The Direction of Intention

Truly Powerful People (239)

Posted on November 5, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

239.
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 a day for staring out of windows. I am marveling at the cycles of living and the timing of this day’s news.

A few moments ago I received word that Kim Bush, one of the most amazing people I have ever known, died last night. When I talk of empowered people empowering others it is often Kim and his wife Judy that I reference. Kim used his days on earth to enrich the lives of others – and so he had a very rich life. He suffered a massive stroke 4 years ago. It is enough to say that over the past 4 years on days that I needed to know the power of the human spirit, I paid Kim and Judy a visit: after the stroke Kim’s light did not dim as I would have expected, it intensified and shone brightly through the wreckage of his body. He became more present, more alive, more full of mischief and humor and curiosity after the stroke.

There is circumstance and there is who you are within your circumstance. Kim did not resist his circumstance; he lived a vital life within it (thank you, Judy).

15 minutes after I read the news of Kim’s passing, I got a text from Rafael. He is the proud papa of a new baby girl born last night at approximately the same time that Kim left us. The tides go out, the tides come in; the story is unique and universal, essential and inevitable, and ultimately about renewal.

My to-do list seems utterly unimportant, even silly. I will never have this day of life again and I think I will sit here and be amazed by it all.

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Truly Powerful People (238)

Posted on November 4, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

238.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

About a year ago I was doing research for a performance project and bumbled into a notion, an aspect of belief in some cultures that has intrigued me: hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts are not the same as other ghosts.

In many traditional belief systems people become ghosts when they die. Shadows, shades, wisps, or spirit without a body – all are variations on the theme. Generally it was thought that ghosts did not have an eternal life as a ghost, but slowly weaken, dissipate and eventually dissolve into mist; essentially ghosts are a transitional step toward unity.

Hungry ghosts are different. Hungry ghosts are exceptional cases! When a person no longer appreciates their ancestors, when in life they do something very bad to others (all crimes against others dishonors the ancestors), if they are greedy or the worst possible crime: forcing people to move from their ancestral home, thus disgracing both families of ancestors (the ancestors of the forced and the forcer), then this person will die and become a hungry ghost. Desire, greed, anger and ignorance all are factors in causing a soul to become a hungry ghost because they are motives for people to perform evil deeds against others. So, the bottom line is this: do something bad to others = shame to the ancestors = become a hungry ghost.

There is no eventual unity for a hungry ghost. There is no rebirth in the cosmic cycle, no resurrection, do not pass “Go,” do not collect $200, go straight to hungry ghost. It is not a transitional phase; it an end result. It is forever.

Here’s the kicker: there is a single get-out-of-hungry-ghost card but it is very, very hard to achieve. The ghost must convince a mortal to feel compassion for it, to show compassion for its choices, its crimes. This is not forgiveness and certainly not absolution. It is a search for that rare person capable of looking beyond the fear, the greed, the horror, the hunger, the cruelty and see, truly see the essence of the soul. This person has to be able to see the unity even in the hungry ghost – and then the ghost can see it, too.

Sometimes as I walk down the streets of my city I see people as hungry ghosts seeking for that one rare mortal capable of seeing beyond their weakness, their yearning, their flaws and humanity; people who want to be seen. Sometimes, I refocus my eyes and see everyone as that mortal, not so rare, capable of seeing beyond the mess; people capable of seeing. Either way, the action is the same: the hider seeks the seeker, the seeker seeks the hider, compassion ensues and unity becomes a possibility: the ancestors welcome both home.

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Truly Powerful People (237)

Posted on November 3, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

237.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

As a child you probably asked yourself, “How do I change myself to be accepted?” Although it is a necessary question to ask while figuring out who you are, it is a question that will plague you all your adult life until you stumble into the second question, when you finally ask yourself, “How do I accept myself as I am?”

Resistance, frustration, anger and fear are the hallmarks of the first question if it is carried beyond its usefulness. Placing your acceptance in the hands of another is a recipe for disaster and will make your life’s story a dance for approval.

The second question is always with you. It is your ally, your friend, and your guardian of power. While asking the first question, while trying to change yourself for the eyes of others, you will feel that your life is just beyond your reach; you will catch glimmers of your power but it will sift like sand through your fingers. That is the second question waiting for you to place your acceptance where it belongs. It touches you on the shoulder every so often to remind you that it is with you, waiting for you to place your acceptance within yourself where it belongs.

The absence of resistance, frustration, anger and fear are the hallmarks of the second question, when your life story becomes about creating power with others in all the amazing shapes, sizes and forms available to you when you finally decide to stop the dance.

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Truly Powerful People (236)

Posted on November 2, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

236.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

236 days ago I started this meditation on power (for myself). I was certain that I would run out of things to say in less than 30 days so I set my expectation to write for at least that long which, at the time, felt like standing at the base of Mt Everest. I couldn’t imagine it. What I have learned in this meditation is that I have too much to say about power. And, it can be reduced into a few simple ideas, mainly that power isn’t power unless it is connective tissue, unless the focus in on the creation of power and not on the negation of power. That has always been for me the hallmark of things to which I need to pay attention; simplicities within complexities always signal deeper waters. In fact, in writing these posts I’ve come to realize that this meditation on power is central to everything I do. As Alan would say, “This is my soul mission.”

Last night I launched a new website, http://www.trulypowerful.com, and sent out a newsletter announcing the site. If you want to join me in this community and didn’t get the notice, go to the site and join the mailing list (and am pretending I don’t have a Facebook page yet because I hate what the designers have done…stay tuned). In January I will launch the blog Truly Powerful People, a more formal meditation on power – fuller explorations of what I’m writing here. This blog will remain my back room, the place where I will rant, where we can play cards, throw peanut shells on the floor and say things that could get us expelled from school.

And, as serendipity would have it, the jewel that dropped in my lap today is about being seen and the connection between vulnerability and power. It comes from a discussion in class today, master coaches talking shop. Most of us steel ourselves against the world; we protect ourselves from the perceptions of others in case they don’t like what they see. And then, we get frustrated because we feel we’re not being seen as we are. To be seen as you are you must drop the steel. To be seen as you are, to be powerful, you must introduce yourself to vulnerability. It is your choice. Steel usually leads to negation of yourself and others. Dropping the steel affords the possibility of collaboration and creation; therein lives the power.

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Posted on November 1, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

235.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

[continued from 234]

From the archives as I mine previous writing to inform my current pondering, here is part 2 of a remake and an update of a ghost-of-rants-past:

What if you will never be valued? What if other people find no worth in what you do? Does that mean it is not worth doing? Should Van Gogh have put down his brushes? He was a pariah in his time. To what post do you hitch your story of value and self worth?

It is a story.

We all want to be valued for what we do. All of us want to be paid; it is how our culture demonstrates value. However, as an artist, the odds are against it regardless of the scope of your talent and dedication to your craft. If you’ve ever been to a casting call in NYC you’ll know what I mean.

We live in the age of technology and that affords everyone with a mouse and a keyboard the opportunity to design, to photograph, to movie-make, and to manipulate images and sounds and perceptions. It opens the artist door broadly; it overturns the mistaken notion that artistry is only for the few.

It is the rare arts organization (or artist) that makes a living through the sales of what it produces –ticket sales will never pay for cost of the play. Donations, grants, not-for-profit status and cheap payrolls make the arts viable in a free market economy. The artist is the last to be paid and is usually paid the least. If you are an artist, you will create anyway.

We live and create in a culture that has managed to link morality to money, to make a commodity of it’s prophets and sacred days, and that has convinced itself that the greatest act of citizenship is to buy stuff. It is upside down and that is precisely why we need artists! Think about it, in this nation of immigrants we yammer on and on about things like family values as if those values were simple, absolute, articulated and expected from all people in every family, regardless of ethnicity, religious preference or sexual orientation. We celebrate the individual but insist on conformity.

What we value as a culture is at best conflicted and complex and as artists we are meant to embody, engage and explore that conflict and complexity. So value your art and do your work. Stand in the conflict. Put your fingers around the complexity and begin to mold it. Launch your work out into the world because you value it – it’s your responsibility to maintain the balance between what you create and how it is offered. Focus on what you bring and not on what you get. The rest is out of your control and fretting about it takes energy that you could otherwise use to create.

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Truly Powerful People (234)

Posted on October 31, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

234.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

In another blog in another life I wrote some rants to artists – meaning, of course, that I wrote them to myself. As I set up my new business I have been reviewing the archives and I came upon my rants. Here is a remake and an update of a ghost-of-rants-past (it is Halloween, after all). Read the word “art” as also meaning “life:”

What if you will never be understood? What if trying to be understood was a fool’s errand, a waste of your precious energy? Consider this for a moment: all great art lives beyond the rational; it transcends the world of data and fact, of the linear sequential and the prescription, and it reaches into places where words cannot go. You can’t measure it, quantify it, or contain it. You can engage with it. It only has meaning in relationship.

It seems to me the power of the arts (life) is in NOT being understood; moving beyond understanding is the point, not the problem. Trying to be understood is really a mask covering the need to be liked or appreciated. Like yourself. Appreciate yourself. What other people like or don’t like is none of your business. Besides, you are the only one who will ever really understand yourself – no one else has access to your internal workings. No one else really knows what you believe. Free yourself from the attachment to what others think and pour your energy into what you bring to life – and bring it.

As my mentor, Tom, used to say, “You will know the power of your work by the size of the tide that rises against it.” Some people may appreciate you and your work, others will not. That is beyond your control. What is within your control is your capacity to do your work. You can cut your ears off investing in what others may or may not think about what you create or you can do your work and offer it to the world. Trying to be liked or understood will knock you off your artistic rails; you’ll lose sight of the essential and trade it for the superficial. It will make you timid. Stop trying to be understood and do your work. Stop trying to be liked and offer your work as if it might actually change someone’s life – because it might.

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Truly Powerful People (233)

Posted on October 30, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

233.
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 to go to the Radio Shack in the junction today and bumbled into a mass of zombies, goblins, superheroes and heroines, witches, mummies, frogs, ladybugs, princesses, multiple genetic copies of Darth Vader AND Luke Skywalker, hobos, vampires, miniature bankers (definitely the most frightening costume), and even a few headless horsemen. It was impressive! Had any of them been taller than 3 feet I might have felt something other than warm and fuzzy (though I pretended to be frightened more than once). The parents dressed in costume, too – they were taller than 3 feet but were careful to let us know that they didn’t really think they were monsters. The shopkeepers were also in costume and jolly passing out candy to the mob.

There was panic in the Radio Shack because they were running out of candy. The manager opened his wallet and sent one of his employees running (literally, he said, “Run! Now!”) to the market to get more candy. He didn’t want any of the kids in costume to be disappointed and the bucket was nearly bare. It was personal and I loved him for that. He looked at me and exclaimed, “We’ve gone through bags and bags of candy and still they keep coming! I don’t want anyone to go away disappointed.”

After leaving the RadioShack (I turned down the mini-Snickers that was offered me. The manager thanked me for leaving candy for the kids. He was so earnest that I laughed out loud), I sat on a corner and watched the heaps of generosity. Every direction I looked, I saw people helping people cross the road, enter shops, herd kids, calm high excitement, feign terror, bow to little royalty, share, share, share.

This is who we are. It is always so close to the surface and beyond beautiful when it reveals itself. And, you’ll be happy to know, the Radio Shack employee made it back to the store, huffing and puffing, with arms full of candy just moments before the bucket went empty. The manager nearly wept with relief.

It’s the little things that make living so grand.

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Truly Powerful People (232)

Posted on October 29, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

232.
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 just found these notes in a journal I kept during my summer travels. They are from a conversation I had with my dear friend, Cindi. She is a very pragmatic woman – the world is clear in her eyes – and she shared with me her two cardinal rules for raising her kids:
1) Say what you think. Don’t edit and don’t assume that others (your children) have to think what you think. Their thoughts are theirs; your thoughts are yours. She filled out the thought this way: “As an adult, if you say what you think the children don’t have to try and figure out what you really mean. No manipulation or status or power games necessary. What you hear is what you get!”
2) No enabling. They make choices. Support their choices even if the consequences are at first painful. In the long run they’ll be stronger for it.

She has two incredible children, all grown up and stepping boldly in the world. Say what you think. No enabling. I think she’s right. If we followed her two simple rules, in the long run, we’d all be stronger for it.

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Truly Powerful People (231)

Posted on October 28, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

231.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

While I was waiting for Steven Pinker to bury me in data I listened closely to a conversation happening in the row behind me. I’m a notorious snoop. I love listening to people talk – not so much for what they say but what they don’t say or, even better, what they are not saying.

Two elderly women sat next to each other and started to chat. They discovered that they were both retired teachers (which is what caught my attention). They began to compare notes about their careers, specifically their pet-peeves (we really do sort to the negative. Don’t ask me why. Someday I’d like to ease-drop on a conversation that begins something like this, “Oh, you’re a teacher, too! I had the most amazing kids all my life, let me tell you how fortunate I was to live this life….”).

Here’s the phrase that caught me (I wrote this on my program so I wouldn’t forget): “You can’t really do anything to help them (the students); the good kids will get it, the bad kids will ask why do we need to learn this. I never understood why they just couldn’t shut up and learn.”

Imagine: me hyperventilating, rubbing my forehead to stave off the stroke that was seizing me. I bend forward and put my head on the chair in front of me. The people seated next to me freeze, uncertain if they should call for help or call for help (if you know what I mean).

I’ve never heard a better encapsulation of what’s awry in the public schools: teacher as content deliverer, student as open mouth eating whatever worm comes their way. Test and repeat (this is a comment on the system, not on the amazing teachers dying under the weight of the stupidity).

With my head safely resting on the seat in front of me, my row-mates frozen, looking for escape routes, pretending that I wasn’t there, I closed my eyes and had great appreciation for Tom. He once told me that when interviewing teachers he’d ask a trick question. He’d ask them to tell him a story of the bad kid, the worse student they ever taught; if they told him a story he knew they were no good as teachers and wouldn’t hire them.

My cheers go out to the kids who are asking of the world, “Why do we have to learn this?” It is the only question worth asking. It takes a lot of power to speak the truth to an adult. If the adults don’t have an answer, perhaps they should take a cue from the kids and ask the only question that matters, “Why are we doing this?” Within this question is the key that unlocks the door to true power.

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Truly Powerful People (230)

Posted on October 27, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

230.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Last night I went to a lecture given by Harvard professor Steven Pinker. He’s written a new book called The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. His lecture was a blizzard of data, graphs and charts showing one undeniable pattern: despite what we believe, violence has declined radically over the past few centuries; we now live in the most peaceful period in human history. In fact, compared to earlier times, some of our rates of violence don’t even register on the charts. He left us buried beneath the data with a few big questions about this decline, chiefly “Why the decline?” He had lots of suspicions but who really knows.

It was hopeful in a cerebral sort of way.

I grew up hearing (and believing) that the 20th century was the most violent century in human history. As Dr. Pinker said, “You can only believe that if you don’t compare the 20th to all other centuries.” According to his charts, the 20th century with its two world wars was garden party compared to centuries past. Genocide and annihilation was the game of those days! So, the second big question, “Why?” that came to my data-stressed mind was, “Why the disconnect between the data and our belief that we live in a terribly violent society?”

It is all a story. There is no doubt that violence is present in our world. And there is no doubt that we focus on it; where we place our focus dominates what we see. I know about the power of story and I wonder what we would see if we started telling a story of “the most peaceful time in human history.” I wonder what we would create if we approached our days on earth, not from a story of fear as our media and politicians would have us tell, but from a story of greater and greater cooperation and collaboration?

What is most remarkable is that despite our belief in a hyper violent world, the rates of violence continue to drop. Despite our fixation and belief, we are somehow together telling a story of greater and greater peace.

You can bury me in that kind of data any day of the week.

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