action | The Direction of Intention

Do! [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 16, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Since I asked a question in our most recent smack-dab, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind: “What actions – beyond awareness-raising – will effectively save our democracy…?”

If you are like me, you are sick-to-death of reading posts from our elected democratic leaders decrying the latest moral-offense and breach of the Constitution of the republican administration. It’s become something of a game to read the first comment which inevitably is something like, “I know this already! So what are you doing about it?”

The operative word is “do”. The question for our elected leaders should not absolve us of responsibility and would better read, “What are we doing about it?”

We are aware. What are we doing?

Raising awareness is not action. It’s a step toward action but is not itself a useful action. Crying, “The house is on fire!” is necessary but if it doesn’t prompt a call to the fire department it is useless.

When I asked the question on my saturday-morning-smack-dab post I did not have a clear set of answers. I know the first action-set has to protect our elections since the current occupant of the white house has been manufacturing crises since day one so he might circumvent congress. His authoritarian power grab is nearly complete. All that remains is to rig or stop our next election. His party is already erecting voting barriers to women and people of color.

I want to be inundated with posts from democratic leaders detailing potent action rather than shared-awareness-alarms.

I do not have answers. I have ideas. Lots of ideas. I’d welcome conversations about doing that arrive at specific actions aimed at specific targets. I’d cheer if our democratic leaders went on offense rather than perpetually playing defense, reacting and responding. Stop telling me the house is on fire. I already know. Take the ball back. What’s in the playbook?

The morning glories are out. They line sections of the trail. They have a very short blooming season and so have come to represent transience. They caught my attention as we walked and I pondered my question about effective action. Because the morning glory grows in complex environments, the flower has also come to represent the overcoming of adversity and renewal. Our democracy need not be fleeting.

I realized the morning glory is the perfect symbol for my meditation/question. Don’t take this – our democracy – for granted. It will die. Renewal is our job. We live in a time that our job requires immediate action, targeted action meant to overcome authoritarian/republican adversity.

The house is on fire. We already know it. We can stand by and tell each other about the heat of the flames or we can get busy working together to douse the flame.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MORNING GLORY

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor | Tagged: action, artistry, authoritarian, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Do, elections, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morning glory, raising awareness, renewal, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, transience | 1 Comment »

Awareness Is Not Action [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on July 12, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

In chaos there is pattern. This is the pattern emerging amidst our national chaos: people are dying in floods because early warning systems were interrupted by “waste, fraud, and abuse” cuts to the National Weather Service. People all over the world are dying due to the shuttering of USAID. People are losing their social safety net and public services to afford tax cuts for the morbidly wealthy; it’s estimated that over 50,000 citizens each year will die unnecessarily due to loss of their health care and access to services. People are being plucked off the streets and out of their homes by masked government agents and being “disappeared”.

The pattern in the chaos: ordinary people are suffering and dying, sacrificed on the altar of financial gain. Apparently the common person is counted among the waste to be cut. Certainly, it’s clear that the everyday person on the street is seen as a resource to be exploited, used and discarded. Republican Joni Ernst in a contentious town hall told her constituents protesting cuts to MEDICAID that, “We are all going to die.”

Consider this: The children were swept away in a flood that surprised them because the early warning system broke down due to staffing cuts. There was no one staffing the office necessary to pass on the evacuation warnings. The director of the DHS couldn’t be bothered to sign off on an emergency response for over 72 hours after the flooding began. She was too busy posing for the camera.

Indignation is useful fuel but can only carry us so far. As Kara Swisher asked in a recent podcast, “Would you rather be right or effective?” Yes, we are right to be indignant about the lies, the gaslighting, the fraud, the corruption, the grift, the incompetence, the brutality, the immorality, the hubris…

And, as we watch our democracy swirl around the drain, it is obvious that we are not-at-all being effective in our response. Words to myself and to you: perhaps it is time to rethink our ranting and raising-awareness about how wrong this is. That certainly feels good to share in the indignation. It certainly feels like we’re doing something. A lesson I learned early in my consulting life: raising awareness is not action. It’s a step toward action. If raising awareness was action, gun violence would not be the leading cause of death of children in the USA.

If the republican’s BBB is any indication, we are not being effective at all because our actions are limited to awareness raising: we call representatives who no longer listen; we march in order to send a message to representatives who no longer care. The polls have the tyrant and his party in the basement and they do not seem concerned at all. We raise awareness within our social media bubbles with people who are already abundantly aware how wrong this is.

Calls to representatives. Marches and civil unrest. Polls. If you are hearing what I am hearing, then we have to realize that this is a whole new ballgame. They are playing as if our votes – our voices – no longer matter. We are assuming that our votes will eventually correct the course. The clear message that we need to grok is made obvious in the pattern: To them we are waste to be cut, an unnecessary obstacle on the road to their gluttony. We can protest all we want. They are aware. They do not care since democracy is not in their plan.

It’s way past time to be effective. Our right to vote, our representative government, is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. What actions – beyond awareness-raising – will effectively save our democracy from a leadership so bloated and corrupt that it cannot be bothered to care or to listen?

read Kerri’s blogpost about PATHETIC

smack-dab © http://www.kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: action, artistry, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, effective action, indignation, Joni Ernst, Kara Swisher, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Medicaid, pathetic, story, studio melange, Texas Floods, the melange | 1 Comment »

Opossum Is Asking [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was the second time we saw the baby opossum. The first time it was with its mother. The moment they saw us they beat a hasty retreat to their den . It was a cold day and no one had walked the trail since the polar freeze. We surprised them.

This time we rounded the bend and the baby was perfectly still, standing in the middle of the trail. It was as if it was waiting for us. We stopped and returned its stare. After a moment or two it slowly waddled into the safety of the tall grass.

Later, at home, I looked up the symbolism of an opossum crossing your path.

“…in essence, Opossum is beckoning you to use your brain, your sense of drama, a surprise to leap over some barrier to your progress.” (Medicine Cards) Survival. Resourcefulness. Opossums are adapters and thrive in challenging and changing environments.

It’s considered a very good omen and right now, in our rapidly changing and challenging environment, we could use a good omen. And, the message within the symbol matched our concerns of late: how do we become more resourceful in order to survive the havoc being wreaked on our nation? It’s an open question for us, an ongoing conversation.

Last night I had a rare text exchange with my younger brother. “The near future looks bleak but we need to focus on what we really care about and can influence,” he wrote. “I have a wife, daughters, dogs, and a community of friends. I’m still blessed in challenging times.” Our exchange reminded me of the aspect of the opossum that resonated most with me: adapt to thrive in a challenging and changing environment.

To thrive we need to focus on what we care about and can influence.

Bernie Sanders came through town this weekend and thousands of people attended his rally. I was heartened by the energy and the overwhelming turnout. What we need to do to influence the current course of this criminally-stupid-administration: show up, speak out and call out the hypocrisy. Or all of the above. En masse. Non-stop.

When we come together to protect what we care about we thrive. It seems opossum is asking us to use our brains, unleash our sense of drama, so we might surprise the authoritarian and leap over the barriers he/they erect to our progress. There is power in a collective focus. There is unstoppable energy in the collective action of the people. That power and energy is the beating heart of a democracy.

In Dreams She Rides Wild Horses (in process), 42″x42″, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about the OPOSSUM

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Energy, Metaphor, Power | Tagged: action, adapt, artistry, Bernie Sanders, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, energy, hypocrisy, influence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, omen, power, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, thrive | 1 Comment »

Sacred Voice [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 26, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

My niece said it perfectly: for the first time in eight years I can vote FOR someone rather than against someone. The direction of intention. Moving toward the light instead of reacting against the darkness. And now, with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, there is at long last a brilliant sunrise.

Beneath every action is a reason. A purpose or desire.

A vote is an action. It is the single action at the epicenter of every democracy. If there is a sacred action in the idea of democracy, voting is it. It is how we-the-people choose our path forward. It is how we participate (take responsibility) in our development. It is how we give voice to our intentions. To date, the people in the United States have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the world. Only 62%.

Choosing not to vote is…a choice. An inaction.

Over and over again in my career I heard people decry their voice-less-ness. Sunk in the quicksand-belief that their actions did not matter, their voice did not matter, they simply ceased trying. “No matter what I do, nothing changes.” Somehow, the connection between action and impact is snapped. And, the space between the broken pieces fills with the anger of helplessness.

As my former business partner responded to a woman who claimed voicelessness, “If you had a voice, what would you say?”

You have a voice. It’s called a vote. If you choose to use it, what will you say? Will you speak with dark fear or proclaim joy-filled-light? Will you declare possibility or mean-spirited-pout?

Our actions in the next few months, our vote this November, is our voice. I choose the light. My vote, my voice, will speak to a world that serves and shines on the whole community, that reaches for the central ideal: the creation of a nation built on the notion Out-Of-Many–One. Service to all. It is the reason we have a sacred vote, a voice of We-The-People.

There’s never been a better time, a more necessary time, to stand up and speak loud and clear. There’s never been a more important time to help others who have become complacent to claim – to reclaim – their sacred voice.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ACTION

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Power | Tagged: action, artistry, choice, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fear, helplessness, ideal, joy, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, purpose, reason, reclaim, service, speak, story, studio melange, the melange, Tim Walz, voice, voiceless, vote, We the People | 1 Comment »

The Natural Course [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We’ve no idea how to grow peppers. And yet, here they are, red and ready for harvesting. I’ve just decided that our peppers are a lesson in the Tao: do nothing. Wu wei. Water the peppers when they need a drink. The natural course will show the way.

Is it any wonder that people avoid me at parties? “Gear down,” Kerri whispers when I find myself suddenly abandoned and standing alone in the kitchen. And what if I like being alone? What if my natural esoterica acts as a people-at-the-party-repellant? For an introvert, party-small-talk is exhausting, the empty kitchen a safe haven. The natural course shows the way.

I just read that striving for happiness is predicated on the belief that happiness is somewhere else, not here. Let go the striving and, perhaps, a different belief will enter. Perhaps happiness is here already. Or, as Viktor Frankl famously wrote that “happiness ensues.” It cannot be chased. Stand still and perhaps it will bump into you.

Sometimes, no matter where I am in the house, I know that Dogga wants to come back inside. He makes no noise. I can feel it. When I arrive at the backdoor he is standing there, open face, bright eyes, wagging wag-a-wag. He is certain that I will be there, joyful in our greeting. Happiness is nowhere else. No striving necessary.

The natural course shows the way.

[Kerri just said this post is a “random-thought-pie”! A perfect description of the inner workings of my noggin. I love it!]

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEPPERS

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Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Gratitude, Identity | Tagged: action, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, happiness, inaction, intuition, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Man's Search For Meaning, stillness, story, striving, studio melange, tao, the melange, the natural course, Viktor Frankl, wu wei | 3 Comments »

Learn About Silence [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes an action is not what it seems. For instance: she decided to sell her cello. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

When she broke both of her wrists in the same fall, she worried that she’d lose the ability to play her many instruments. To bow a cello requires a flexible and strong wrist. It healed and she recovered. Bowing the cello was not a problem. And then there was the second fall. A newly mopped floor with no signage. Her first words, laying on the wet linoleum, writhing in pain, holding her right wrist: Oh God! Oh, god, I can’t believe it!”

She lost degrees of movement in the second fall. It sounds mathematical, doesn’t it? Simple math. On a good day she has half the degrees of movement that she had before she met the wet floor. Enough to open a door but far short of bowing a cello.

After three years and countless hours learning about degrees of silence, she decided to sell the cello. “It needs to be played,” she said. “It deserves to be with someone who can play it.”

A simple action. A very complicated story. A heartbreaking moment when the luthier handed her a check. She touched her cello, turned, head down so the man could not see her tears, and walked away.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CELLO

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buymeacoffee is what you make of it.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: action, artistry, cello, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, degrees of movement, grief, heart break, injury, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood yamaha artist, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, mourning, movement, musician, musicianship, pianist, recording artist, silence, simple action, solo piano, story, studio melange, the melange, two broken wrists, yamaha artist | 2 Comments »

Take Another Step [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 14, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

At the end of the Everest documentary, The Fatal Game, Mark Whetu says, “It’s not that you are alive for such a short period of time, it’s that you are dead for so long.” It’s a film about waking up on the other side of grief. It’s a film about choosing to live.

Grief is one of the many colors on life’s palette. Had I bothered to read the small print in my handbook-for-living I suspect I’d have found a surprising number of references to suffering, sorrow, loss and fear. Colors on the palette necessary for an open heart. Essential colors for the full experience of living in the small window of time called “life”.

Last week I threw up my hands and sat down in defeat. “Lots of energy out. Nothing back!” I pouted, “What’s the point?” My self-pity lasted for an hour and then I stood up, realizing there was nothing to be done but take another step. It simply doesn’t matter how old I am or what I’ve done or haven’t done. It doesn’t matter what title I staple on top of my identity or what story I tell myself. My circumstance simply does not matter. The task remains the same. This day, I reasoned, is just as vibrant either way so, rather than bury my head in darkness, I might as well breathe deeply and enjoy the sun on my face.

Sometimes the only point is to take another step.

I am – apparently – a non-stick learner. I learn lessons over and over again. I am particularly gifted at allowing life’s lessons to slide off. I have been known to teach that the actions we need to take are rarely difficult; the stories we wrap around the actions can make any step seem impossible. Dialing the phone is easy until the mind rages with the tale, “I don’t want to look stupid.”

Effortless action is a Buddhist concept. It is a practice of acting without story. Know your target. Act. Respond.

Send a resume. Write a cover letter. Submit. Take another step.

Mix the color. Choose the brush. Spatter. Take another step.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora and iHeart radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about ONE MORE STEP

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Possibility, Story | Tagged: action, artistry, baby steps, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, effortless action, fear, grief, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, life lessons, loss, mark whetu, Mount Everest, open heart, presence, sorrow, story, studio melange, The Fatal Game, the melange | 3 Comments »

Wander In Wonderland [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on February 1, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve re-read his email several times. Skip’s explanation of the development of the computer. Subject/Object. Noun/Verb. Items/Action. It’s a story of cause and effect. This causes that. I’ve learned more from this single email than from my very expensive graduate degree. And, it’s sent me down the rabbit hole and I am currently in a world easily as miraculous as Alice’s Wonderland.

Does the moon cause the tides? It does if you are an English-speaker. Causation is the foundation structure of the English language. An action needs an initiator. The noun is king. He kicked. The sea rocked the boat. The moon causes tides. If you speak Mandarin, the moon and the tides are inseparable, not perceived or described as separate events but as interconnected. The same dance, differentiated forms.

Where does an action begin? A consequence end? I warned you. A rabbit hole.

Our perception of the world has everything to do with the language we use to describe it. Our creating of the world has everything to do with the language we use to imagine it. In a world where actions are separate from items, verbs from nouns, this causes that, it’s easy to believe that order is separate from disorder, cosmos is separate from earth, humans are separate from nature. Death is separate from life. Is it?

Each year that passes I’ve noticed the world of written communication includes more emojis and fewer words. Attention spans are shorter – mine, too. Tweet and text. Images carries the bulk of the message. If you could see the analytics on my blog you’d note that if I use more than 600 words, you are less likely to read what I write. We are slowly moving toward ideograms and slowly away from alphabets. Whatever will we do, what might we see, when nouns and verbs blend into image? When the eyes of dedicated separation begin to see through the eyes of interconnectivity – or, as Skip says, “When actions become central.”

It’s called a Wolf Moon, I read, because wolves are particularly loud and vocal during the first months of the year. One questioner asked if the moon causes the wolves to howl. Noun/Verb. Subject/Object.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE WOLF MOON

Filed under: Language, Pattern, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: action, artistry, causation, cause and effect, communication, computer, computer language, consequence, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, death, disorder, emoji, English language, ideogram, image, interconnectivity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, life, mandarin, nature, noun, order, perception, separation, story, studio melange, subject/object, symbol, the melange, verb | Leave a comment »

See The Verb [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 24, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Random fact of the day: my waking thought this morning was about The Geography of Thought. No kidding. It’s a terrific book by Richard Nisbett. The subtitle is “How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…And Why.” Somewhere in the recesses of my brain I must have been pondering the bumper sticker we recently saw: I’m With Earth.*

One of the points made in the book, the one that permeated my dream state, is that different languages place different emphasis on different parts of speech. For instance, many Asian languages place emphasis on the verb. English speakers place the emphasis on the noun. In listening to mothers talk to their infant children, an English speaker will say, “Look at the red truck! Do you see the red truck?” An Asian mother will say, “Look at the red truck go!” Do you see the red truck go?”

Why does it matter where the emphasis lands in a language structure? Noun or verb?

The language we use shapes our thinking and seeing. It shapes basic worldviews. Earth as a noun or earth as a verb. Earth as a stand-alone-thing or earth as a moving interrelationship. These are vastly different worldviews.

This was my thought/image coming out of sleep: earth and sky. In a noun world, earth and sky are two distinctly different things. In a verb world, earth and sky are not separate things, they are verbs, actions, interplay of a dynamic relationship. In a noun world, I am also a distinctly different thing. In a verb world, earth, sky and I are not separate things, we are a dynamic inseparable relationship. We.

The bumper sticker is a declaration: I am with earth. It makes perfect sense in a noun world because it is also possible, in a perceptual world of separate things, to be against earth. Nature needs to be conquered, tamed. In a noun world, earth, once tamed, is a resource and resources are meant to be used. In a noun world, we are capable of believing that our actions have no impact on our environment. Action and environment are nouns, separate things.

In a verb world, what you do to the earth is what you do to yourself. No separation. In a perceptual world of relationship, of verbs, it is understood that your actions not only have impacts, your actions are impacts.

We woke to the news of yet another mass shooting. This one in Colorado. As usual, we know that our community and leadership will offer thoughts and prayers but nothing really – not really- will be done to address it. In a noun world, we protect the rights of the individual, the separate thing. In a verb world, there are no mass shootings. None. Violence done to one is violence done to all. In fact, more people are gunned down in the United States in a day than are killed by gun violence in Japan in a decade. The differing linguistic emphasis extends to differing understanding of rights and responsibilities.

Language matters. Where we focus matters. What we emphasize matters. The story we tell is determined by the language we use to tell it. I am with earth. Or, I am earth. I go to worship. I am worship. I seek purpose. I am purpose. Separation. Relationship. A whole philosophy of living reduced to a simple bumper sticker.

So, when we ask complex questions like, “Why can’t we do anything about gun violence?” or, “How is it possible that people in a pandemic refuse to wear masks to protect each other,” our answer is really very simple: our language makes it so.

Perhaps in a world of nouns a declaration is the best we can do. It is a step toward the middle way, a declaration of responsibility to the commons. Black Lives Matter. #MeToo. Stop Asian Hate. I’m With Earth.

*The “I’m with Earth” sticker is from the very cool company Gurus

read Kerri’s blog post about I’M WITH EARTH

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Language, Pattern, Uncategorized | Tagged: action, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, earth, focus placement, Geography of Thought, gun violence, i am with earth, iloveguru.com, impact, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, language matters, nature, noun, resource, Richard Nesbitt, separation, separation and unity, sky, verb | Leave a comment »

Ride The Lion [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 14, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

watershed the songbox copy

Let’s just say that 2020 is off to a rough start. If I was to get out my old-school label maker and slap a sticky tape descriptor on last year, on 2019, it would be the year of contention. 2020 is shaping up to be the watershed. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk.

Broken contracts [literal and metaphoric]. Broken wrists. Broken dreams. All of our presses have stopped. We are moving very, very slowly through our days. We are having long conversations about where we’ve been, our successes and failures, dreams realized and those that went to ashes in our mouths, and where we want to go from here.

Unless you are being chased by a real lion, fear is mostly a function of imagination. In the real-lion scenario, fear is a life-saver that makes world-class sprinters of us all. In every other case, sans lion, it is a made-up monster that chases. Running does no good. This chasing monster requires the opposite of the real lion: stopping, turning, and looking squarely into the eyes of your own dark imagination. The only relevant question is, “What’s wearing the mask of this monster?” Shame? Failure? What should have been? What will never be?

It is a turning point. Stopping. Breathing. Turning and staring back at your wild-eyed scare-fantasy and realizing that it’s merely a mechanism to prevent you from being where you are. Standing in this exact moment is the only place from which you can enact change. It is the single location in which you can fully, unequivocally appreciate your life. Self-made monsters always dissipate when scrutinized.

Running away casts you as both runner and lion, chaser and chased. Fear the imagined-lion, be the runner. It splits you in half. The sky is falling! The sky is falling! And what if it is not falling? What if the lion-monster chases precisely to prevent you from standing still?

It’s a vicious circle, an energy eddy, this hyper-active dark imagination. It is true, if you think about it, that an imagination that is capable of so much doom is equally capable of fixating on the light side. Ride the lion. Better yet, give it wings so the ride is uncanny and wondrous. The ultimate human choice is where we decide to place our focus.

The story we decide to tell follows the focus-choice. Standing still, the only place from which we can see the array of choices and available stories, we are once again learning, seems to be the gift of the Watershed.