hubris | The Direction of Intention

Each Other’s Destiny [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

This tiny white clover flower, no bigger than my fingernail, is an entire universe unto itself. It is a miracle of pattern, designed to attract pollinators. Although I am certain is doesn’t waste a moment of its existence pondering its purpose, it serves as a nutrient to soil and through its vast root system it prevents erosion.

When I write that it is an entire universe unto itself what I really mean is that it is intimately connected to everything. Although we have given it a name and dissected it to the last atom, it does not know itself as separate from the sun that feeds it or the bees and mammals that feed on it. It serves and is served. Both/And. That is the nature of the entire universe. We have words for it: interconnection, flow, movement, relationship.

Words separate this from that. That’s the whole point of a word: to make distinct. To make distinct for us and for our purposes. And, because we think our thoughts in words we can’t help but think of ourselves as separate, distinct. In our word-infused minds we lose contact with the connection. Is it no wonder that we spend much of our time pondering our purpose? Having blunted the experience of interconnection is it no wonder that we story ourselves above it all?

That we name things has given us the illusion that we are higher beings, better than the white clover flower. Hubris is most often the cause of civilization’s collapse. Our capacity to name things comes with a matching capacity to deny – that is to lie and lie until we lie to ourselves. We are both the spider and the fly entangled in the web.

Leave it to a poet to capture in two sentences what I have not captured in paragraphs:

“The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves – we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.” ~ Mary Oliver, Upstream, Selected Essays.

***

we are trying to regroup, rethink and refocus our melange blogpost writing a bit. we – like you – know what is really happening in our world and do not need one more person – including ourselves – telling us the details of this saddest of descents destroying democracy and humanity. though we know our effort will not be 100% – for there is sooo much to bemoan in these everydays – we have decided to try and lean into another way – to instead write about WHAT ELSE IS REAL. this will not negate negativity, but we hope that it will help prescribe presence as antidote and balm for our collective weariness. ~ xoxo kerri & david

read Kerri’s blogpost about WHITE CLOVER

likesharesupportcomment…thankyou

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Language, Transcendence | Tagged: artistry, connection, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, distinction, hubris, humanity, interconnectivity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, langauge, Mary Oliver, separation, story, studio melange, sustainability, the melange, transformation, words | Leave a comment »

My Fleeting Moment [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Alone on the trail we heard a loud pop and then a crack – and then the tree fell. We felt the thud through the soles of our feet.

There was no wind. There was no apparent cause for it to fall. We were, somehow, witness to its final moment as “tree”.

If a tree falls in the woods and someone is around to hear it, it definitely makes a sound. If not? For some reason, in that majestic moment, the quotidian philosophical question popped into my mind and it bothered me. Is human observation really the only validation for existence? Philosopher George Berkeley wrote, “To be is to be perceived.” George didn’t mean perceived by squirrels or hawks or any other critter in the woods at that moment who also heard the sound and felt the fall of the old tree. For humans, philosophers, preachers and politicians alike, human perception is the requirement granting something so grand, something so profound, as existence. How many birds nested in this grand old tree during the course of its life span? How many plants will feed on its fibers now that it has joined the earth?

Hubris is our Achilles Heel.

On our drive to the trail we were rerouted. The road was shutdown in both directions. There was a terrible crash. A car was cleaved, barely recognizable. Certainly there were witnesses to this loud final moment of a human-being pass into non-being. I’m grateful I was not one of them. I do not need to have seen or heard the crash to know that it happened.

Perhaps that is why the question bothered me: “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” In a single day, in the space of an hour, I was witness to a tree falling in the woods and aware of a human life ending. I heard the tree so I have no need to imagine what happened. I saw the car, the evidence of the end of human life. I can only imagine.

Horatio wrote a beautiful poem about the death of a salmon after its struggle to return to its place of origin. It’s a poem about the impossibility of life and the cycle of constant renewal. The poem offers we-the-perceivers some rare perspective on the end of life.

I wondered how I could read the days news about starvation in Gaza, brutal raids and deportations without due process…and simply turn the page. That, too, must be uniquely human. To perceive and then tune out. To look the other way, to pretend not to perceive when human beings enact horror upon other human beings. It requires a dedicated lack of imagination.

We are not above it all.

“To be is to be perceived.” Perhaps. It begs an all important follow-up question: In my fleeting moment of human perception, who – or how – do I choose to be?

read Kerri’s blogpost about TINY NAILS

likesharecommentsubscribesupport…thankyou.

Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, existence, George Berkeley, hubris, human, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life cycle, Mary Oliver, perception, perspective, renewal, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 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

like. share. comment. support. lending a hand to anyone is a way to support us. think on it.

buymeacoffee is a force like gravity helping the artists you appreciate keep their feet on the earth.

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 »

See More. Know Less [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on December 12, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“(What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness). Familiarity can blind you too.” Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Red and green. Oppositional on the color wheel yet understood as compliments. They set each other alight.

I am certain the longer I walk this life the less I know. How much time did I spend trying to get-there-fast? How much life did I give to my attempt to attain the mountaintop before I realized that there wasn’t one? How much hubris did I exude believing “my” work might change the world before I was humbled sufficiently to see that the world was changing me? Is there such a thing as “my” work? I have lived a life rich in collaboration. Who hasn’t?

And, how fortunate am I that life has routinely tossed me out of my “comfort” zone? Don’t get me wrong, I would appreciate a bit of smooth sailing with ample provisions but the ongoing absence of “normal” makes eyes-wide-open a necessity. There is no missing how interdependent we are, how utterly interconnected, when here-and-now is the only place we can clearly see.

read Kerri’s blogpost about RED AND GREEN

like. share. support. comment.

buymeacoffee is. nothing more. nothing less

Filed under: Awakening, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: abnormal, artistry, aspiration, collaboration, comfort zone, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hubris, humble, interconnected, interdependence, interdependent, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mountaintop, normal, Robert Pirsig, seeing, story, studio melange, the melange, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance | Leave a comment »

Clear Your Mind [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 4, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

There’s nothing like a walk in a garden to clear your mind. It was the end of the week – or was it the beginning? In any case, our brains were overloaded. We sought a garden.

So the story goes, Adam and Eve lost their spot in the garden. They ate from the tree of knowledge and started to think about things. They became self-aware, a by-product of apple-eating, they had to tell stories of where they’d come from. They had to tell aspirational stories of where they wanted to go. They made rules. Look back. Imagine forward. Neither direction is true in the absolute sense of the word. Memory and imagination are not fixed. They are fluid, changing, like a stream.

Listening to our stories it’s easy to conclude that this good earth couldn’t possibly manage without us. As global weirding progresses, it’s likely that we’ll learn the opposite of our control-story is the case: we can’t possibly manage without the good earth. We may have to adapt our narrative! We may have to consider that the garden and its many inhabitants didn’t really need names; we invented knowledge-management to suit our purposes. We might need to recognize that we invented all forms of management to suit our narrative.

We like to tell stories of being in control, of being at the top of the pyramid. We especially like narratives placing us at the center of the universe – and the micro level variety: being the chosen ones. Believing that it all spins around us is, well, comforting. Or hubris. Or both.

Of course, our story is pocked with kill-joys like Galileo. Though, to be fair, even though his telescope proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that humanity is NOT at the center, it’s had very little impact on our dedication to being all important. Above it all. We are a tenacious bunch when our story of primacy is threatened.

I was especially moved by the sign in the garden and wondered what it would take for us to turn the tables and imagine ourselves as part of the spinning universe rather than above-it-all. There are plenty of examples to draw from, humans in symbiotic relationship with their garden. Listening rather than instructing. Spinning with.

I think that is why, when our brains are overloaded, we head to the garden. A return to our senses. We breathe. We listen. We feel. We clear our minds and, even for a moment, re-enter a naturally healthy relationship.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

like. share. support. comment. thank you.

Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, climate change, control, control fantasy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, feeling, galileo, garden, gardens, global warming, hubris, imagination, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, knowledge management, management, memory, naming, northwind perennial farm, primacy, self awareness, senses, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

Write A Nasty-Gram [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on July 1, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Here we are. Knock-knock-knocking on Medicare’s door.

First, I want to know who designed Medicare. I use the word “designed” loosely since this hot-mess-of-a-system is purposefully fragmented and filled with landmines meant to trip older people. It’s probably designed by the same team that orchestrated the tax codes. Daedalus, designer of the labyrinth that held the Minotaur captive, might have created something so stupidly complex. In government-program-design-school there must be a course entitled Over-Complicating Simple Systems.

Of course, the Supremes, in eliminating Affirmative Action, suggested that we already enjoy equal access under the law [insert eye-roll]. So, I want access to the same health program as Congress. I want to pay the same percentage of tax as the 1%. Or, I want them to pay the same percentage that I pay.

I’d write a nasty gram but I know there’s also a senior level course in government-program-design-school entitled, Tipping The Scales For The Few. You have to take it in conjunction with the class called Dumbfounding The Citizenry.

read Kerri’s more-pleasant-less-ranty smack-dab post.

Like it? Let us know. Or share it. That works, too. Or buyusacoffee. That also works. And, thanks.

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, Affirmative Action, artistry, bloggers, cartoon, cartoonists, complex, composer, conservative mess, crap thinking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, design, government, hubris, junk thinking, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Medicare, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, out of touch, painter, story, studio melange, the melange, The Supreme Court | 3 Comments »

Stack Your Nickels & Pennies [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

From the school of if-you-are-sitting-on-the-mountain-you-can’t-see-it comes the hot mess we call healthcare in these un-united-united-states. Insanity never looks at itself and says, “I’m insane.” Our system of healthcare – and I use the term “system” loosely, is insane. In my sordid past as an organizational consultant I facilitated an experience called reverse design: ask people to design the worst system possible. The worst product imaginable. Hilarity ensued. None of those mad-mad sessions could have concocted what we call healthcare in the richest nation on earth. It seems the money has both blinded us and made us batty.

I just asked Kerri how much a postage stamp costs. “58 cents,” she grumbled, “And we got three mailings.” We finally achieved our get-out-of-jail-free card: a job with benefits. We canceled our ACA prison policy but, apparently, there was a one-day crossover in the billing cycle. I know a computer sent us the three-times-nasty-gram and spent $1.74 in postage to collect $.27. No human was involved though, having spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone with people paid to try and make sense of the nonsense, we’ve learned how numb the human mind can become when sense-making in a swamp of gobbledygook. We paid our debt online.

No human involved. De-human-izing. The Turing test is…a test of intelligence in a computer. Is the machine’s behavior indistinguishable from that of a human being? Hubris is a human quality that imagines the computer will become more like us while not recognizing that, in the process, we are becoming less like us. I doubt the computer will ever evolve to that point of pomposity. I suspect that the computer will someday recognize the folly of attempting to model itself after something so flawed as human intelligence. What intelligent machine would model itself on beings that seem incapable of creating a competent system for the care of its own health? No advanced intelligence would submerge its prime directive for the secondary intention of stacking nickels and pennies.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHCARE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: aarp, ACA, artistry, computer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dehumanizing, flaw, healthcare, hubris, insanity, intelligence, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Molina Healthcare, money, story, studio melange, the melange, Turing test | Leave a comment »

Flawed Cartoon Wednesday

Posted on April 4, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Who doesn’t like a good David-n-Goliath story? Who doesn’t identify and cheer for the little Hobbit facing insurmountable odds, Erin Brockovich, Luke Skywalker, Jason Bourne running at a system dedicated to killing him, Norma Rae,… It’s a ubiquitous story line giving us something to cheer for, someone who feels as small as we feel and yet has the gumption to pick up a rock and walk toward the giant. Students marching for our lives, every woman writing #metoo. There are inner Goliaths, too, that are surprised by the small rock of audacity.

Power rarely takes seriously those they consider powerless. Power is a great distorter of reality. The lavish spender, Marie Antoinette, famously suggested that her starving subjects eat cake. It never crossed her mind that those she underestimated, those she devalued, her powerless subjects, might someday be her judge, jury, and executioner. When power bloats and begins to taunt, when it feels untouchable enough to flaunt, it is a sure sign that there is a David out there, somewhere close by, stooping down to pick up a very small stone.

Goliath reminders/merchandise