individuality | The Direction of Intention

Be Yourself. Stand. [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 9, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

All you need to know about the right to be yourself – and the current assault on that fundamental right – is found in this opinion piece by David Brooks: I’m Normally A Mild Guy. Here’s What’s Pushed Me Over The Edge.

“Deneen’s and Vance’s comments about men in combat are part of a larger project at the core of Trumpism. It is to rebut the notion that America is not only a homeland, though it is that, but it is also an idea and a moral cause — that America stands for a set of universal principles: the principle that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with inalienable rights, that democracy is the form of government that best recognizes human dignity and best honors beings who are made in the image of God.“

To reiterate his point – seriously – take a moment and consider: The United States of America is an idea and a moral cause (not just a place). It stands for a set of universal principles: All men (people) are created equal. All people are endowed with inalienable rights. Democracy is the a form of government that best recognizes human dignity.

It is our fundamental belief in the ideal of equality, our steadfast dedication to protecting the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…due process…that affords and uplifts the right to be yourself. Not everyone on this earth is bestowed with the right to be themselves.

Currently, we are poised to lose it.

“Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies.” ~ David Brooks

We are witness to the amputation of our highest aspirations in the baseless attacks on transgender people, in the scrubbing of DEI initiatives, the assault on institutions of higher education, the gutting of government agencies, the whitewashing of our history, the attack on news and media outlets, the assault on women’s rights, the draconian deportation and incarceration of immigrants, the ignoring of due process, the blatant shift of wealth to the hands of the few at the expense of the many, the gross and unapologetic profiteering by the president and his family…

It is meant to make us fearful. It is meant to make us feel powerless. It is meant to make us numb. It is meant to bully us into silent compliance. It is meant to deprive all of us of our basic rights as human beings. John Pavlovitz wrote:

“LGBTQ human beings in this country have never been more vulnerable or at risk than they are today. This Administration has built a platform upon their dehumanization. It is relentlessly targeting them with dangerous propaganda, willful disinformation, and predatory legislation, all designed to pander to the uneducated, ignorant, and fearful religious people who encompass their hateful base. Our trans brothers and sisters, in particular, have been fashioned into the monstrous enemy for them to aim their perverted theology toward.“

A few weeks ago I used a quote attributed to Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” If you are straight and white in the USA and find it hard to be yourself, just imagine what it takes to be gay and proudly (safely) be yourself. Imagine, if you can, what courage and fortitude it must take to be trans and be yourself.

The United States of America is an idea and a moral cause. It stands for a set of universal principles and inalienable rights. “Universal” means for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Democracy is the a form of government that best recognizes human dignity.

“PRIDE cannot be a date on the calendar, it must be the calendar, a lifestyle that clearly declares that discrimination will not comfortably exist around us, no matter where it comes from.” ~ John Pavlovitz

This is PRIDE month. Be yourself. Stand for every human beings’ right to be themself. Do it now because your inalienable rights, your right to be yourself is rapidly disappearing.

[I wrote this post ahead of time, prior to the events now unfolding in Los Angeles. It is a historical moment, watching our inalienable rights disappear in this authoritarian take-down of democracy. I suppose we should not be surprised that the Republicans in Congress continue to mimic and support their standard bearer and chicken-out as history calls upon them to stand up, to speak truth, to honor their oath to serve and protect the Constitution. A sad moment for all of us.]

read Kerri’s blogpost about BE YOURSELF

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, David Brooks, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, due process, happiness, human rights, inalienable rights, individuality, John Pavlovitz, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, LGBTQIA, liberty, life, moral cause, pride, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Go It Together [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 6, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The problem is that this fluidity is not a choice we are free to make. Despite the unifying patriotic rhetoric that permeates the United States, on some level Americans are not really fooled: at bottom, each person knows he or she must continually “reinvent themselves,” which is to say, go it alone. America is the ultimate anticommunity.” ~ Morris Berman, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire

I laughed aloud when I read this quote. It reduced to a simple phrase what I believe is the collective experience of being an American (U.S.) in the 21st century. Together, we go it alone.

“Going it alone” is, of course a delusion shared by cowboys, republicans, and guys that put big tires on their trucks. After all, someone had to make the tires. And the truck. And pave the road. Using tax dollars since the roads are public and maintained by the collective. All of the chest-thumping expressions of individuality are, after all, firmly rooted in the lives and labors of others.

It only takes a minute to tease apart the loose fibers of the go-it-alone mythos. The problem is that one must want to think it through and, in our current spiral into stupidity, thought is shunned. So is history. At the core of anti-community is the absence of critical thought and a bucket of denial.

[Sidebar: this reminds me of a favorite phrase that, one day, popped out of Jim’s mouth: because you think it, does not make it so. Because you believe it, does not make it so.]

In my current state of residence, the governor, a democrat, asked the legislature, a randy band of republicans, to meet for a special session to discuss the ills that currently plague our community. The randy band gaveled open the session and then, as is its custom, immediately gaveled it closed. Legislators that refuse to discuss issues or policy. Sitting in the people’s house, obstruction is the only card in their deck. Not a single idea or impulse to serve the public in the randy band and their lock-step rugged individualism.

It is the sign of our times. Going it alone together is an ugly race to the supremacist bottom.

The cure for what ails us lives in the space between the gavels. Genuine discussion of the real challenges that face the community. An acknowledgement that driving the big cowboy truck adorned with big cowboy tires is only possible on the public road made viable by the shared effort of hundreds of fellow citizens. All of the Fox-driven drivel and religious right propaganda is never going to change the fact that we are all in this together. We can choose to be a failed state in a dedicated anti-community or we can thrive in the post colonial-era by bringing all ideas, all points-of-view, all people, to the common table for a wee-bit of collaboration, compromise, and long-needed-real-live-bona-fide-communal-reinvention.

read Kerri’s blogpost about MASKS OPTIONAL

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, belief, collective, colonialism, communal, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, delusion, denial, education, government, individualism, individuality, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Morris Berman, point of view, politics, propaganda, story, studio melange, the melange, thought, Tony Evers, white supremacy | Leave a comment »

Look For Joey [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 20, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s been a life-long fascination of mine. In the most individualistic culture on earth, we like to display our status by wearing brand names and shop the same stores in malls that look the same across the nation. We are the inventors of the chain store, the strip mall. The one-size-fits-all. The suburb and cookie-cutter-house. Here in the cult of the individual, we like to do what every one else is doing.

Kerri and I tease about writing a book. It’s called “Looking For Joey.” Google Joey Coconato or his YouTube channel, My Own Frontier, and our blogs pop up at the top. We’ve not written much about Joey Coconato – a few posts – but to our great amusement, we top-the-google-list. And, so, these days, we are regularly contacted by people who are looking for Joey. They think we know him. They think he’s editing his next video in our basement.

Joey lives off the grid. He backpacks the American wilderness and documents his treks with videos. We became avid Joey fans when pandemic-isolating last year and vicariously got “out there” through Joey’s films.

After watching a few of his films it becomes abundantly clear that Joey is what everyone on the grid pretends to be. An individual. His clothes are ripped. His gear is constantly in disrepair. His food is what he can get his hands on at the moment. He is not climbing any ladder. In other words, he is not invested in how he looks, what he wears, or whether or not he’s doing things the way he ought to do them. He’s doing life in his way. At his pace. In his place. According to his star.

After receiving the latest: “Do you know where Joey is? It’s been 8 months since he posted…” I decided that, in these un-united-united-states, everyone is looking for Joey. He has, for me, ascended to the level of metaphor. He is authentic in an age of thin veneer.

While people are draping themselves in tribal-hate-flags and crying “individual freedom”, sticking their heads in the Q-sands as an act of liberation, blinding themselves in a rabid-festival of group think, all the while shaking their fists declaring, “No one can tell me what to do.” Insisting without any connection to reality that an election was stolen, that vaccines in a pandemic are filled with micro chips, that January 6 was an ordinary day at the Capitol – we are a mess of lockstep inanity.

I think everyone is looking for Joey. They – we – no longer know what is real so they -we – are splintering into disparate group-fantasy. Lemmings singing a chorus of My Way as they – we – plummet off our collective cliff.

Honesty is not that hard to spot if you want to look for it. Much of the fight falls away when you are prepared to acknowledge that much of what we profess is cotton-candy, that we are terrified of looking at our full history. Shops and malls and online outlets are not great places to look for answers. Running from critical race theory does not make our past go away.

A walk about in nature has a way of making the absurd abstractions fall away. Carrying your food on your back and looking for water when you need it strips away the investments in the ridiculous.

Individuals – people truly living out of their own center – generally don’t have to wear brands or broadcast their individuality. They are not seeking validation. They are not fighting for their freedom. Like Joey (I imagine) they simply live it.

[ the cool Dr. Seusss plant is called white baneberry or doll’s eyes.]

read Kerri’s blog post about STAND OUT