play | The Direction of Intention

Play For Meaning

Posted on February 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

705. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Horatio took me on a whirlwind tour today. We met his art teacher, Jo, and I listened as they discussed artists like Sylvia Plath and Diane Arbus, artists whose work explores the darker shades of life. Both women killed themselves. Horatio posits that their artistry in some ways chronicled their march toward an inevitable conclusion. Like a raft caught in the current, hurtling toward a waterfall, they determined that there was nothing to be done, no greater meaning to be found, and went over the falls.

Horatio and I often stray into the topic of meaning making. What’s it all about? What is the greater purpose and meaning of this experience of life? I’ve decided that meaning is something we make and not something we find. Meaning is something we bring to the dance. However, we come to the dance with great expectations. We look for someone to dance with, we look for an experience that might lift us from the ordinary routine, we yearn for someone to notice us, we want food to eat, a future to create; we seek experiences. We want more. Life is made sweet in the yearning.

We get lost when we think someone else has what we need or that someone else can fulfill our yearning. Our job is to engage life; no one can do that for us. Our job is to bring our selves to life (I intend the double meaning of that phrase). Our job is not to fulfill another person’s need just as their job is not to fulfill ours. The meaning is in what we bring to the dance; if we bring joy there will be joy. If we bring blame there will be blame.

Tonight Horatio and Teru made a lovely dinner and had a cake for my birthday (coming soon!). Their daughter Nina and her beau Keith came along with Nina’s 4 year-old daughter, Jordan. I spent much of the evening learning from Jordan how to play Chutes and Ladders and a cupcake game. The first rule is that there are no rules. The second rule is that because there are no rules things like winning and losing are ridiculous. The only thing that mattered was that we played. She showed up and I showed up and the rest was imagination and wonder. You’ll be surprised to know that in a single evening I played the role of Santa Claus AND was placed forever on the naughty list (my name is written on the list in magenta crayon). It is an existential dilemma of massive proportion that required the creation of a third rule: naughty and nice are relative terms and who needs lists anyway? Meaning is never found in the list and always found in the play. So, as Jordan taught me tonight: play and the meaning will soon follow.

Filed under: Gratitude, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: imagination, meaning, play, possiblility, power, seeing | 4 Comments »

Pick A Fight With Birds

Posted on December 23, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

654. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Marilyn dope slapped me after my last post. She wrote, “PLEASE turn on the light rather than curse the darkness…go to the shore and fight with your birds.” After all, we did just mosey passed the solstice and are now in the early days of light’s return. A good bird fight would do me some good. As a side note, my favorite chuckle of the day: last night as a precaution to prepare his audiences for imminent Mayan end-of-the-world-ness, Andrew, artistic director of Jet City Improv, and his players stood at the doors of the theatre and passed out bags of air as people exited. One can never have too much air especially amidst so much concocted uncertainty.

In preparation for my bird fight I pulled on my warm clothes, my rain boots and coat. It’s wet out there and the birds with their fancy all weather feathers have an unfair advantage. I meant business so I left my glasses inside: I’m a better bird fighter when I can’t see what’s coming. Also, if I took a wing to the nose I didn’t want my glasses to break. They’re new and I’m told make me look smart – which implies that I don’t look smart without my glasses and it’s better strategy if the birds underestimate my intelligence and mistake me for a simple street fighter.

I splashed out to the end of the street, the place where the birds hang out and look for snacks: it is the shore of the Puget Sound and there are plenty of snack options for hungry birds to choose from. My foes, the crows, were sitting in the trees. It was raining really hard. I said some disparaging things about the design of crows (I made fun of their beaks) and not a single bird flinched. They just sat there bobbing on branches, looking out across the water. They didn’t even glance my way. I mocked them, flapping my arms, splashing through puddles, running in circles and perched on the breaker wall. Nothing. Not even a “caw.” So I did it again, flapping arms, puddle dancing, circle running with a necessary perch break to catch my breath.

A policeman stopped, rolled down his window and asked what I was doing. I told him that Marilyn suggested I come down to the shore and pick a fight with the birds. He asked me, “Who’s Marilyn?” I told him that she was a fantastic teacher in Nebraska. He wrinkled his brow and considered asking another question but instead offered a suggestion: “Maybe throw something at them. That usually works.” I told him it was a great idea and I’d give it some thought though secretly I didn’t really want to fight anymore. Splashing in the puddles was much more light-giving than bird fighting. The cop wished me luck, rolled up his window, and drove on. I jumped in puddles until my shoes were soaked, turned my face to the rain and let it wash all of that darkness away.

Filed under: Random, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: birds, crows, dark, glasses, light, play, puddles | 2 Comments »

Prepare For Surprise

Posted on August 17, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

526. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Serendipity and a project brought me back to Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse. In rereading it I wonder why I do not read passages from this playful and profound book everyday. Here’s a snippet from passage 44:

“…Artistry can be found anywhere; indeed it can be only be found anywhere. One must be surprised by it. It cannot be looked for. We do not watch artists to see what they do, but watch what persons do and discover the artistry in it.

Artists cannot be trained. One does not become an artist by acquiring certain skills or techniques, though one can use any number of skills and techniques in artistic activity. The creative is found in anyone who is prepared for surprise. Such a person cannot go to school to be an artist, but can only go to school as an artist.

Therefore, poets do not “fit” into society, not because a place is denied them but because they do not take their “places” seriously. They openly see its role as theatrical, its styles as poses, its clothing as costumes, its rule as conventional, its crises as arranged, it’s conflicts performed, and its metaphysics ideological.”

Filed under: Art, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Finite, Infinite, play | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (479)

Posted on July 1, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

479.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

It will come as no surprise to you that I have a twin. He is 9 years old, a toe-head blonde, sports a world-class smile, and he can easily out run me in our perpetual game of chase. He is a kind and gentle spirit so he loops back making it possible for his old-guy-twin to stay in the game. His name is Ian and he reminds me what is truly important in this world of too much busy work, worries and woe. He reminds me to play-to-play; he reminds me that the whole point of life is to become better and better at playing.

Recently our game took us to the river. He was already hiding when I arrived. He was concealed within a shallow pool; only his eyes above the surface, watching for the moment I might see him. It was such a clever hiding place that I passed him several times before catching a glimpse of my alligator twin. He popped from the pool and the chase was on. We dashed across sand bars, splashed through pools, leapt over sticky bushes, and finally collapsed in the shallows, buried our hands in the sand, anchors in the gentle current. That was the moment we transformed into water bears. No salmon was safe.

Ian reminds me of what it was to be young. He brims with delight. His cup is overflowing with hope and imagination. When we play our game there is nothing more important in the world; the concerns of the day vanish, the worry-attachments fall away. We run. We laugh (I wheeze). We imagine. We create.

We’ve played our game in the halls of a school, over and around a boardroom table, circling and circling his house, and now we’ve carried it into the Platte River (my favorite iteration). Our game can be played anywhere, anytime. If you happen to be standing where we are playing you will become a potential hiding post. Stand still. Imagine that you are a tree or a statue. We will. Better yet, spot your twin, and join the game.

Filed under: Creativity, Gratitude | Tagged: create, play | 2 Comments »

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