anger | The Direction of Intention

Context [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 17, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The world and I reciprocate one another. The landscape as I directly experience it is hardly a determinate object; it is an ambiguous realm that responds to my emotions and calls forth feelings from me in turn.” ~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

I sometimes wonder if we are capable of presence, of being somewhere. With our faces aimed at screens, gaming or doomscrolling every few minutes, lost in Facebook or Instagram, awash in advertisements designed to makes us feel as if we are lacking, perpetually breaking news, worshiping at the biz-altar of efficiency and effectiveness. Do-more-faster. Is it any wonder that we, the citizens of the USA, lead the world in drug-use disorders?

I suspect that we are not trying to escape reality but are trying to find what, if anything, is real. Or meaningful.

“Humans are tuned for relationship. The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils—all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness.” ~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous

I had a revelation the other day about our current national mess. During my stint in software development we periodically discussed the context/content reality flip-flop. Essentially, our grandparents lived in a world in which their reality (context) was stable and consistent. They made sense of the news of the day (content) by sifting it through their mostly shared context.

We live in the opposite circumstance. Our context is fluid, volatile. With an average of 100 new emails coming in overnight, with a never-ending-rushing-social-media-stream, with tweets sending shock waves through the system, our context changes every day. Our content now defines our context. We are perpetually trying to arrive somewhere stable. We are constantly trying to find sense in the stream.

We do not sense-make together because we do not share an agreed-upon context.

It’s why we doomscroll. It’s why we have impenetrable information bubbles. It’s why we are impossibly divided. It’s why the phrase “alternative facts” wasn’t cause for hysterical laughter. It’s why there was nary-a-blip this week when, to avoid being held accountable for their participation in the nation’s demise, “…Republicans just passed a measure saying that for the rest of this congressional session, “each day…shall not constitute a calendar day…” [NYTimes.com as quoted by Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From an American, March 12, 2025].

A day is no longer a day. No-shared-context. Reality avoidance. Content defines context. It’s upside-down. It’s insanity.

My revelation? An angry people with no actual shared context are easy marks for a content creator like Fox News. Anger becomes a shared context when people are fed a steady diet of outrageous fabrications meant to exploit their fear. Anger-driven victimhood is the identity-glue that binds maga. It’s a powerful drug. There can be no other explanation for a group so willingly swallowing obvious lies, so readily and eagerly participating in their own demise, so completely and deliberately unplugged from verifiable fact. An overdose of anger gives them a shared sense of belonging. A context.

Kerri and I walk in nature to regroup. We purposefully step out of the noise. We consciously practice being somewhere instead of racing, racing to get somewhere. We return to the trail again and again to reclaim – even for a few moments – a stable context. A known. A natural rhythm.

We might do better as a nation if we turned off our devices for awhile, looked up from our screens and stepped outside. We’d do better if we took a nice walk together in nature in a place (context) that calls forth something other than anger, a context that is easily shared, a context that is undeniably real.

read kerri’s blogpost about BE

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: anger, artistry, belonging, content, context, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, doomscroll, drug use disorder, Heather Cox Richardson, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, presence, reality, shared reality, social media, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | 1 Comment »

Return To The Most Human [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 24, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

If you are like me you are seeing signs like this pop up everywhere. This version was posted in the elevator in a hospital. The first version I remember was posted at the drive-thru pharmacy. Evidently, we-the-people are angry and taking it out on each other. The collapse of civility. It’s not a surprise. Our elected leaders have always been a mirror of us just as we take on and mirror their attributes. It’s a bully feedback loop.

“Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people” ~ Martin Luther King

Lately, I’ve been working on a new play. It explores the tug-of-war between our animal and human nature. What happens when consciousness meets impulse? What is possible when reason/thought grabs the shoulders of reactivity? We know what happens when conscious thought and concern for truth is nowhere to be found. We are living it. We are compelled to post signs in elevators in an attempt to reach through the animal to find the human. We attempt to legislate decency.

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

20 told us a joke from a recovering Catholic comedian. The joke builds a hierarchy of sin as articulated by the church. The worst sin, the very worst sin? Critical thinking. It is a punchline appropriate for the white-nationalist-christian-clan, the Project 2025 crew, currently spreading fear and creating scary boogeymen across the land. In the name of smaller government they poo-poo learning, ban books, outlaw all forms of critical thinking like DEI, critical race theory, the constitution, the rule of law, you know, things like checks-and-balances…

“Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice or evil, not people” ~ Martin Luther King

In a recent podcast Ezra Klein said that, despite their bully-posturing, the current administration is weak. They know that they can’t move their agenda forward through congress so they are doing an end-run around congress. And, apparently, congress is too frightened to challenge the bully. Brute force – animal nature – is capable of dominating reason and heart for a little while. Right now, congress lacks courage. Courage comes from the Latin, “cor” which means “heart”. Our congressional leaders lack heart. Congress comes from the Latin “con” which means “together” and “gradi” which means “walk”.

It is something to hope for: Our elected leaders walking together. With heart. That’s the whole idea behind democracy. From the Greek, “dēmos”, meaning “the people” and “kratia” meaning “power” or “rule”. Rule by the people as represented by their elected officials. Not the oligarchs. Not a spray-tan-bully. Walking together. It takes courage.

“In its earliest form, “courage” meant “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart”. ~ Brene Brown

In a single month, we have been witness to incredible violence inflicted by the current administration, both on our system of government, on our citizens and the citizens of the world. Jane Goodall tells the story of a little ape who learns that banging gasoline cans together, making violent noise, would scare the other apes, momentarily making the little ape appear to be alpha. In time, the illusion faded. The community caught-on, saw through the noise. They regained their courage and stopped the little-noise-maker.

We could learn a thing or two from Jane Goodall’s story.

Do you remember a time when we had no reason to post signs in hospitals, fast food joints, and other public spaces pleading with the public to act with common courtesy? It was not so long ago that we had courage. It was not so long ago that we lived from the heart, taught our children to respect others – to respect difference. It was not so long ago that our elected leaders, despite their policy differences, had courage and fiercely protected our democratic convictions.

If our leaders no longer have the will then we must have the courage to save our democratic conviction. Walking together. Rule by the people. Courage. Telling all one’s heart.

“Return to the most human, nothing less will teach the angry spirit, the bewildered heart; the torn mind, to accept the whole of its duress, and pierced with anguish… at last, act for love.” ~ John O’Donohue

read Kerri’s blogpost about AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

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Filed under: Awakening, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday | Tagged: aggression, anger, artistry, brene brown, civility, common courtesy, courage, Critical Race Theory, critical thinking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, heart, humanity, John O"Donohue, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mahatma gandhi, martin luther king, nonviolence, reason, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

A Curious Silver Lining [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

She opened the back door and instead of the door pushing back the snow as it always does, the snow folded. It was like origami or an archivist gently turning the page of a book. To say our weather has been unusual would be an understatement – as is true everywhere. Folding snow is a curious silver lining to the fluxing cold necessary to produce it.

Yesterday I called up a bit of folklore in Rumpelstiltskin, an imp that weaves straw into gold. An illustration of the imp called to my mind Hungry Ghosts. In the canon of folkloric creations, Hungry Ghosts are currently among my favorite because I see them everywhere – especially now – in everyday life. “Desire, greed, anger and ignorance are all factors in causing a soul to be reborn as a hungry ghost because they are motives for people to perform evil deeds. The biggest factor is greed as hungry ghosts are ever discontent and anguished because they are unable to satisfy their feelings of greed.” Wikipedia

It helps me to think of the current batch of oligarchs and soul-less-politicians as Hungry Ghosts. It helps me to think that they are in anguish, unable to satisfy their feelings of greed. I see – we see – their vast ignorance, the insatiable greed that drives their inhumanity. If not now, soon they will pass on and discover that they are Hungry Ghosts. They will discover that they’ve arrived at the lowest of the low, the very rock bottom of the karmic inferno (forgive my mash-up of Buddhism and Dante). They’ve already arrived at the rock bottom of humanity (as revealed by their inhumanity), “…beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way.” No greater consciousness.

Folding snow. Hungry Ghosts. A curious silver lining, to be sure. We are surrounded by – or living through – a cautionary tale reminding us to keep intact our compassion, to hold the line of truth amidst a roaring forest fire of lies, to believe in the goodness of human spirits that understand service to others is the very thing that cultivates our greater humanity – keeping us from becoming Hungry Ghosts – and is the epicenter of a healthy community, nation, and world.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOLDING SNOW

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: anger, anguish, artistry, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, discontent, evil, fascism, folklore, greed, hungry ghost, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, oligarch, service, soul, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Puff, Puff, Poof! [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 3, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” ~ Alan Watts

I recently read an outrageous statistic. The average American by age 20, across all available media, has seen one million commercials. I can’t confirm it but a quick consult with the oracle Google, produced some equally eye-popping numbers. Regardless of the actual number, we are awash in advertisement. My favorite synonym for advertisement: puff (British, of course).

In my recent foray into software development I read that 90% of the world’s data was generated in the last two years. My particular favorite phrase describing data: units of meaning.

We are living in an angry time. It’s a vicious circle: our units of meaning are often – if not always – absent of context or continuity, rendering them isolated. They’re like asteroids hurtling through space.

People seek meaning. It is a uniquely human activity. Meaning-making requires context and continuity. Our ‘puffs’ would have us believe that we will certainly find meaning and connection if we buy what they are selling – but we soon realize that what they are selling, relative to meaning, is just that – a puff. Like me, you will never find lasting happiness in a new car or your identity in your brand of blue jeans. Perhaps you will experience satisfaction for a fleeting moment – which is roughly the lifespan of a unit of data-meaning. Is it any wonder that we are angry and grasping at any ole’ context that conspiracy theories and propaganda might provide? Anger is an expression of fear, and the fear: that we are hurtling through life without meaning.

“And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words… As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.” ~ Alan Watts

The lesson of our times (and past times): there is always a populist grifter ready to exploit anger and ignorance, making promises of meaning-fulfillment pulled from an imagined past like a rabbit from a hat. A political puff.

Sometimes I think this is why Kerri and I walk on our trails. To get quiet, to unplug from the incessant info streams, the madness of news-delivered-like-a-commercial. Puff, puff…poof. To re-enter substantial and lasting context. In nature, in the cycles we participate with and experience, we regain – and rejoin – continuity. We stop hurtling through our lives grasping for ‘puff’ fulfillment or trying to make sense of nonsense. We stand in something more tangible. Eternal.

“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.” ~ Alan Watts

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LUSH DAY

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Filed under: Awakening, Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: advertisement, alan watts, anger, artistry, context, continuity, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eternal, fear, fulfillment, grifter, hermit, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, moment, populist, Puff, story, studio melange, substantial, the melange, units of meaning | 1 Comment »

See What You See [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 7, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In the 1960’s it was called a mantra. Today, we’d call it branding: “What you see is what you see.” The mantra-brand for minimalist art. Rather than capturing an image or referencing an emotion, the minimalist desired to expose forms and materials in the pursuit of essence.

Artists are not separate from the times in which they live. The minimalist movement arose following the second world war. These artists were young men and women who, early in their lives, experienced the reality of fascism; a rhetoric of purity masking mass murder. A promise of the return to greatness with the actuality of thuggery fueled by pathological lies. The promise of greatness has never aimed so low or been more feeble.

Is it any wonder that the young artists of that time desired to expose forms and materials. To pull off the mask of the promiser and expose the essence of the message? They understood the necessity, the real human cost, of investing in an empty illusion. A delusion of past greatness that never existed in the first place. Anger is easy to exploit. Division is easy to create. Gaslight illuminates a path to nowhere.

As history tries to repeat itself and thuggery at home and worldwide is on the rise, perhaps a return to minimalism is the antidote we require. Turn off the noise. Expose the form and the materials used. Circle back to the minimalist mantra: what you see is what you see.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MINIMALISM

like. share. support. comment. expose the thought. say what you see. we thank you.

buymeacoffee is a minimalist gesture exposing the essence of your support for the artists you value.

Filed under: Art, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: anger, artistry, authoritarian, brand, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, delusion, division, essence, exploitation, fascism, form, gaslighting, illusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mantra, material, minimalism, minimalist art, pathological lie, story, studio melange, the melange, thuggery | 2 Comments »

Ready The Wings [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Yes, I’m being followed by a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow/Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow” ~ Cat Stevens, Moonshadow

An appreciation of life, no matter what comes. It is the meaning of this lyric, this song – or so I’ve read. It seems obvious. I’m having many, many conversations about loss these days. This has been an era of loss and, so the cliche’ goes, with loss new opportunity arrives. It’s true though one must move through the loss in order to arrive at the new. On the way, there is weeping and fear and anger and disorientation. Chrysalis. The trick, we are told, is about focus placement. One day we shift our eyes and see what we have instead of what we no longer possess. We move toward rather than look back.

Kerri has, for years, surrounded herself with symbols of peace. They are on our walls, on rings that she wears, on chains draped on the corner of our bathroom mirror. She draws them in the sand on the trail. A prayer for the world she desires to create. Inside and out. Since she fell, my solo-piano-playing wife has lost more than mobility in her wrists. Strange stuff is happening. Fingers that sometimes refuse to respond. Pain that shoots, seemingly from nowhere. After a photograph – a wish for the world, a peace sign in shadow – she said, “Come look at this. Look how much my finger is bending!” Strange stuff.

What is most remarkable about this shadow is, a year ago, it would have been cause for frustration. A reminder of loss. Full of fear. Today, it was a curiosity. She looks back, she looks forward. Each day she writes lyrics and poetry and wisdoms. She hums the music running through her mind and heart and, sometimes, she dances. Standing at the crossroads of what was and what is to become. Peace replaces pain. All in good time. Good time. Wings readying to unfurl.

[peace. this is one of my favorite pieces of Kerri’s]

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEACE

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Body, Creativity, Gratitude, KS Friday, Love, Perspective | Tagged: adaptation, anger, artist, artistry, AS IT IS, CAt Stevens, chrysalis, composer, crossroads, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fear, focus, focus placement, frustration, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, lyric, moonshadow, pain, peace, poetry, prayer, seeing, solo piano, story, studio melange, the melange, wisdom | Leave a comment »

Throw Some Light [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 19, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.” ~Jerzi Kosinski

Out of seeming chaos, pattern is found. And, from pattern, chaos is born. It’s a creative cycle. I spent some time this week swimming up the river of systems theory, synthesis instead of analysis. The means of production in an agrarian economy; the means of production in an industrial economy; the means of production in an information economy. The relationship between the methods and materials, the behaviors and the purpose, systems take on a life and energy of their own. The toil to feed more people led to toil to automate to relieve manual toil, led to automation to relieve intellectual toil, will lead to… we can only imagine. And, we do imagine: imagination is the relationship between the present and the future. Stand back and you’ll see, amidst the mess and chaos, we attempt to evoke a better world.

It is not a coincidence that a banana taped to the wall is considered art in an age in which Tucker Carlson is considered a source of truth. Ironically, in the golden age of information, we are befuddled by vapid minds and empty suits. Bananas and duct tape. Shock without substance can only evoke anger and will illuminate nothing. Anger for anger’s sake can only destroy. There’s no nourishment in all of this anger candy but it is certain to lead to national-diabetes and rot our teeth.

Marcel Duchamp, at the beginning of the last century, entered a toilet as sculpture in an art exhibit. He lived and worked in the age of industry at the threshold of mass production. His gesture had purpose and aesthetic framing. What was formerly craft and individual creation was now stamped into being on an assembly line. That’s old news to us but, in his time, it was a shocking revelation. A world war was raging. The collision of old practices meeting new technology was playing out on the battlefield. His exhibit entry evoked questions about loss and gain in the dawn of a new world order.

Sometimes it seems that we are spiraling into chaos. Polynices and Eteocles, brothers who will not compromise, kill each other in a battle for dominance. All lose. A father’s curse fulfilled. In our great art, the work that evokes truth and throws light to our hearts and minds, we have all the guidance we need – if we choose to pay attention. Yesterday I wrote to Mike that it seems we will need to walk the path of Romeo & Juliet: “Two households, both alike in dignity…”will lose their children to violence rather than sit down at a table and earnestly talk. And, when it is too late, when the primary is lost, the formerly indignant will sit and mourn together.

Chaos. Pattern. Sometimes the pattern is chaos. The children die. The mother takes her son across state lines with a big gun and pretends, after he murders people with his big gun, that his crime was self-defense. Bananas taped to a wall. A judge who broadcast to all that a guilty verdict might trigger his decision for a mistrial. He’ll just wait and see if he agrees with the jury. So, here we are. Lady Justice takes off her blindfold and takes sides. Is there a more profound statement of ethical collapse? In the age of information, misinformation gets equal billing; anger-candy.

What might Duchamp put on his pedestal today? What might evoke an honest conversation, throw some light and love, on what is lost and what is gained?

read Kerri’s blog post about FIRE AND SMOKE

Kerri’s music is available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Love, Metaphor, Pattern, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: aarp, anger, Artistic guidance, artistry, bananas and duct tape, behavior, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, Fox News, Greek Tregedy, information, justice, Kenosha, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge, Marcel Duchamp, misinformation, Oedipus, romeo and juliet, story, studio melange, systems, the melange, trial, tucker carlson | Leave a comment »

Avoid The Vortex [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 4, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

I miss my friend dearly. We spoke on the phone for almost two hours this morning. It had been too long since our last check-in. He said something very pertinent to our times. Although he does not believe in the devil, by way of metaphor he said this: The devil’s job is to pull us into a negative vortex. And, these days, the devil is winning.

I am guilty of being pulled into the angry vortex and his caution hit home.

Yesterday, Kerri’s entire catalogue of posts was blocked by Facebook. That’s 130 weeks times 5-posts-a-week = 650 posts. We have no idea why. We read FB’s new Community Standards, the reasons they give for blocking content, and can’t find evidence of a single violation. It’s almost a mystery.

Almost. A few minutes before her posts were wiped from FB, someone visited our business page, scanned Kerri’s blog-posts from last week, and alerted FB that they were spam. Coincidence is not always correspondence however, in this case, one action – the alerts – triggered the other action – the blocking of Kerri’s posts. It was an intentional act and not an accident.

In this age of information there is, of course, no person to call, no help line or customer service agent. There is a firewall, a form, a void or black hole, that accepts feedback. The feedback form, however, informs givers of feedback [human beings] that their feedback will not be read.

I scratch my head at the existential drama I am currently living. Sarte. No Exit.

The Facebook-content-scrubbing may be temporary. It may not. The blog-posts may be reviewed or they might not. There’s no one to ask and there’s no next-level-information available. I wrote about this a few months ago, the good-bots at FB suddenly sent Kerri copyright violation warnings on her recordings. She wrote, recorded, and owns the copyrights to all of her music and albums. FB now blocks her from sharing her own music. Her protests went into the same black hole as her blog-post-feedback.

The intelligence is, at best, artificial.

People are angry. It takes a special kind of anger to systematically go through someone’s posts and mark them as spam. They had to jump my posts to reach Kerri’s so it seems obvious that the anger is personal though the none-the-less feeble. Any poltroon can hit a button; it takes a bit of courage to give voice, especially when it is in opposition.

The vortex may be attempting to suck the light from all of us but I doubt the devil will win. Life is not a win/lose game. It moves. It changes. Day follows night.

My friend said something else that I found hopeful in these dark times: out of ashes, out of chaos, the phoenix always rises. That is important to remember. It is best to stand still when all things seem like they are spinning, spinning out of control.

read Kerri’s blog post about SHHHHH! [it’s possible that her posts may never reappear so, if you enjoy reading Kerri’s blog, consider subscribing. I know we publish waaay too much but, with the minor exception of us, no one reads everything that we write.]

Filed under: Edges, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: anger, black hole, blocking, censor, chaos, coward, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, devil, Facebook, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, phoenix rising, poltoon, silencing, voice, voiceless, void | Leave a comment »

Check Your Sources [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on March 25, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

red and blue america copy

When I hung up the phone I turned to Kerri and said, “I have to make peace with the fact that Fox News is going to kill my parents. I have to make peace that Fox will inevitably kill someone I love.”

I remember writing research and opinion papers in high school. Beyond giving shape to thought, the lesson was about citation. Know your sources. Know the difference between a fact and an opinion. Perspective is just that, a point of view. When the internet roared into being, as a teacher, I hammered the same nail into my students, “In a world in which anyone can assert anything, it is vitally important, more so now than ever, to discern what has merit and what does not. You have to protect yourself and know what is perspective and what is fact.”

An educated person asks questions about what they are told. An educated person asks questions about what they are telling themselves.

A three minute Google search of media bias rankings will provide an number of links to follow and all issue relatively consistent reports: there isn’t a media watch agency in the world that considers Fox News a source of news. It is ranked as a solid source of right wing propaganda. Sifted information with an agenda. And yet, so many of the people I love have rooted their hard perspective in this flimsy pseudo soil. The rankings will also point the curious to news outlets that are more neutral and fact based.

If it is so easy to discern, to check whether or not it is drek that you swallow, why are so few adults interested in doing what every middle school student is taught as an essential?

Fact is proclaimed as false news. “Alternative facts” are elevated as truth. Anger is strummed in a fearful populace. Absolute loyalty is demanded for tribal membership (do not question…). Conspiracy theories create a wall of white noise punctuated by cheer inducing blame games and name calling. Deep state bogeymen and enemies-enemies everywhere. Feed the anger. Hype the fear. Think no thoughts in the face of blaring discrepancies. An unassailable thought-free-firewall is firmly erected in the Fox-votary.

From outside the Fox bubble we ask, “Are they really that gullible?” From inside the Fox bubble, they ask, “Are they really that blind?”

The divide is complete. Two warring narratives. And so we are conquered. The pandemic does not care whether we are in a bubble or not.

Outside the Fox bubble we practice social distance. We are told that it is the only tool we have in the box – in the absence of adequate testing – to slow the spread. We see the comparison data and recognize that, given the hubris in the other narrative, that the USA is on track to repeat the horror that is now overrunning Italy. We listen to the the CDC and the WHO for our information. We see Spain converting ice rinks into morgues. We challenge the mind numbing notion put forward by a feckless president that this is “like the flu.”

The peace I need to make? The people inside the Fox bubble, many people that I love, are not gullible or stupid – not by a long shot. But, they’ve forgotten what they learned as a baseline to being an educated, curious and responsible adult: check your sources. They wouldn’t wholeheartedly buy the story of a used car salesman. They’d check out the car before they bought it. In this day and age, the same rule applies to news. They are making a choice.

Blind belief is a lemmings game. Human beings have the capacity to open their eyes and to question.

read Kerri’s blog post about RED AND BLUE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: anger, blue, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divide, Fox News, info-bubbles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lemming, lies, narratives, propaganda, red, story | 2 Comments »

Find The First Principle [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on March 9, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

anger copy

I don’t know about you but the moments in my life that I am the least proud are the moments that I was steeped in anger. In anger, I have said things that I didn’t mean and done things that I now regret. There is no real strength to be found in anger. There is only blindness and weakness.

We live in the great age of the misnomer. In anger we slap a label of virtue on the mad face of vice.

Step outside and you’re likely to be trampled by a stampeding herd of verbal misdirection. If your brain is not pulped by rage and you are curious enough to question, you just might survive the stampede. But do not think you are safe! That roaring that you hear is nothing less than an avalanche of obfuscation.

Occam would have a field day using his razor on phrases like “alternative truth.” What are the odds that a lie is a lie and not an alternative at all? He would roll his eyes at us. “What entices you, ” he would ask, after slicing the alternative from the truth, “to willingly swallow so much word-gumbo?”

The answer is easy and readily apparent: anger. We are an angry nation getting angrier. Angry people rarely ask questions. Anger and Reason are never seen sitting at the same table. Angry people are especially gullible, easily whipped into an frenzy, and led by the nose into concocted fights. People are made angry in order to focus their blood shot eyes on made-up-divides. There is nothing that bonds an Us like the perception of an invading Them.

If you survive the avalanche of obfuscation, duck, cover, and roll as the squadron of conspiracy theories are certainly swooping in to drop their fantastic story-bombs. Misdirection. Obfuscation. Cries of “Hoax!” and “Witch hunt!”

Anger, so we’re told, is a secondary emotion. It is a cover-up emotion, a protection against feeling the primary thing, like fear or loss. Anger is what happens when the metaphoric dog is backed into the corner. It’s better to bark and snap than to feel shame or sadness or otherwise vulnerable, especially in public. It’s easier to punch, to blame, to rage than it is to deal with the first principle.

What we-the-people have in common, our first principle, is suffocating under all of this anger.

Sharpening his razor, Occam might ask, “What would happen if you dealt with what you were really feeling instead of covering it up with so much fury? What’s beneath the anger? Deal with that.”

History teaches that when a leader fans anger into a red hot flame, the purpose is to forge the gullible into a thoughtless mob. These are the necessary bellows: obfuscation, misdirection, conspiracy theories a-go-go. Blame. Blame. Blame.

Mobs are not really strong. They are flashes in a vapid leader’s pan. They return to their strength when the fire burns itself out, when their eyes clear, and they once again become capable of asking, “What’s going on?”

Anger and strength – despite what the stampeding herd would like you to believe – are not the same thing. One requires the presence of mind and clear sight – and the other is defined by blindness and the absence of thought.

read Kerri’s blog post about ANGER AS PROXY

Filed under: Edges, Identity, Random, Rants, Uncategorized | Tagged: anger, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, first principles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Occam's Razor, strength | Leave a comment »

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