Our job is to engage life; no one can do that for us. Our job is to bring our selves to life (I intend the double meaning of that phrase). Our job is not to fulfill another person’s need just as their job is not to fulfill ours. The meaning is in what we bring to the dance; if we bring joy there will be joy. If we bring blame there will be blame.

Tonight Horatio and Teru made a lovely dinner and had a cake for my birthday (coming soon!). Their daughter Nina and her beau Keith came along with Nina’s 4 year-old daughter, Jordan. I spent much of the evening learning from Jordan how to play Chutes and Ladders and a cupcake game. The first rule is that there are no rules. The second rule is that because there are no rules things like winning and losing are ridiculous. The only thing that mattered was that we played. She showed up and I showed up and the rest was imagination and wonder. You’ll be surprised to know that in a single evening I played the role of Santa Claus AND was placed forever on the naughty list (my name is written on the list in magenta crayon). It is an existential dilemma of massive proportion that required the creation of a third rule: naughty and nice are relative terms and who needs lists anyway? Meaning is never found in the list and always found in the play. So, as Jordan taught me tonight: play and the meaning will soon follow.

Filed under: Gratitude, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: imagination, meaning, play, possiblility, power, seeing | 4 Comments »

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