childishness | The Direction of Intention

A Growing Up [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 27, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” ~ James Baldwin

It’s always been dangerous to be a jester. It’s akin to working on electrical lines in the rain. Rarely does power like to be contradicted or hear the truth or be the target of a joke – but it is never-the-less the role of the comedian, the artist, to strip away the illusion. To tease forward the truth. Throughout time despots have tried in vain to silence the voice of the jester, the song of the composer, the vision of the painter. Hitler. Pol Pot. Stalin. Kim Jong Un. And now? Sadly, we have produced one of our own. Take heart: artists are servants of love while despots are prisoners of rage, and, in the end, love is always bigger than hate. It is possible for a period of time to silence the individual artist but the love of truth always transcends the volcano of hate. “Truth will out.” (William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)

Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel will be making us laugh long after this rage has burned itself out.

A truth? Our nation, my nation, refuses to grow up. It turns its back on its history. It runs from its shadow. It is like the spouse of an alcoholic pretending that all is good. It is akin to a parent who abuses a teacher who dared give their child a well-deserved failing grade. Appearance is all.

Love is substance.

Proof of our Peter Pan nation lives in the White House. He has surrounded himself with a band of lost boy pirates. The despot-wanna-be is not an aberration, he and his pirates are the ultimate expression of entrenched immaturity. They are boys who swear the dog ate their homework, responsible for nothing, responsible to no one. They do not care to compete, earn or work for betterment yet desire every trophy for their shelf. They gild themselves like the ballroom. They celebrate the vapid and court superficiality. They somehow believe 19th century nonsense that whiteness makes the man. They build their clubhouse high in a tree and post a sign: No Gurls Aloud! Their skins are thin, their intentions self-serving.

It is why artists are such a threat. They see the childishness and make fun of the lost boys vapid antics.

In such an immature playpen, there is no love, there is no capacity for love: only a competition for toys. “Mine, mine, mine!”

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” ~ James Baldwin

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART LEAF