discernment | The Direction of Intention

A Very Real Question [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 4, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

In the hiker/outdoor community there is a fundamental principle articulated in two similar mantras: First, “Leave no trace”. Second, “Leave it better than you found it”. Tom used to say it this way: “Take care of your own trash; don’t leave it for other people to deal with.” He was speaking about more than plastic bottles and candy bar wrappers. All variations of the theme are good rules to live by.

We are merely visitors to this planet. We do not own it or control it. Ours is to care for it and leave it better for those who follow. Ideally that is what it means to live in community: care for others, care for the environment. Consider the long and short-term impact of our actions. We are stewards.

Consciousness of impact. Acting with care and intention to “leave it better than we found it” requires a simple fundamental skill: the capacity to address what is actual, to discern between what is real and what is blind-belief.

This is what is actual:

“Ten of the eleven U.S. recessions between 1953 and 2020 began under Republican presidents. Of these, the most statistically significant differences are in real GDP growth, unemployment rate change, stock market annual return, and job creation rate.” Wikipedia: US Economic Performance by Presidential Party.

The operative word in the wiki post is “real”. Real numbers. Real growth. Real job creation. Real science.

Our current leadership (I use the term loosely) on every front is waging a war against what is real. It is the reason US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfer was just fired; she reported real employment numbers and the sitting republican president, rather than deal with the actual impact of his real policy failures, killed the messenger.

With stock market losses, free-falling jobs creation rate, a shrinking economy, a historic shift of wealth from the poorest to the already morbidly wealthy, the tariff tsunami about to hit…in only six months the bustling economy that the republicans inherited from the previous democratic president, called the Envy of the World, is rapidly disintegrating.

In the real world it would seem prudent to buckle up for yet another recession engineered by a republican president, eleven of twelve. This one bodes to be a whopper. It does not take long for trash to foul an ecosystem.

Not only will this republican administration not leave the nation better than they found it, in their war against what is real they seem singularly dedicated to looting it with nary a concern for those who will follow. Like all republican administrations in the past 80 years, they will leave the messy trash from their gluttonous party for others to clean up.

We are now faced with a very real and sobering question: will our democracy survive this reckless trashing?

read Kerri’s blogpost about LEAVE IT BETTER

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, community, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, discernment, economy, ecosystem, erika mcentarfer, GDP growth, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, principle, real, reality, recession, stewards, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Know The Difference [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Public education does not serve a public. It creates a public. And in creating the right kind of public, the schools contribute toward strengthening the spiritual basis of the American Creed. That is how Jefferson understood it, how Horace Mann understood it, how John Dewey understood it, and in fact, there is no other way to understand it. The question is not ‘Does or doesn’t public schooling create a public?’ The question is ‘What kind of public does it create?'” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School.

It’s important to know the difference.

In the forests and fields through which our walking path winds, there is Cow Parsnip, Queen Anne’s Lace, and Hemlock. All sport umbrella-clusters of tiny white flowers. They are all members of the carrot family. To the untrained eye – like mine – they look similar. They are dangerously different.

Socrates was sentenced to death and was made to drink Hemlock. It’s very toxic. Queen Anne’s Lace is edible and used medicinally. Cow Parsnip can be eaten “if handled properly,” however a combination of sap and sunlight can cause a painful rash.

It is important to know the difference. It is why education is so important. It is why asking questions, stoking curiosity and looking deeper – beyond the superficial – is invaluable. The point of education, as Neil Postman reminds us, is not to get a better job, it is to be a well-rounded human being capable of making informed decisions.

“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.”

Republicans since Reagan have been actively undermining our public schools. Cutting budgets, hyper-emphasizing testing (answer-driven rather than question-inspiring), and waging a foxy campaign against “the woke,” a term referring to people who are curious enough to question what they are being told – a skill useful in learning. The demonizing of education and the educated has without doubt led us to this moment: a gullible, angry and easily distracted citizenry. I almost wept the day the young man, an expectant father, told me that he was going to home school his child because he didn’t want his son’s head to be filled with “any of those crazy ideas” that they teach in the public schools. He didn’t want his boy to be woke.

I wanted to tell that young man that democracy is an idea. So is fascism and communism and authoritarianism. It’s important to know the difference.

The fox and Republicans have been for years weaponizing the term “socialism”, an accusation they level when their wealth is threatened by those who question why taxation is unfair, who ask why Republicans cheer when government creates programs uplifting corporate America but snarl when government creates programs that uplift private citizens. Socialism is an idea, too. Asking questions, protecting civil rights, and believing in the promise of democracy is not socialism. It takes some study and questioning to know the difference.

There’s a reason that the cartoon symbol for insight is a light bulb illuminating brightly over a character’s noggin. Letting in the light.

Discernment. Distinction. Knowing the difference between indoctrination and education. Knowing the difference between character and corruption, value and vice, wisdom and hogwash. Knowing how to discern news from propaganda would seem to be essential – democracy-saving. Life saving.

And so, here we are, awash in a cult movement called MAGA, enabled by a feckless Republican Congress, that worships incompetence and promotes ignorance. It shields itself against even the most basic of questions and eschews responsibility for, well, anything (blame is their game). It howls in indignation at the very thought of learning. It is a celebration of the dim-bulb. Drinkers of toxic hemlock, totally incapable of discerning the difference between the deadly and the medicinal, the truth and a lie.

“Because we are imperfect souls, our knowledge is imperfect. The history of learning is an adventure in overcoming our errors. There is no sin in being wrong. The sin is in our unwillingness to examine our own beliefs, and in believing that our authorities cannot be wrong.” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DISCERNMENT

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Filed under: Education, Flawed Wednesday | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, difference, discernment, ideas, ignorance, incompetence, insight, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Neil Postman, questioning, responsibility, schools, story, studio melange, The End of Education, the melange | 4 Comments »

The Baseline [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on April 26, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It is the challenge of our times: discerning what is real and what is not. We lack a baseline for truth.

Photographs used to be proof. Video and audio clips were once incontestable. No more.

We live in bubbles of outrage fueled by easy misinformation. Journalism has morphed into entertainment that amps-up the outrage. Fuels the division. Manufactured division is probably our baseline. Our shared truth.

As MM recently wrote, attributing some of our lack of discernment to, “a toxic level of the willing suspension of disbelief required for the mass consumption of “reality television”. After all, reality tv has nothing to do with reality. The act of pointing a camera at something changes the basic nature of the event into a performance. We behave differently on camera than we do off-camera. Reality television is not real just as “truth social” has nothing to do with truth. We are drowning in misnomers. We are lost in our branding.

MAGA world likes to point at 47 and call him a businessman. That, of course, is a role he played on television. In reality, off-camera, he’s driven his companies into bankruptcy six times. There’s an entire industry of media apologists and spin doctors dedicated to painting lipstick on this pig, committed to torturing cowboy-sense out of his dangerous nonsense, his incessant lies, his grift.

In the absence of discernment, conspiracy theories grow like so much mold. Many in this nation without question (or the capacity to question) swallow swill and call it sugar. Heavily addicted to outrage, fed a steady diet of an anger-drug by our media, we are rendered incapable of shared truth and impervious to common (shared) sense. And, sadly, fact-checking seems to take too much effort.

We eschew discernment.

We are in desperate need of Occam’s razor: “a guiding principle in logic and philosophy that suggests when faced with multiple explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest one is usually the best. It emphasizes the importance of minimizing unnecessary assumptions or complexities when seeking an explanation.”

The simplest explanation: “from 1981 to 2021, $50 trillion moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.” The minimum wage hasn’t risen since 2009. Manufactured division, divided as we are in our media-fueled bubbles of outrage, keeps us easily distracted from our actual antagonists.

Perpetually seeing red prohibits us from seeing the rest of the color-sense-spectrum, prohibits us from discernment rooted in a baseline of shared truth. It’s a fact: 90% of us grow poorer and poorer as the 1% openly trashes our democracy to give themselves a tax cut and a guaranteed cheap labor force. Is it no wonder that we are outraged?

Outrage should be our baseline. Just not focused at each other.

read Kerri’s blogpost about REALITY

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, baseline, branding, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discernment, division, fact, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, misnomer, Occam's Razor, reality, reality tv, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | Leave a comment »

Face It [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 7, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore.” ~ Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

Given the collapsing farm markets with the annihilation of USAID, tariffs imposed on our allies, with Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security in the DOGE crosshairs, the dedication of tax dollars to prop up crypto-currency, the Department of Education on the chopping block…the folks in my bubble ask this question each and every day: “How bad does it have to get before they realize they’ve been had?”

I, myself, have often asked this question. Today, on our trail, as we watched the sun struggle to burn through the clouds, I came to a blindingly obvious realization: consistently discarding reality is the single requirement necessary to support the despot-wannabe. Consider all that had to be ignored: rapist, felon, insurrectionist, an estimated 461,000 excess deaths from a bumbling response to the pandemic, pathological liar, twice impeached, rated among the worst presidents in our history…This is a short list of a very long, long catalogue of reality-to-disregard. In other words, the red-hats will never realize that they’ve been had because they would rather swallow a fire hose of “alternative facts” than plug into substantive reality.

I understand the desire, the hope that our family members and fox-hypnotized community members will reclaim their capacity to discern fact from fantasy but I am now convinced that we should stop waiting or hoping or investing any energy in trying to reach them. We need to stop ignoring the reality that they have no interest in fact or data or verifiable truth. They simply do not care. They simply do not want to care. To borrow a phrase from Stephen Colbert, they are so far down the “stupid hole” that no amount of rope will reach them.

We should also stop waiting for members of the Republican party to honor their oath to the Constitution. They, too, are engaged in a fantasy world of “hear no evil, see no evil.” They are studied apologists for every outrage. If rape was not a bridge-too-far, if colluding with Russia is not a deal-breaker, if the tyrannical boast about “getting things done” without the participation of Congress doesn’t set off every constitutional alarm bell in their caucus, then there is no desecration that they will not swallow, excuse or justify.

A few nights ago, in commencing his tariffs on our allies, a move that will further wreck the farm economy and our alliances, the tawny tyrant tweeted for farmers to “Have fun.”

“Of course he wrote that,” I thought. Amidst all the fun that farmers are about to have, I am certain of one reality: when they lose their farms they’ll blame Biden or Obama or the woke or the Democrats or DEI for their pain because they’ll never turn away from the fox-cult and face the fact that they’ve been had.

“Been had” is an informal idiom that means to be tricked, cheated, or deceived by someone.

reality (noun): the world or the state of things as they actually exist.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about REALITY

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Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: alternative facts, artistry, authoritarian, been had, blame, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discernment, fact, fantasy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reality, story, studio melange, taking stock, tariffs, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, truth, USAID | 1 Comment »

A Moral Center [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on November 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was grateful for the meme. It gave me simple language, a shorthand, for something I was wrestling to articulate: We are not having a difference of opinion. We are having a difference of morality.

I wonder that it took a meme to open my eyes. This in not about information bubbles or dueling points-of-view or fact-checked-information.

We are on the eve of an election. This election is unlike any other in our lives. The choice before us eclipses policy differences. On the ballot is democracy or not-democracy. A constitutional republic or an autocracy.

The maga-candidate sows division, darkness and grievance. He is a pathological liar. He is obsessed with retribution. He vows to use the military to silence “the enemy within”. He promises to arrest his opponents. Last week he suggested a firing squad for Liz Cheney. In a multicultural nation, a nation of immigrants, he promises mass deportations.

This is not empty rhetoric. As we’ve learned from his overthrow of Roe, he will do what he says. He has a Heritage Foundation plan called Project 2025 to dismantle our democracy. He disavowed it when public knowledge of his embrace of this extreme fascist blueprint hurt his chances for election. It is his milksop pattern: by pretending he has no knowledge he abdicates responsibility for his words and actions. It is a damning statement of his lack of character. It is a characteristic of an authoritarian narcissist.

What is also a damning statement of character is to vote for such a man. To turn a blind eye to all that he has said, all that he has done, all the lies that he has told, is a statement of our character.

Presidential historian Jon Meacham recently reminded us that within the spirit of the Constitution lives the character of our leaders – and also the character of the led. Our national character. “Out of many, one” is more than a quaint Latin phrase printed on our currency.

A character check: compare the maga-candidate’s daily mantra, “I have no knowledge” with the sign Harry S. Truman proudly displayed on the resolute desk: The buck stops here.

A vote for the maga-candidate is literally a vote to suspend the Constitution (his words). It is a vote to suspend our national character. It is a vote absent of a moral center.

We choose our leaders as a reflection of ourselves. It is why this election is unlike any other in our lives. The image the maga-candidate reflects back to us is at best repugnant. It is empty of character. It is the opposite of our nation’s identity.

If you see yourself in this man, a misogynist, xenophobe, racist, filled with rage and retribution…we are having something much more profound, much more serious than a difference of opinion.

We have a difference of morality.

Decency matters. Conduct matters. Language matters. Character matters. Principles matter. Intentions matter. Discerning the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad behavior, matters.

It’s the spirit living in our Constitution. It’s the character our leaders ought to reflect back to us because it’s the character we should demand from our leaders.

And so we vote.

Democracy or not-democracy.

Will we live and act from a moral center, striving to fulfill the promise of a more perfect union, or will we throw it away and spiral into a fascist void?

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE ELECTION OF OUR LIVES

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Filed under: Edges, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, character, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decency, democracy, discernment, division, e pluribus unum, Harry S. Truman, Jon Meacham, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Liz Cheney, moral center, moral compass, morality, principles, Project 2025, story, studio melange, The buck stops here, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, unity, vote | 1 Comment »

Where It Ends [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Today is the day when hoaxsters and jokesters and pranksters abound. It’s the unofficial-official national day of the trickster.

Historically on this day it’s best to doubt everything that you are told, to check the sources of your information. To join in the joking and let off some steam with a bit of harmless mischief.

It’s much harder in this day-and-age since everyday is April fools day! The mischief is not harmless. With so many dedicated conspiracy theorists running amok, shysters selling bibles, serial liars celebrated, vapid minds taken seriously, it’s difficult to tell where the fool’s day begins and where it ends. It’s tough to know where the fools begin and where they end.

So, on this day as on all others, it’s a best practice to doubt everything that you are told [as a rule of thumb, it’s not a bad practice everyday to doubt everything that you think!], to religiously check the sources of your information and to check the sources of information promoted as religious.

Fools and tricksters are meant to make us open our eyes; to step back and take ourselves less seriously. To help us discern between the sacred and the profane. They are meant to shock the system when the system begins to believe that it’s “all that.” They are meant to help us laugh at ourselves.

Play safe out there. Have fun. It is my deepest wish that we might lighten up ever so slightly and learn to chuckle at our foibles. I know, I know…pie in the sky. First we must learn to distinguish between a foible and a strength, a truth and a lie, a joke and a virtue, an ignoramus and a learner, propaganda and news.

Until then, we are all destined to be April’s fools.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOOLS

[Christopher Wool’s painting, Fool, at the Milwaukee Art Museum]

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: April Fools Day, artistry, communication, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discern, discernment, doubt, foible, fool, joke, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lighten up, mischief, profane, propaganda, Sacred, story, strength, studio melange, the melange, Trickster, truth, virtue | 3 Comments »

Honor The Error [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Art is human. Error is human. Art is error.” ~ David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear

I adore all three parts of this syllogism. Just don’t ask me if the reasoning is inductive or deductive since the three characters in the play are suspiciously unreasonable: Art, Humans, and Error. Applying reason to the unreasonable seems dubious for the get-go. In a world of rationalizing the irrational, who cares if the path is general to specific or vice-versa?

We made Christmas dinner at Craig’s house last night. Since he is nose-to-the-grindstone trying to make a career from his music, we talked about what he is experiencing. What he is learning. “It’s hard,” he said. Kerri smiled, knowingly. Yes. The music industry is Hard. Art-making is a joy. Making a viable career of art-making is akin to pushing a rock up a steep hill and never reaching the top. Sisyphus. No joy. Despite common stereotypes, no one works harder than artists-with-a-passion. “Talent and hard work is no guarantee that you’ll make it,” he said, sharing a recent revelation.

Trial and error. I’m currently writing a play and each day I remind myself of John Guare’s famous observation: you have to write ten bad pages to arrive at one good page. In other words, error making is the path. Any master craftsperson can tell you that. Make enough errors and you’ll eventually develop a wee-bit-of-discernment. What works. What does not. Discernment does not stop the error-making, it embraces it. It uses it.

I asked Craig if his definition of “good” had changed in the many months that he’s been producing and performing music. What is good work now relative to good work last year? His answer tickled me. His observation is ubiquitous to all creative pursuits. What seemed good last year often looks like doggerel this year. “I can’t believe I released that track,” he said. It’s a very good sign. He’s stacking his errors. He’s developing discernment. That, too, is a life-long pursuit, a steep climb with no top. Van Gogh looked back at his early work and wrinkled his nose.

So hope-full. The courage to follow an inner imperative. Honoring an undeniable impulse makes no sense. Intuition-listening. Eschewing illusions like “perfection” for a more gritty heart-filled error-strewn path. A more realistic human path, riddled with blunders and happy accidents. Now, isn’t that a lovely paradox! So honest. So art-full.

Kerri asked, “What does this post have to do with the pink ornament?” My answer: “These are the very pink thoughts I hang every day on my thought-tree.”;-)

read Kerri’s blogpost about PINK ORNAMENT

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buymeacoffee is an error filled path that leads to appreciation of the very flawed artists you appreciate.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Flawed Wednesday, Intuition, Language | Tagged: art, Art and fear, artistry, blunder, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deductive, discernment, error, happy accident, heart, hope, human, inductive, joy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, music industry, paradox, perfection, reasoning, sisyphus, story, studio melange, syllogism, the melange, trial and error, unreasonable | 4 Comments »

Keep Your Nickel [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The second part of the quotes reads like this: “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” It’s another way of saying, “Be in the moment.”

Being in your moment is harder that it sounds. Lately I’ve been pondering two Buddhist practices that came by way of Quadzilla. First, develop the capacity to discern between the fear raging inside and what’s actually happening outside. Unless there’s a tiger chasing you, the fear is most-likely manufactured. Second, learn to discern between what-you-feel and the story you layer on top of what you feel. Feel the feeling, chuck the story. Develop these two practices of discernment and arrive at equanimity: “mental calmness”, the ability to observe without evaluating.

The first part of the quote reads: “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Each time I scroll through the news-of-the-day I hear Tom’s voice in my head: “When I was a kid and the circus came to town I paid a nickel to go into the tent to see the ‘freak show.’ Cows with two heads, etc. Now, all I need to do is watch what’s on tv.” In his final years, Tom retreated to his ranch and spent his time cutting the grass and tending the land. He watched baseball games. For a time I was concerned with his isolation but now I understand it completely. He was a deeply sensitive man, a gifted theatre artist, and rather than grow numb to the “freak show,” to try and make sense of the sense-less, he put his hands in the soil. He watched the sunrise and sunset. He found his health in the quiet place beyond the sickness of the society.

Pasting the quote back together in proper order: “It’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” ~ Krishnamurti

The lessons keep coming. Late in life Tom made the choice to keep his nickel and stay clear of the world concocted inside the tent. The world inside the tent is manipulated. It’s meant to rile, to confuse. He discerned between where to place his focus and where not to place his focus. Stay out of the tent. Focus on the soil. The movement of the sun. Family. Ancestry. Helping. Chopping wood. Carrying water. The real stuff.

Outside the tent, outside the made-up-horror-story, there’s no reason to evaluate [to judge]. It’s another way of saying “Appreciate your moment.”

r ead Kerri’s blogpost about KEEP YOUR HEAD UP

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, circus tent, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discernment, focus, focus placement, freak show, health, intelligence, jiddu Krishnamurti, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, neutral, observation, observe, presence, sense, sense making, sick society, society, story, studio melange | 1 Comment »

Define It [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 7, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Dangerously soft-hearted. Derogatory. Informal.” Thus, the great book of words begins its definition of Bleeding heart. It’s no wonder we’re value-confused. Poke around the word “compassionate” and you’ll find a string of synonyms that are soft-hearted without the informal-derogatory in the mix: sympathetic, pitying, caring, understanding, empathetic…

Qualities to be admired.

If I care for you, if I feel your pain, if I consider your feelings, if I make space for your grief, if I feel sadness for your suffering…am I dangerously-soft-hearted or caring? The associated verb that pops up again and again is “to feel”. The portal to standing in another person’s shoes is through feeling.

We caution our little tykes not to let their emotions cloud their judgments. It’s good advice when understood that emotion…feelings…are necessary to arrive at sound judgement. Mind and heart are indivisible dance partners. Separating the two is a recipe for psychosis. And meanness.

Does compassion cloud or clarify? In the Christian tradition a bleeding heart, the bleeding heart, is the spirit that nourishes. “The salvation of humanity.”

Empathy is an epicenter of artistry. Love is a word of the heart, soft or otherwise.

It’s quite a mix of meanings! I suppose that’s why the wise advice found in all wisdom traditions is to find the middle way. “Balance” as a Buddhist might recommend. “Get neutral” as divemaster Terry instructed. Parcival; pierce the veil with the arrow aimed straight through the middle. There, the grail is found.

A bleeding heart is a plant, too. Beautiful and it always evokes a sweet sigh from Kerri. Life giving. Instant presence. Now, isn’t that an apt example of a spirit that nourishes? Try to find that in a dictionary!

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read Kerri’s blogpost about BLEEDING HEARTS

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Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, balance, bleeding heart, caring, compassion, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discernment, emotions, empathy, feelings, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, middle way, presence, spirit, story, studio melange, sympathy, the melange, values | 1 Comment »

Turn Around And Look [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 20, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

One little line gives reference to the whole. The horizon line. It is how we naturally – visually – orient in space. It is a baseline of perception. It’s the beginning of discernment.

It is a line that disappeared.

Among other things, art is a reflection of its time. In the past century, art leapt into the abstract. We are “post-modern”. Expressions of personal fantasy rule over community truth, a breaking apart of shared ideals, instant doubt of objective theories…we are mirrored in post-modern art. What is art? What is it not? There’s not a whit of agreement to be found.

General distrust is the beating heart of the post-modern ideal. Division, aggression, tribalism, conspiracy…are its blossoms. Our children perform active-shooter-drills in school; a performance we shudder to attend while our leaders smile and look the other way. Post-modernism at its finest. The absence of a baseline.

Shared truth, group trust, community…requires an undeniable horizon line.

What is up? What is down? What has value? What does not? What has merit? What is undeserving? There is a line. Where is it?

Walking through the antique mall, Brad and I discussed chatGPT. I’m playing with it; he’s using it in his work. It’s raising some very big questions. The questions are not new. They are the next step in a series of questions people have been asking for the past 30 years: what is true? A photograph was once proof that something happened. That hasn’t been true for a few decades. A video was once proof an experience occurred. That is no longer true. News – a word that once implied the accurate reporting of an event. No more. No horizon line.

Brad and I turned our discussion to a sorely missing quality in our times: discernment. In the absence of a horizon line, people will – and do – believe anything. We speculated that, with the introduction of chatGPT into our world, perhaps discernment will once again become important. Perhaps the complete absence of a truth-anchor will turn us toward a common center and require us to look at each other, to seek and restore general trust. The post-modern tide will someday turn and we will draw an old/new line in the sand: we’re-all-in-this-together.

I know, I know. Pie-in-the-sky. However, I’d like to point out that shared dreaming brought us here. Shared dreaming is how we stood on the moon. It is how we can talk to someone across the planet using a small device that fits in our pockets. When a dream becomes shared it becomes powerful. Manifest. A shared dream is a form of a horizon line.

If a shared dream isn’t powerful enough to establish trust, try remembering the other one; the original line of discernment. The line that invites curiosity. It need not be debated. Turn around and look. The horizon line is everywhere.