humanity | The Direction of Intention

Be An Alien [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We are in an alien world…” he wrote, “and it is unraveling.” Somedays I wonder if I went to sleep and woke up in a tragicomedy. I wanted to reply that I feel more and more like an alien moving through an increasingly unrecognizable world. Well, truth be told, I’ve always felt like an alien. The rules of the game make no sense to me. For instance, if safe supportive society is what we seek, why are we arming ourselves to the teeth? I imagine I am not alone in my alien-feeling.

Walking the trail Kerri stopped and pointed. “Doesn’t that flower look like a spaceship?” Yellow petals stretched-like-wings in every direction. “Imagine the cool aliens!” she said, kneeling to take a photo.

The word “alien” brought to mind the recent congressional hearings on UFO’s (or UAPS: unidentified aerial phenomena). The hearings were a discussion about what we know. “No, really,” asked the panel, “What do we know?” It’s not known what we know or it’s known but concealed to the point of being unknown. The unknown is what makes an alien an alien, so, apparently, we’ll remain aliens to each other in the foreseeable future.

I had a jolting revelation yesterday. Kerri and I watch vlogs of PCT through-hikers. People who walk 2650 miles from Mexico to Canada. Thousands of people start the trail each year and only a small percentage actually finish. It seems a herculean task. They have tents, travel stoves, proper shoes, all-weather clothes, resupply stops, rest days and are well-funded. They speak lovingly of the kindness of strangers on the trail. In contrast, a hungry person leaving the Honduras walks approximately 2,558 miles, often with few or no resources, through dangerous and hostile environments, to reach the border of the mythical United States. Rather than celebrating their spirit, their fortitude and perseverance, qualities to be admired, qualities we celebrate as uniquely American, we vilify these people, calling them “aliens.” They do not tell stories of the kindness of strangers.

If you boil down the storyline of most apocalyptic-alien-invasion films, you’ll find the same inspiring moment. Humanity turns from its division and finally recognizes that ultimate survival necessitates combining forces, acting as one. Identifying as one. Transcending superficial differences and abstract lines on a map, redefining “us” to include “all human beings.”

He concluded his email with this: “I’m waiting for the crisis to finally arrive and further devastate us. At least then we can get to the Awakening phase during which we will come together and reunite as humankind.” He’s referring to the book The Fourth Turning. The cyclical pattern of chaos and order.

The question that identifies me more and more as an alien is this: why does it take a crisis? I know, I know…the rules of the game make no sense to me. And, after all, nature uses forest fires for renewal. I know, I know. Yet, why point a gun when extending a hand actually produces the safety and security we ultimately seek? Reaching creates kind humans; pointing a gun creates unkind humans. What am I missing? We always pull together in a crisis – it’s our natural impulse – so why wait for a crisis?

We are strange beings. Our stories are universally driven by conflict. Unknown to each other, we opt to be frightened of what we don’t understand (or refuse to consider). I’ve read that we are hardwired and dedicated to an Us-and-Them world.

I’ve also read that the purpose of our big-big brains is to transcend our animal nature so I’m confident that, one day, in the far distant future, our big-big brains will respond to the latest crisis and transcend our ancient hardwiring.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ALIEN FLOWER

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Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: alien, aliens, artistry, conflict, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, division, gun control, guns, humanity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reunite, spaceship, story, studio melange, the fourth turning, the melange, UAPS, ufo, ufos, unifying, unite, unity, unknown, us and them | 3 Comments »

Be The Rain [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 22, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you want to see me cry, play Lowen and Navarro’s song, If I Was The Rain. There are two versions that kill me. The version released on their album, All The Time In The World. And, the Youtube of Eric Lowen’s last concert. In the hard grip of ALS, he spoke the words of the song from his wheelchair. It is, without a doubt, a triumph of the human spirit. I blubber every time I watch it.

“If I was the rain/ I’d polish every outbound train/ I’d wash the teardrops from your eyes/ so you could kiss the blues good-bye.”

We simply could not believe it. Standing in the sunroom we watched a torrent of water stream down the windows. The gutters were overwhelmed. Sheets of water enveloped the house. It was as if we were standing behind a raging waterfall. It was, at the same time, glorious and terrifying. Beautiful and petrifying.

“If I was the rain/ I’d answer all the farmer’s prayers/ till green was growing everywhere/ If I was the rain.”

We’d just emerged from the basement. Trying to channel the incoming water to the floor drains, we laid towels, we positioned fans. We quickly moved boxes and bags, anything in the water’s path. We laughed and looked at each other wide-eyed. What else could we do?

“If I was the rain/ I’d choose forever to remain/ I’d add a sparkle to the night/ and marvel at the morning bright.“

It’s a new day. The rain has finally stopped. The sun is attempting to break through the clouds. The basement is dry at last. Our towel-river-bank is in the washer, getting cleaned and ready for the next emergency. We looked at photos on the web of the local flooding. We shook at heads at the volume of water that fell. It came so fast.

If I was the rain/ I’d bless each blossom to unfold/ and I’d turn each one of them into gold/ if I was the rain…

The world as seen through a waterfall. Roaring off our roof, cascading down the walls and windows, distorting the reality as we know it. Altering the arc of the day. Neighbors texting neighbors, “Are you okay?” People, knee-deep in water, helping other people because they need it. The best of humanity showing its face, even for a brief moment.

“If I was the rain…”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE RAIN

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Filed under: Art, Gratitude, Heroes, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, eric lowen, Gratitude, human spirit, humanity, if i was the rain, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Lowen and Navarro, rain, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Take Pride [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 13, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

This is Pride month and, for myself, to the the brilliant rainbow flag I’m adding a metaphor: the circle.

The circle is a universal symbol and that is precisely the point. Ubiquitous. Common. Applicable to all.

Google the metaphoric meanings of a circle and you’ll discover simple, nonpareil aspirations. “The circle is both an image and metaphor of completeness and equality. There is both protection and democracy within its confines as people face each other without visual hierarchy.”

Completeness and equality. I rolled these words around a bit. Celebrations like Pride are how we strive to complete the dream of equality. Or, better: how the dream of equality strives to fulfill our founding intention. It’s written in our Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident.

Protection is a word but in practice it is among the deepest of human necessities. Protection is the gift of equal inclusion. Every single point on the circle is necessary; “…without visual hierarchy”. Inclusion has recently been made a tug-of-war term, a specter of the scary monster, Woke, but beyond the ruckus it is not an abstract highbrow concept. Not really. It’s a fundamental: a community that cares for its own. In tribal communities being cast-out is a fate worse than death. An outcast is never safe. Safety-for-all is among the aspirations of Pride. To come safely home. One need not be woke to grasp the concept. Compassion for others requires very little sophistication to grok.

And so, for me, I take Pride in the circle. That which leads back to itself, the original source. Our oneness. Our deepest humanity. Wholeness. Original perfection. Timeless. All the colors of the rainbow.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CIRCLE

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Filed under: Language, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, circle, community, compassion, completeness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, equality, humanity, inclusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pride, protection, rainbow flag, safe, safety, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Creative Think [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

The truth is that I could talk with MM all day. Our calls are few and far between but it always feels as if we’re picking up a conversation from yesterday. His perspective on life is vast, deeply rooted like an oak tree, yet simple enough to play on a banjo. As per usual, he left me with a head-full-of-thoughts-to-think.

One of the thought-rocks he dropped on my head was this: we’ve lost touch with our connection to the humanities. And, we’ve lost that connection, not by accident, but through reckless intention. Years ago I was wide-eyed with disbelief when the local school system stripped history and the humanities from their course offerings to make more room for STEM; science, technology, engineering and math. “Short-sighted and fundamentally stupid,” I said to no one listening. Art was long gone. Music was nowhere to be found.

It’s hard to measure the real worth of the humanities on a test so it was sailed off the edge-of-the-curriculum-world. What , exactly, is the value of kindness, the worth of considering others, the merit of empathy and understanding interconnectivity? How important is it to know where you come from? The origin and cycles of knowledge and the grand mistakes of the past? What might be your intellectual lineage, your moral ancestry? How important is it to consider opposing ideas, to recognize there are many ways of seeing a single event? What happened the last time an out-of-control authoritarian impulse attempted to quash a diversity of opinion? How worthwhile might it be to understand that democracy is nothing more or less than an idea about how humans might create community together? It is not a given. It is not a fact. It is an ongoing relationship. The province of the humanities.

The operative word is “together.”

I laughed aloud the day after my call with MM. Two articles crossed my screen. Because I’m searching for jobs I’m paying attention to articles like The Ten Most Important Skills For Workers. You’ll not be surprised to learn that analytical thinking currently tops the chart but the king is about to be unseated by a new/old champion: creative thinking. Also rising in the top ten are “curiosity and lifelong learning” and “motivation and self-awareness” Of course, “unmotivated and unconscious” have probably never topped the list of desirable skills…though most factory work – and varieties of corporate work – generally produce those qualities in previously motivated human beings.

[I take a moment of silence to recount the multiple times I have, in my life, been told I was un-hire-able because I was too creative. “You’ll see how to improve things and want to make changes,” a manager famously told me. “My job,” he said, “is to keep that from happening. To maintain the status quo.” In another famous jaw-dropping moment, a potential employer told me I was not an attractive hire because I was educated so, “I would want things.”]. A cautionary tale to all those who currently fear exposure to ideas and the other purported horrors of the humanities and a fully educated mind.

Educated = curious = questioning. It’s simple.

Listen to Sir Ken Robinson ask a still-relevant question about whether or not our schools kill creativity. Killing creativity is the same as killing the humanities. Killing our humanity.

Ultimately the horse race between the analytical and the creative is itself symptom of the schooled ignorance. They are not really separate things. The right brain and left brain are only detached for the sake of study and discourse. They are ends of a spectrum and one cannot exist without the other. Like science and art: both are concerned with dancing to the beating heart and movement of the universe. They are two ways of walking at the yet-unknown. They are not oppositional.

Another quote from MM roared into my mind: if you ignore 100,000 years of human evolution, you might-could just miss the fundamentals.

It’s consilience. The unity of knowledge. The whole system. Heart and brain and gut. That’s the loop that MM and I regularly travel. We circle out and return once again to E.O. Wilson.

“One day we’ll figure it out,” posits MM. It’s another reason I adore our conversations: with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he is, all the same, infinitely hope-full.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CREATIVE THINKING

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Filed under: Creativity, Education, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, consilience, creative thinking, curioisty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, desire, education, EO Wilson, evolution, gut, heart, hope, humanities, humanity, ideas, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, motivation, Sir Ken Robinson, story, studio melange, the melange, togetherness, unity of knowledge | Leave a comment »

Foster Appreciation [on KS Friday]

Posted on May 12, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In addition to the bunny nest in our yard, I discovered some abandoned nests behind the tall grasses that line the fence. Elegant and intricate constructions meant to protect new life.

The distinction is in the words “meant to”. The critters creating the nests are not necessarily concerned with the aesthetics. Their concern is function. We two-legged critters can’t stroll down a beach without stacking stones, organizing driftwood, or picking the most interesting rock to nestle into the curious pocket found in the wood. Our action is purely to communicate. To leave a trace. To make a mark. To convey something beautiful.

I suppose it’s the same reason that critters make nests. They can’t help it. Nature demands their construction. New life is coming.

We can’t help it, either. Our nature demands playing with possibility. Function need not be a part or party to our frolic. Our creative impulse needs expression. Our active imagination, our spontaneous recognition of opportunity, an intrinsic curiosity and hands-with-thumbs make even the most mundane stroll a canvas-for-the-painting.

We have friends who tell me that they lack creativity. I know better. I’ve walked with them through the woods, across frozen lakes, and strolled down beaches. Rocks are stacked. Flowers gathered. Wood is spontaneously arranged. Not because a nest is necessary. No. Their gathering of texture and color and curiosity is meant to foster appreciation. Inside and out. The function is enjoyment.

No other reason is necessary. No other reason is more essential to us two-legged critters. Nothing better defines us than our innate desire-to-play with the great “What if…”

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about STONE AND WOOD

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Identity, KS Friday | Tagged: artistry, beauty, blueprint for my soul, communication, composer, curiosity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dawn At Crab Meadow, humanity, imagination, impulse, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, musician, play, possibility, solo piano, stone and wood, story, studio melange, the melange, what if | 1 Comment »

Open And Share [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on April 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We have “go” bags packed. One contains our important papers. The other has a change of clothes and the dog’s leash. It’s not that we’re paranoid. During the civil unrest a few years ago – buildings ablaze and murder on the streets just a block or two from our house – the local authorities advised people to be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. We prepared our “go” bags and thought it such a good idea that we’ve never unpacked them. Now, when the tornado sirens wail, we simply grab our bags and the dog and descend into the basement. Easy-peasy in times of scramble.

Each night we watch Youtube videos of people hiking long distance trails. Often the hikers talk about the moment that they “leave” the mindset of the city and enter the freedom of the trail. Everything they need they carry on their backs. They cease dealing with what is supposed-to-be and fully enter life with what is right in front of them. There is a plan and the plan is constantly in flux. There is little to no consistency. What they can and cannot control becomes readily apparent.

What is most important, what is consistent to all of their stories on the trail, is how important other people become to their experience. Leaving the mindset of the city brings them back to the basic tenet of their humanity. They are totally dependent upon the kindness of others. They enter an ecosystem of mutual support. The illusion of “every-man-for-himself” falls away. They open. They share. They fill themselves with gratitude for others. The people who try to go-it-alone don’t make it very far.

I think that is why, at the end of each day, we watch these people on the trail, with their “go” bags on their backs and their hearts bursting with appreciation for their lives and for those who walk with them, if only for a day. They remind us of what’s most important. They cut through the noisy abstraction of news and ratings and likes. They don’t expect their walk to be easy or comfortable or pretty. They remind us to fill our days with gratitude for others, to turn toward our fellow travelers rather than turn away. They offer a hand and accept assistance. They share. They remind us, in our scramble to find safety in the storm, that life in an ecosystem of support is what it’s all about.

read Kerri’s blogpost about STORMS

Filed under: Gratitude, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, assistance, AT, AZT, backpack, CDT, civil unrest, CT, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, go bag, Gratitude, hikers, humanity, JMT, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, presence, share, sharing, story, studio melange, support, thanks, the melange, tornado | 3 Comments »

Turn Toward It [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 18, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

This is what he wrote. “The irony I feel is that the world is lost on the artistic temperament of these students. They don’t seem awake to all that’s going on.” He’s directing teenage students in a play. He was my student thirty five years ago and reached out to me. We compared notes of the production I directed when he was a teenager, and the production he’s directing now. The world has changed mightily. His production will be viewed through a wholly different lens.

I flipped his phrase over in my mind. Artistry is to be awake to all that’s going on. And, awake is not a steady state. It’s not an arrival platform. It’s a relationship between the inner and the outer. What I know about that relationship is that sometimes you need to look away. His students have drilled for active shooters in the hall since they were in kindergarten. Mine couldn’t have imagined it. His students are navigating a pandemic, they’ve never known a world pre 9/11, they live in a country that is eating itself alive. My actors had easier access to what was going on. What was going on was closer in, more immediate and less abstract. They were not looking at a world-wide horror story or lost in the morass of social media. Cell phones were science fiction to my cast. My actors looked at each other and not at their screens.

Stories are about something. We just watched Erin Burnett’s interview with a Ukrainian husband who lost his wife and children to a Russian mortar attack. A month ago, violent death was nowhere on their radar. They were making dinner, going to school, doing homework, late for work. Erin Burnett began to cry and thank goodness. Humanity breaks through and we awake to what’s going on – really going on. We should all be weeping with Erin Burnett and this man.

Sometimes I feel as if I am looking for the small beautiful moments. I am trying to root my day in the explosion of color, the pastel sky, Dogga in the sun. Holding hands. Cooking dinner together. I am trying to be awake to what is going on, the anger and division and warmongering and carelessness as we soil our nest – without it frying my insides. Holding hands is just as real. Reaching toward our neighbors is also what’s going on.

Stories have to be about something and most often stories are about transcendence. Waking up to what is going on is less about waking up – we already know – and more about fully acknowledging it, facing the full picture and turning toward it rather than running away. But, before that final act, that moment of deciding enough-is-enough, before we are willing to blink open our eyes, we pretend the problem is non-existent or small. We ignore the obvious. 500 year storms every year. A family killed by a mortar shell. We bury our faces in our phones, we ban critical race theory, and toss our attention in a Twitter reality or a Tik-Tok diversion.

I wanted to write back and suggest that the world is not lost on the artistic temperament of his students, it’s simply too hard to look at the world so they are choosing to look away. That’s what their play will ultimately be about.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COLOR!!

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

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: acknowledgement, admitting, artistry, climate change, Critical Race Theory, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dedicated ignorance, division, Erin Burnett, humanity, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, look away, look toward, meaning, meaning making, moment, open eyes, Orchid Exhibit, pandemic, presence, pretend, seeing, stories, story, studio melange, the melange, theatre, Tik-tok, Twitter, two artists, Ukraine, violence, waking up | Leave a comment »

Walk With Samuel [on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 11, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.” ~ Samuel Beckett, Endgame

When is something finished? Beckett wrote Waiting For Godot in 1953; characters waiting for what will never arrive. A finish. A completion. Beckett’s life spanned both wars-to-end-all-wars, Korea, Vietnam. He wrote about humanity’s dedication to nonsense. His work has been called bleak and dark. His work is shelved with the canon of The Theatre of the Absurd. And, yet, given the news of the day, these days, who doesn’t feel as if they are living in a Beckett play?

What is often missed in his absurdist plays is the beautiful human capacity to keep walking, to keep trying. Waiting and walking through tragedy, mostly of our own making, with unwavering hope. We story ourselves with nobility even when wrapping ourselves in a lie. We make rules and laws that apply to some but not to all and then we set about to justify the inequality. Money and morality are not the same thing though there’s plenty of storytelling meant to have us believe that wealth only flows to the worthy.

Art is not supposed to make sense because life doesn’t make sense. We make sense of life through the stories we concoct. Emperor’s buried with thousands of statues to keep them company in the afterlife, an artist painting the ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel, gods and angels and saints. How many people died building the great pyramids, tomb for a pharaoh? Who would possibly spend their life in abject poverty smearing color on canvas? Van Gogh. A legion of others not known. Are we better for it? I cried the day the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan, 6th century statues that I had not seen in person and was likely to never see. Were my tears more or less absurd than the Taliban’s animosity toward carved stone?

Matters of the heart. When are they finished? Where do they begin?

It was a gorgeous day, perhaps the last warm day of the season. We met our pals at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. Throughout the gardens, preparations were being made for the annual holiday light exhibit. A tree of shiny stars. Giant flowers. Faux candles floating in the waterway. Strings of colored lights were being placed along the walkways. Even during the light of day it was impressive.

In this time of transition, many of the gardens were being prepped for the winter, the pathways were packed with people cooing at the wave of the grasses, the shape of the trees in the Japanese garden. I was gobsmacked by the color of the moss on trees, the shock of red leaves against vivid green. No matter which direction I looked, someone, some special gardener and designer, had crafted beauty. They knew that their work would stop me in my tracks and allow me to whisper, “Unbelievable.”

Winding our way back to the Visitor’s Center, I told Brad that, seeing so many people out enjoying the gardens, excited to walk in beauty, filled me with hope.

To walk in beauty. Dollars and cents can’t reach the reason. Data can’t touch the impulse. There is so much light in this theatre of the absurd. Beckett knew it, writing about the stories we tell, the relationships we create, waiting for something – a beauty – that by definition, will never arrive because we are surrounded by it each and every day.

read Kerri’s blog post about RED SCULPTURE

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Seeing, Story | Tagged: aarp, absurd, afterlife, artistry, beauty, begin, Buddhas of Bamiyan, Chicago Botanical Gardens, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, end, Endgame, equality, funerary art, heart, hope, humanity, inequality, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, light exhibit, light show, pyramids, Samuel Beckett, sculpture, Sistine Chapel, story, storying, storytelling, studio melange, Taliban, the melange, Theatre of the Absurd, tragi-comedy, van gogh, Waiting for Godot | Leave a comment »

Walk As WaWo [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 31, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was past 3am when Kerri asked me if I wanted to “watch a trail.” We were wide awake. The air was hot and still. We’d recently stumbled upon The Wander Women: Kristy, Annette, and Lynn, woman our age, walking the PCT. They’re doing a flip flop, having started their hike in the middle of the 2600 mile trail and walking to Canada, then, they’ll return to the center point and walk the distance to Mexico. We watched the installment, posted this week, as they reached the Canadian border.

Still wide awake, we went to their channel and listened as they answered questions about their hike of the Appalachian Trail. They are sirens of the possible, guides of give-it-a-try. They are not hikers who pound out miles to reach a goal. As Kristy said, “We want to enjoy every single moment.” Their yoga is a matter-of-fact-presence. They plan and improvise; both/and.

We’ve listened to more than one Q&A with the Wander Women. In an answer to their follower’s questions about living full time in an RV and life on the trail, Annette responded, “Home is where we put up our tent. You carry home inside yourself.” It was the answer of someone who’d transcended their stuff. It was the response of someone who’d internalized her security.

We couldn’t plug our windows with air conditioners this summer. We had too much of isolation last year. We needed to hear the birdsong and feel the summer air. We knew that would bring uncomfortable days, humid and hot nights. We have always walked our neighborhood and the local trails, but our decision to feel-the-summer pulled us more out-of-doors than usual. We extended the sanctuary of our sunroom out onto the deck. We placed torches along the patio and fixed the lights around the pond.

Each evening, after our work is done, we sit outside in our ever-expanding sanctuary. We listen to the cicadas. The cardinals and the chipmunks vie for a place at the bird feeder. Sitting at our table I had a mini-revelation about why I was so enjoying The Wander Women and following the few couples also out on the trail and posting weekly updates. They talk about the community of support that they find in the trail. It is often unexpected and yet ubiquitous. Both/and. They offer a staunch counter narrative to the horror we hear in the news, the contention and division. There are people dedicated to helping them and they, in turn, are dedicated to helping others. “You can do this!” they say to anyone listening. “We’ll help you do this,” their followers echo back to them. They broadcast friendship, kindness and support.

It is a breath of fresh air, a sparkling optimism for the best in humanity. It rises on the trail. Generosity that cultivates generosity. Hope that is grounded in the experience of the unprotected, the heat and cold and bugs and rain and challenge of being-what-they-are-doing. Shared experience. Sanctuary. Here. Everywhere.

read Kerri’s blog post about SANCTUARY

Filed under: Heroes, Metaphor, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: Appalachian trail, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, generosity, home, humanity, improvise, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, matter of fact, optimism, PCT, plan, possibility, presence, sanctuary, story, studio melange, summer, support, The Wander Women, trail angel | Leave a comment »

Exercise Choice [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 12, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

I know what it is to be kind. I see acts of kindness everyday. Humans helping humans. Humans helping animals. Humans mindful of and taking care of their planet. Synonyms include friendly, generous, considerate. All of these are other-focused. To be kind is to consider the needs and lives of others. Beaky used to say in parting, “Be kind to each other.” Kindness was her wish for this world.

I’m not sure that I know with the same clarity what it is to be human. Philosophers have answers that generally trace back to our capacity to reason, to make meaning from our senses. To think consciously. To question. To be aware.

My quick pass through the news of the day betrays how non-human we humans can be. What is the sense of perpetuating a lie? What is gained by lobbing bombs at neighbors? Cyber attacks? We read that there were, from sea to shining sea, 9 mass shootings over the weekend. I’m having a hard time making meaning of it all. I can rationalize it, explain it away, assign blame…but, at the end of the day, I know my rationalizations are nonsensical. Non-sense. No sense. Which, according to the battalion of philosophers scribbling across the ages, attempting to define what it is to be human, we are, because of our non-sense, not human.

There are so many questions and thoughts bursting from this simple bumper sticker!

Arriving home at 10pm, after two consecutive days of 13 hour drives, 20 had a hot meal waiting for us. I called for help and my neighbor John came running. Jen prepared a travel bag of snacks for us and left it on our doorstep. The family that lived next door to my parents made sure, after every snowfall, that the walks and driveways of their elder neighbors were shoveled and safe. Kind.

Somewhere in Kansas it occurred to me that to be human was a choice. Kindness is a choice. Yes, we make meaning from our senses and experiences and the line that defines us as human is our capacity to choose the sense, the meaning that we make. We witness and then we choose. The choice makes all the difference.

The angry man weaving in and out of traffic in his truck, flying the confederate flag, was making a choice. The man who shoveled my parent’s driveway, never having met them, was making a choice. To focus on division is a choice. To reach across the aisle is a choice. To wear a mask to protect others is a choice. To point a gun is a choice. To lie is a choice. To stand firm in your conviction is a choice. To open a door for others is a choice.

To be human is not just to exercise choice but to choose actions that support others. And, among the greatest available choices, the choice that most advances humankind, as Beaky knew, is kindness. To think of others, choose, and act accordingly.

read Kerri’s blog post about HUMANKIND