expectation | The Direction of Intention

Appreciate It [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 24, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…where there are people, there is art.” ~ Alex Grey, The Mission of Art

Have you ever Googled the definition of art? I have: (noun) the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

It’s necessary to pay attention to the two phrases comprising the definition: 1) expression or application of human creative skill and imagination…2) to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Appreciated expression. The value measurement is beauty or emotional power.

A deeply personal expression that touches the universal. The art in a small child scribbling is not in what’s “produced” – it’s in our witness to the beauty of a new-human being discovering the joy of expression. Moms, full to overflowing with appreciation, hang the scribble on the refrigerator. There is no purer experience of art.

Very few children survive the moment when free expression tangles with expectation: now we make art. Scribble meets intention. Appreciation is less easy to attain when the circle grows beyond mom’s refrigerator. “Art” meets a bottom line valuation where beauty and emotional power sometimes take a back seat.

It sounds bleak until you look around and recognize what you see. People pointing cameras everywhere. Painted rocks on the trail. A chalk drawing on the sidewalk. Homes decorated. Magazines with recipes and gorgeous shots of possibility. Sculpture on the beach. Youtube videos abound. Architecture and the design of apps. Music! My god, the music. I passed a man whistling a tune that lifted his step and mine.

Expression. Appreciation. Imagination run amok. Mom’s refrigerator is everywhere. What could be more human?

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about ICE

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday | Tagged: Alex Grey, appreciation, art, artistry, beauty, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, emotion, emotional power, expectation, expression, imagination, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, The Mission of Art | Leave a comment »

Lose The Plan [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 12, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Plans are maps of territories that do not yet exist.

Working in a software start-up, Skip has taught me a new phrase: infinite regress. The next step is determined by the last step and there is both no end to the steps and no way of knowing a destination because there are so many possibilities. Every step is a plot twist. The Plan would go wrong on a daily basis – an hourly basis – if the expectation to follow it was rigid.

In infinite regress there is no arrival. There are decisions. There are choices. The plan is to take another step.

Taking another step is a good plan! Live another day.

Think of the stress reduction if plans were held lightly, in cupped hands. It’s great to have a destination in mind. It’s not so good to step over the treasure-of-the-moment en route to some imagined gain. Some idea of control or fortress-safety.

Today, as an exercise in reality, every step I take I intend to yell, “Plot Twist!” Kerri will quickly put an end to my yelling, so I’ll transform my exercise into a mental experience. I’ll keep it to myself. That’s the plan, anyway. A mental experience. Hey! It’s an infinite regress.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PLOT TWIST.

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, choice, control, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decision, destination, expectation, infinite regress, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, maps, plan, plot twist, possibility, presence, story, stress, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Breathe At Human Pace [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We live in a time in which cars are capable of parking and braking themselves. I am able to type a message into a little box that I carry in my pocket and my message, through space and time to anywhere in the world, is delivered immediately. I write my thoughts in this device and then publish all over the world. I’ve learned of a software that is able to write my thoughts without me – faster and with fewer grammatical errors at the outset. I think and write in a pattern capable of being recognized. I am, therefore, capable of being approximated. What is amazing today is common tomorrow. So it goes with the pace of change.

I read in The Dream Society, written two decades ago, that the aim of the industrial era was to spare humanity physical toil and the aim of the information age is to relieve us from the exertion of thought. We’re producing data at a staggering rate and, ironically, the explosion is both serving the intention and overwhelming our capacity to keep up. We can’t possibly process the tsunami of information that washes over us everyday. We are human. We have a tough time sussing out truth from belief-fantasy even when not washed down the roaring information streams.

It is why I hang out with Desi. Desi is the little tree sprout that we rescued from the Des Plaines river trail over two years ago. When Desi came home with us, her tiny trunk was needle thin. She is thriving in her pot and has more than doubled in size, yet, by the standards of data, her growth is glacial. And that is precisely why I visit her each day. She is in no rush. Efficiency for Desi has nothing to do with speed. Health is about good soil and light. Like all plants, she could be pushed artificially, but why? Pushing might get her to adulthood faster but would also damage her systems. Efficiency and health, for Desi, are all about natural pace. Slow, slow, slow to human eyes.

Desi reminds me that the pace of my life is artificial. A choice. The pace, the incessant noise vying for my attention, are human-made, unnatural. Don’t get me wrong. I delight that Google maps gets me where I want to go. I appreciate having a phone available while walking a backwoods trail. One of the great joys of my life is watching Kerri photograph – with her phone – the world she sees. I love to write and push a button to share. I am, despite my advertising, not a luddite. I’m also aware that the media – the medium – is the message. We are – we become – what we consume and how we consume it. It is a necessity in our age of rolling miracles to keep both eyes open.

I think it is healthy (although virtually impossible) to occasionally crawl out of the stream and breathe at human pace. To think without the expectation of assistance. Each day, for a few minutes, I hang out with Desi, a reminder that an inch of growth every year is sometimes fast enough.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about DESI

Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Metaphor, Pattern, Perspective, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, breathe, change, data, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, efficiency, expectation, GPT-3, human scale, information, information age, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, miracles, natural, nature, noise, pace, pattern, rush, sprout, story, studio melange, systems, technology, The Dream Society, the melange, thought, tree | Leave a comment »

Wag-A-Wag [on DR Thursday]

Posted on March 24, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We call it his wag-a-wag. Dogga came to us with his tail docked, and as an exceptionally happy pooch, his stumpy little tail is often in full expression. He leaves no doubt about his anticipation and enthusiasm. Walk into a room and the wag-a-wag of the supposedly sleeping Dogga will start to flutter. “It would be so good for you to love on me!” And, the wag-a-wag is always right.

Sometimes it seems so simple, this art of living. If I had ten Academy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize or two that would be great, but I wouldn’t trade a single sweet moment with the wag-a-wag for a plaque to hang on my wall or a statue to put on my shelf. Don’t get me wrong, I’d delight in a degree of success, but I know at the end of the day, in my last few moments, I will treasure my life with the wag-a-wag, the mornings on the raft with the sun streaming in the window, drinking coffee, talking about the day, and Dogga rolling over just-within-reach (he’s an Aussie and has a spatial quirk) for his morning belly-belly.

It’s the rule of the wag-a-wag. Walk into the room and signal simple enthusiasm, an expectation of mutual generosity. Not only is it so good for me to love on you but it is so good for you to love on me. One-and-the-same-action.

read Kerri’s blog post about COZY

Filed under: DR Thursday, Family, Love, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dog, enthusiasm, expectation, generosity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, love, moments, mutual generosity, pets, presence, simple, simple moments, simplicity, story, studio melange, the melange, treasure | Leave a comment »

Appreciate The Break [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 13, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Before we went to sleep last night we took Dogga to the car and sat in the air conditioning for half an hour. He needed a break from the heat and humidity. We needed it, too.

I’ve been working in the basement. It’s been so humid that my fingers stick to the track pad on my computer. On a Zoom call I was sharing a screen and Skip said-more-than-asked, “What are you doing!” I can be clumsy and inept without sticky fingers and sweat running into my eyes so it must have been a riot trying to follow my staccato presentation. And, let’s not talk about diminished brain function in heavy air and intense heat. My synapses fire in slow motion, if at all.

Sometime in the night the air cooled. We knew it was coming. Our conversations have been about holding on until Thursday night. “It’s going to break,” we promised each other. “It’s going to break,” we’d tell the dog.

On Monday, in the midst of yet-another-down pour, with water gushing up from the floor drains in the basement, ankle deep in water with shop vacs humming, running buckets of water up the stairs and out into the rain, Kerri stopped and said, “I think we’re handling this pretty well.”

It’s going to break. We are handling it pretty well. “Arranging the furniture in our mind,” as we read this morning, “to create a space of happiness.” Yes. Expect it. Create it. The water is up to our ankles so we might as well splash and have some fun.

Our wet humid world has exploded in tones of green. The grasses grow by the minute. The weeds, too.

That morning someday, full of hope in our expectation. Today, full of hope, because it is our expectation.

Sitting in the car last night, on “errands” to nowhere, the car idling, we were finally cool. DogDog walked slow circles in the back and then poked his head between the seats for a pet. “I’m not sure it gets any better than this,” I thought but did not say.

Sometime in the night, the air cooled. We knew it was coming.

That Morning Someday on Kerri’s album Blueprint For My Soul

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

read Kerri’s blog post on TALL GRASSES

that morning someday/blueprint for my soul ©️ 1997 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Gratitude, KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: anticipation, appreciation, blueprint for my soul, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dog-Dog, expectation, global warming, heat, hope, humidity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mindset, studio melange, that morning someday | Leave a comment »

Learn The Single Lesson [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 31, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

dogga babycat end of day copy

At the end of each day, with great enthusiasm and mission, Dog-Dog herds us into the living room. Because it is hysterical to see how many different strategies Dogga can pull from his Aussie bag of tricks, it has become a game for us to give him several false starts. We step toward the living room and then return to the kitchen. We say, “Let’s go!” and he races away with fervor while we remain firmly planted. He returns moments later with a wildly wagging tail. He never gets frustrated. He only gets more clever, more lively in his intention. He is eternally hopeful and more excited by the chase than the finish.

It is the single lesson I hope to learn from him. He is an excellent teacher and I am a very slow student.

It is the last day of 2019 and it has been, to put it mildly, an exhausting year. We are making special preparations to launch the good ship 2019 into the annals of time-gone-by. We might wave a polite so-long as it departs but most likely we’ll turn our backs on the passage, and, like Dogga, we’ll run into the next year with hopeful-tails a-wagging.

We know it is an imaginary line, a made-up calendar distinction. We don’t really expect a clean break, a new, fresh start. Or, perhaps we do expect it. Or perhaps, we desire it in the same way Dogga desires us to go to the living room. It’s the game of chase!

Perhaps the coming year will be less exhausting and more fulfilling if I learn the single Dog-Dog lesson: drop all expectation of outcome, all fear of circumstance, all investment in things that exist only in my too-active-imagination, and love my people whether or not they meet me in the living room. Love my people when they send me on a wild goose chase, not once, but many times. Love them because they love me and it’s fun to be alive and, after all, the circles I run will bring me back to them. Or to myself. Why not laugh?

Perhaps in this new year I will at last learn to fully live what I preach and enjoy the chase simply because it is ALL a game of chase, even the parts that look momentarily like completions. Even the parts that look overwhelming. They pass, too.

The mantra many years ago was to cultivate surprise. Expect surprise. The truth is, I don’t know what will happen in ten minutes or two seconds or in ten days. Do you? Why do we pretend that we know? I think it is the key to Dog-Dog’s delight, he doesn’t pretend to know. He lives in the truth of surprise as opposed to the preconception of boredom or fear or fulfillment. He leads with his heart and his heart is bursting with hope (another name for the expectation of surprise). It is why, after his people-sheep have ambled to the couch [what?! A surprise!], he can sleep so soundly, so completely unburdened by resistance to the day gone by or trepidation-stories of tomorrow.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE END OF THE YEAR

Filed under: Awakening, Love, Play, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: BabyCat, chase, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, desire, Dog-Dog, end of year, expectation, game, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lessons, life lessons, master teacher, new start, peace, play, surprise, Tripper dog | 2 Comments »

Choose To See Them [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 17, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

wondrous things copy

I love my morning ritual. Babycat bumps my legs, guides me to his bowl. DogDog springs from his crate for a brief pet before bounding outside to clear his zone of squirrels. It is the same everyday. It is always new and different. Both/and.

Something happens when the expectation flips, when the wondrous is sought not in the monumental but in the small, day-to-day experiences. I know it reads like a cliche’ but it is no less true. My morning ritual, your commute, the day’s chore, in truth, is never the same. Each day is new even when we brand it with ‘routine.’

The wondrous sparkles in the routine as well as the profound. Doing the dishes today is not the same as doing them yesterday. It seems obvious. This day of life is not the same as yesterday. Another cliche’ with a truthful center: ‘sameness’ is a lens, an expectation worn on the eyes of the mind. It dulls life before life happens. It is the expectation of tedium. Why expect tedium? Why cultivate apathy? The marvelous, the wondrous becomes visible everywhere when we remove the same-old-same-old lens, the been-there-done-that expectation.

Wondrous things are everywhere. All we need do is choose to see them.

read Kerri’s blog post about WONDROUS THINGS

sale ends december 20

Filed under: Awakening, Merely A Thought Monday, Seeing, Uncategorized | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expectation, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lenses, marvelous, paradox, ritual, routine, seeing, studio melange, wondrous | Leave a comment »

Hope [on KS Friday]

Posted on December 7, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

hope song box copy

Somewhere in my reading I came across this notion: discontent is the source of all creativity. Hope must be like that, too. Yearning. Expectation. Desire. To want something or someone who is not there. It is sweet and bitter.

Anyone who tells you that life cannot be simple and complex at the same time has not loved or aspired to dream. Don’t believe them. The simple desire to know never leads to a single answer but it does open greater and greater vistas. Ask a physicist. Or a mystic. Or someone in love.

Particle or wave?

Hope maybe despair re-imagined. It may be a left hand path calling. A dream that seems too big to consider. For a moment today, listen to Hope. Pull up the anchor and follow the wind. Listen. Close your eyes and see where Hope might take you.