division | The Direction of Intention

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

Posted on September 21, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m sure by now you’ve surmised that I am capable of a good rant. Early on in my blog-life I added a cleverly disguised category label, Rant, because, like you, I surmised that I am capable of a good diatribe. I don’t always archive my rants in the Rant category because I am human and not capable of admitting to myself how often I yada-yada. I admit it: I hide the evidence.

For Kerri, there is no place to hide. She is my constant audience and is subject to the full spectrum of my verbose disbelief (again, this is a good time to send her your condolences and heartfelt wishes).

Lately, in addition to the obvious abandonment of their brains, I am deeply saddened and alarmed by the reds’ ability to relinquish their hearts at the door. People have died, people are dying, living in fear, all due to the daily maga-lie-spew. That the river of claptrap is easily refuted makes no difference at all to the dedicated, seemingly brainless-heartless faithful. Their VP candidate admitted that they make stuff up and will do whatever it takes.

As Pete Buttigieg remarked, it’s sleight of hand. Deflection. While the media and the faithful are jammed up by the latest outrageous nonsense (nonsense drives ratings while truth is not nearly as profitable), we are missing the obvious. There is no there-there. In the angry hot air that inflates the baggy blue suit and too-long red tie, no real record of achievement can be found. No serious thought for anyone other than himself is detected. His “leadership” strategy consists of whipping up fear and division with conspiracy theory and baseless allegations all in pursuit of a Disney fantasy yesteryear. Smoke and mirrors. The daily chaos obscures his explicit plan to dismantle the Constitution.

Take a moment and look beyond the deception. The gasbag blather easily dissipates in the light of common sense.

My hope: that a few folks lost in the red-shame pick up their hearts and brains en route to the voting booth and we move forward into the possibility of this nation’s promise rather than backward into the frenzied mire.

read Kerri’s blogpost about RANTS

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, brain, conspiracy theory, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deception, deflection, division, fear, gasbag, heart, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, leadership, MAGA, nonsense, Pete Buttigieg, possibility, story, studio melange, the melange, thought, two artists, vote | 4 Comments »

Strive To Be One [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 16, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” ~ James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time.

Sometimes I pause and reread the previous few weeks of my blogposts. My first thought after my latest read was, “Good God! I’m bipolar!” I’ve learned not to listen to my first thoughts. They are not nearly as considered or considerate as the thoughts that follow. I am lately writing about love.

Love. This is the rest of James Baldwin’s quote: “I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Love takes off the masks. The masks we fear we cannot live without. The masks we can no longer live within. It is a tug-of-war. It is vulnerable to be seen. Yet, to grow, old identities, like suits of armor, must be discarded. To grow up it is necessary to show up, to step-out-there.

Jonathan once told us that a tree must split its bark in order to grow. Snakes shed their skin. And people open their hearts and learn what it is to love.

“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

I found some measure of comfort about my nation (and my latest writing) in James Baldwin’s guiding words. Perhaps we are in a struggle to remove an old and ugly mask, still in place. Racial division. Misogyny. We fear what we will see if we drop this patriarchal mask. Yet, our love of country is requiring us to grow. To take a hard look at who we are and where we’ve come from. To shed the mask we can no longer live within. We are bigger in heart and spirit than our original colonial notion. The mask of divide-and-conquer is suffocating to the world’s greatest democracy, a nation of immigrants come together under the banner e pluribus unum, out of many, one.

Love makes us dare to grow up. Love makes us strive to be one.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEARTS

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Filed under: Love, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, daring, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, e pluribus unum, grow up, heart, identity, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, masks, mature, misogyny, quest, spirit, story, studio melange, The Fire Next Time, the melange, unity, USA, vulnerability | 5 Comments »

Easy To See [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on September 14, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We crossed paths with some friends on the bike path and, of course, our conversation turned to politics. Our discussion – like all of our political conversations lately – begin and end with disbelief.

The maga candidate is a horror-story of a human being, a consummate liar, a dedicated victim, found liable for rape, a convicted felon, an authoritarian who openly intends to dismantle our constitution, promoting dangerous conspiracy theories, sowing division for personal gain while feeding the anger of people who deserve to have their issues addressed and not exploited by their candidate.

In every conversation we ask again and again,”What do they not see?”

As Kerri reminded me, “They DO see it.”

That troubles me.

In the very first full paragraph of my book, I wrote, “Not many people see. Most people merely look. Just as most people hear but they do not listen, most people look but they do not see.” Words that haunt.

Angry people do not see. They can’t. Angry people do not think. They can’t. They can only blindly react. This maga candidate and his fox-news-propaganda-machine keep his crowd angry, fear-full, firmly distracted, ensconced in lizard brain. Fight-or-flight. He profits. They lose.

They do not see – they could not see – or they’d gag, turn their backs, and walk away. Or maybe, as Kerri suggests, they DO see. And white nationalism, violence borne of age-old-ignorance is what they want. It is, apparently, what they support.

This meme floated across my screen the other day. “I can’t respect people who respect him.” There are no more better angels in my nature. I can no longer twist my brain to try and understand the enablers of this monster. His lies are hurting people. Witness what is now happening in Springfield, Ohio. There is no mystery here. This is thuggery.

This red-hat-rage is mob mentality. His enablers, voiding their judgment, their morality, their values, are bonded by fear and whipped into a fury by a narcissist who fuels their nightmare with fantasy and then feeds on their panic.

Any attempt at finding something to respect in their hate-filled-point-of-view is to pretend that it has validity. It is to become one of the enablers of this train wreck.

They will (I hope) wake up someday, blurry-eyed and confused, and like all people who stormed all night, out of their minds with the mob, they will ask themselves, “What have I done?” Then they might begin the long journey back to self-respect.

In the meantime, there is no reasoning with a mob.

The best we can do is vote. And, this time, more than issues and policies, we choose between our democracy and fascism. We choose between decency and…gross indecency. This is not about the price of eggs. The choice is abundantly clear and, when in one’s right-mind, it’s actually very easy to see.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SEEING

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decency, democracy, division, fascism, fear, felon, judgment, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liar, lizard brain, mob mentality, morality, panic, respect, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange, The Seer, Tim Walz, values, victim, vote | 6 Comments »

Don The Hazmat [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 18, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Last night while Kerri, 20 and I were playing a game of Rummikub, Rob texted. He asked, tongue firmly planted in his cheek, “Wow! You’re so close to the (RNC) convention, are you going to swing by?” I responded without thinking, “Only if I had a hazmat suit.”

Protection from toxic waste.

Before dinner and before playing the game, 20 told me that earlier in the day, while he was driving, he caught himself pondering what he would do to survive if the red tide sweeps in, stains the White House, and reconfigures Social Security and privatizes Medicare as is promised by their conservative blueprint for authoritarian rule, Project 2025. I asked, “Did you ever imagine in your lifetime that you’d be worried about the overthrow of democracy by a populist dictator?” His dad was a WWII veteran, as was Kerri’s father. My mom was a little girl living in Pearl Harbor on the day it was attacked because my grandfather provided services for the navy. In a single generation, the very threat our elders, our “greatest generation,” fought to eliminate, has overtaken the minds and hearts of the Grand Old Party. They’re currently holding a convention in Milwaukee to forward an agenda that would appall Abraham Lincoln but Adolph Hitler would applaud. “Did you ever think…?”

It’s too late for hazmat suits. The toxin is already racing through our system.

In this past week we’ve repeatedly heard the phrase, “We need to tone down the rhetoric on both sides.” It’s not the rhetoric we need to tone down, it’s the reality we need to face. We’re pretending that this an election like any other election, that it is “systems usual.” It is not. Our two party system is now a one party system attempting to fortify our young democracy against a dictatorial leader and his followers who are filled with fascist dreams. The dialed-up rhetoric of Democrats is akin to sounding an alarm warning of a system-annihilating storm. The rhetoric of the reds is the storm.

Unlike the ideal outlined by our founders, this is not a party of conservative values debating with a party of progressive values to find a compromise path forward: a system designed to achieve balance from opposing points of view. This is an ultranationalist aggression attempting to dismantle our system of governance and replace it with one that forcibly suppresses – and eliminates – any form of opposition.

The body dies when the toxin is ignored and allowed to attack the internal organs.

We play Rummikub with 20 to unplug from the worries of the day. Last night while we played, a terrific storm roared through the region, shaking the house with wind and buckets of rain. Dogga paced as lightning flashed. It was hard to concentrate on the game. I couldn’t help seeing the storm as a metaphor (of course…). With so much toxic waste spewing just up the road, and potentially washing away democracy’s foundation, it is no longer possible to unplug. It’s no longer wise to unplug. Not if we want our good house to survive the red storm.

an image from the archives: House On Fire, watercolor

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read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GAME

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Filed under: Awakening, DR Thursday, Edges, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: Adolph HItler, artistry, authoritarian, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dictator, division, fascism, founding fathers, GOP, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, populist, rhetoric, RNC 2024, Rummikub, storm, story, studio melange, the melange, toxic, toxic waste, two party system | 1 Comment »

Doodlebug It! [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 17, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Some words are just too yummy to ignore. For instance, doodlebugging! Who wouldn’t want to toss that delicious word into almost any conversation-salad or happy poem? “The poor man was doodlebugging to no avail!” I am surprised that doodlebugging escaped the keen word-eye of Dr. Seuss!

Doodlebugging means to dowse or divine for treasure or petroleum. I ask myself, “What would I rather find, petroleum or treasure?” Well, I guess I would need more information. What kind of treasure? I imagine myself diligently doodlebugging in the backyard, my “Y” shaped stick goes wild! I dig a deep hole. Kerri stands on the deck, none-too-pleased with my doodlebugging destruction, until I leap into the hole and pull up a hefty pirate’s treasure, complete with many gold doubloons!

And, if I don’t divine for imagined treasure, I need to know whether or not I own the rights on the land I am doodlebugging. There’s no sense in doodlebugging for oil if someone else gets the profits for my newly dowsed black gold, texas tea.

I’ve decided that our poor sad nation needs a good doodlebugging. Despite the rhetoric, petroleum won’t cure what ails us so I suggest we doodlebug for treasure. Specifically, we seem to have lost our most valuable treasure: our moral compass. It has to be out there in the grass somewhere. Perhaps if neighbors across the land, regardless of political affiliation, met in the front yard or on the street, each with a handy “Y” shaped stick, and began a serious doodlebugging project in search for that pesky compass, together we’d find what we seek. A common cause which, after all, forms the foundation for unity and provides the seeds for ethical decision-making. Ethics are usually surfaced – or resurface – when people decide to serve something larger than their own interests.

We used to have one. I mean a common cause. It was called the Constitution, a document that framed, guided and preserved our democracy. Toward a more perfect union. By the way, union means ‘joining’ or ‘uniting.’ It’s what makes our common cause, in the midst of so much rich diversity, more perfect. The challenge is that the Constitution is lost or in hiding. Parchment is notoriously hard to doodlebug. One person will never find it. So, maybe if we all meet together in the front yard, armed with a harmless stick and a good intention, shake hands, laugh a little, and work with the people we so dearly love to vilify, we just might find the medicine our divided-against-itself nation needs. It’s hard to hate someone once you meet them in person, talk for a spell about family, food and “So, what do you do for work?”

A little friendly neighbor-chat while doodlebugging together will do away with the abstractions, labels, and dial-down the fear-mongering. In our common search for the lost compass, we just might learn that we have more in common than we’ve been led to believe.

read Kerri’s blog about Y

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Perspective | Tagged: abstraction, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, divining, divining tool, division, doodlebugging, dowsing, joining, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, labels, moral compass, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, treasure, union, uniting, unity | 1 Comment »

Beyond Words [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes the obvious is hard to write about. A heart path. A heart on the path. My mind jumped to the easiest association: a heart path is a metaphor for a spiritual life. Despite the countless tomes written across cultures and through the ages, including the current river of memes flowing across our screens, a spiritual life is impossible to wrap in words. Yet we have a long and complex history of trying.

I have friends who are Buddhist, friends who are Christian, friends who are Jewish, friends who are Muslim. I’ve spent time with Hindu priests and I’ve been introduced to the Tao. As they say, many paths, one destination. Heart paths, all. It is worth remembering that no single path is better or worse than any other. As Joseph Campbell suggested, religions are vehicles. A ride share.

A spiritual path need not require a deity or a book of rules. As Kerri says, “If it’s not about kindness it’s not about anything.” Kindness is an expression of the heart. Kind-heartedness. Warm-heartedness. Tender-heartedness. A heart path invokes this quality: selflessness. Deities and rulebooks can be twisted, human-made as they are, to serve un-kind, selfish intentions. Stoke divisions. Division is the opposite of a heart path. Kindness is an expression of unity.

A heart is a good symbol for the path because we all have one – every single one of us. Skin color, cultural orientation, systems of belief, sexual identity…do not alter the simple fact: we have hearts in common. Many hearts (plural) reaching for the single shared heart. One heart (singular).

Transcendent.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART ON THE PATH

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Metaphor, Transcendence | Tagged: artistry, belief, beliefs, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, heart, heart path, Joseph Campbell, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kind hearted, kindness, life path, path, religion, religions, selfless, selflessness, spiritual life, story, studio melange, tender hearted, the melange, unity | Leave a comment »

Water, Water [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

‘For in the end, he [Huxley] was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” ~ Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death

The water rises.

Last week, at dinner, disconcerted by the headlines, 20 asked if I could explain the politics of our day. “Entertainment,” I thought, but did not say. We – the community – talk about politics – the news of the day – as if it was serious business – because we want it to be – we need it to be – but we seem mortally blind to the emptiness of the chatter. Song and dance. The purpose, after all, is not to inform us but to keep us hooked.

“Water, water, everywhere. Nor any drop to drink.” ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Thirst. Purpose.

It’s not an insignificant question to ask, “What is the reason for being?” We seem puzzled by our purpose or at least conflicted, as made apparent by our insatiable division. My theory is that our division is a distraction, it’s an old colonialists trick, baked into our national dna. A magician’s sleight of hand. There’s no better way to control a populace than to divide them. A people united – and not distracted – demand purposeful and responsible governance. Honest discourse. They demand it of themselves, too. They live from and in-service to a cohesive and shared narrative. The deep root of integrity. Purpose, after all, when clear and meaning-full, is always about others; it is always about service to the community. The betterment of all.

“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” ~Paulo Coehlo

read Kerri’s blogpost about WATER WATER

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: addiction, aldus huxley, amusement, Amusing Ourselves to Death, artistry, Brave new world, Coleridge, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discourse, division, entertainment, integrity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, narrative, Neil Postman, news, Paulo Coehlo, politics, purpose, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, story, studio melange, the melange, thinking, thought, unity | Leave a comment »

Babble [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on January 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

This could be a Jackson Pollack splash painting or an x-ray of arteries, veins and capillaries. A winter sun attempting to reach through the cover of clouds and trees.

If I believe the forecast, as hard as it tries, the winter sun will not reach us today.

I’m paying attention to language a bit more than usual. Looking up through the veins and arteries of the tree, I ask myself: What could it be? What could be? What is “it”? I shiver and am reminded of a quote I used in my book. It is appropriate for our times:

“One must be leery of words because words turn into cages.” ~ Viola Spolin

Language Matters. A double entendre. One of my favorite. It’s right up there with my favorite double entendre title of a book: The End of Education. Classic Neil Postman.

The question is, in our day-and-age, amidst the torrent of words and the easy belief-systems that words construct, how to stay out of the cage?

It’s a question with roots back to The Tower of Babel. A human race united by a single language builds a tower that reaches into the heavens. It is a threat to Yahweh. To protect his status, he confounds their speech and scatters them around the world. Language is the barrier against unity.

A bramble of branches to a Pollock painting to the inner working of life-blood to a weather report and landing at last in the Tower. An epic journey in just a few words, reaching through metaphor and pattern.

Language can be a cage. It can also set us free. Language Matters. A double entendre.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about WINTER SUN

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Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Metaphor, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, beliefs, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, human race, Jackson Pollock, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, language matters, limiting beliefs, meaning, meaning making, metaphor, Neil Postman, pattern, speech, status, story, studio melange, The End of Education, the melange, The Seer, tower of babel, unity, viola spolin, words | 2 Comments »

Incite Some Deviance [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 18, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I searched for it but couldn’t find it. A short clip of Carl Sagan placing life on our tiny planet into the perspective of the enormity of the universe. A little sun in a galaxy of suns in a universe of billions and billions of galaxies. Through this lens, it is mind-boggling, the hubris necessary to believe we are the center of it all.

Initially this morning, I wrote a post about grace but cut it. I asked a question about the collision of values: loyalty-to-a-group smacking down telling-the-truth. It’s a uniquely human dilemma. The insistence upon tribe, Us-and-Them, spins some very dark necessities. I tossed it because grace was overshadowed by gloomy.

This is what I intended to write: on this tiny blue ball there is a group of Us defined as “All Humans”. Loyalty to this group is understood as idealistic. How can we possibly reach across so many imagined boundaries? What would we do with a definition of Us that was all inclusive? We would invite grace. Float all boats.

Each year, everywhere I wander, I am steeped in songs-of-the-season that appeal to the best of our nature. Peace on earth. Goodwill. Love one another. Perhaps we should listen to the lyrics of these songs. They are written by us for us as an appeal to our idealism, a sentiment central during this season of light’s return. Peace. Peace. Peace. We should “take it to heart.”

Let’s face it, loving one another is deviant if it is all inclusive.

It’s a reach, I know, but it’s really not so hard to imagine Us in the context of this vast universe, on this tiny ball spinning and spinning around our minuscule sun, one of billions and billions and billions. In such a context, the boundaries-in-our-minds dissolve and invite a different set of questions to arise: How can we better share this blue dot together? Conflict makes money yet collaboration creates possibility.

Pouring a little light into so much dedicated tribalism is deviant. It requires a touch of dignity. Pouring light into darkness is called Grace. Grace, in the face of so much division, is deviant.

When I cut my initial post I wondered what it would take to breach the code of tribe, reach beyond the singing platitudes, and incite some deviant behavior like peace-on-earth and all-inclusive love-of-one-another.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

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Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Transcendence | Tagged: artistry, blue ball, Blue Marble, Carl Sagan, cassidy hutchinson, christmas, collaboration, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, day of ashura, deviance, deviant, dignity, division, galaxy, grace, Hanukkah, hubris, humanity, Idealism, idealist, idealistic, ideals, inclusion, inclusive, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kwanzaa, love, peace, peace on earth, story, studio melange, the melange, tribalism, tribe, universe, us and them, values | 1 Comment »

Live Your Words [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on November 20, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Language is among the most powerful yet rarely acknowledged and mostly discounted forces on earth. We name our experiences, we story our lives with words. Alter a single word this way or that and the story of a lifetime takes on a completely different cast. Success. Failure. Together. Alone.

Currently we are witness to an aspiring autocrat label fellow citizens as vermin and thugs. A well-worn page from the despot playbook. Dehumanization of others is the first step in approving, priming, unleashing, and then normalizing violence. If history teaches us anything it is that language is not only capable of creating unspeakable beauty, it is also capable of unleashing unimaginable horror. This is not playground rhetoric or locker room talk. This is laying the groundwork for brutality. White. Black. Supremacy. Equality. Community. Tribe. Division. Togetherness.

Language matters (education matters).

Consider this simple phrase chalked onto a park bench: I With. This phrase struck me as particularly potent yet unappreciated. I accompany you. I am with you. I walk with you through this life. I choose to stand with you. With. I.

No word is more dynamic and intoxicating than “I”. There is no more necessary or formidable preposition than “with”. I with love? I with hate? I with unity? I with division? I with open-heart? I with closed-mind? I fear. I embrace.

The great power in language is in the words we choose to live.

read Kerri’s blogpost about I WITH

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