shame | The Direction of Intention

An End Thought [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on December 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“I will not win all of my battles and neither will you. But if we do our best with intelligence, compassion and love, that will be enough – it has to be enough. And, that way, though each outcome may not be what we wanted or hoped for, at least each day we can be proud of who we are.” ~ Elizabeth Glaser

As we continue our dedicated house-clean and rearranging-fest, part of our campaign of distraction from the ugly turn of events in our nation, we found this framed quote in a closet. We removed the quote from its frame and put it in a special spot. The frame is en route to Goodwill.

We kept the quote because it exactly identifies the source of our discord. “…if we do our best with intelligence, compassion and love, that will be enough…” As a nation, we did not do our best. Compassion and love are nowhere visible in the despot-wanna-be and his maga-cult. And as for intelligence…well, I’ve written enough on that score. Intelligence fled the nation, red-faced with embarrassment.

The outcome of the election was most certainly not what we wanted or hoped for – and that is not the heart-of-the-matter. The issue is this: as my dear friend MM wrote following the election, “This is the first time in my life that I’m ashamed to be an American.” Here, here.

We did not do our best. In fact, we forwarded the worst. Sans compassion. Sans love. Sans intelligence. A rapist. A sexual predator. A felon. A reality tv figure, six-times bankrupt – posing as a businessman. Amoral. A racist. A blatant grifter. And demonstrably in mental decline.

Joan taught us a new word: Kakistocracy: government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state. One need only take a look at the cabinet appointments. “A junk drawer,” as someone quipped. Another wrote, “It’s a clown car.” It’s cringe-worthy.

We bumped into the other Joan at the store. She shared that her “philosophical friends” suggested that nations must go through periods like this in order to grow, a national splitting-of-the-tree-bark. I hope that is the case but, honestly, I don’t think it is. I don’t think Joan believed it either.

Like us, she’s scratching the scorched commons for understanding, wondering what happened to the intelligence, love, and compassion of many in her community; her neighbors, family and friends. Like us, mortified by the people who voted for hate, who turned a blind eye to indecency and all that the tyrant and his budding oligarchs represent – she does not want in-any-way to be included in any form of “we”.

Kerri played this brief instagram video while I was wrestling with an end-thought. This says it all [close the “see more” pop up and make sure to unmute the sound]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Matt Ransdell Jr. (@mattissuperman)

read Kerri’s blogpost about WITH OR WITHOUT

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, ashamed, compassion, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, election, Elizabeth Glaser, intelligence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, MAGA, shame, story, studio melange, the melange, we | Leave a comment »

Let Fly [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?: Advice For The Young

It is now my opinion, based on life’s experience, that it you don’t find the cliff, the cliff will find you. Wing development is the name of this game. Hide in the closet, bury your head in the sand, drink yourself to oblivion, pretend the monster is not at the door, and you’ll discover in your last moments that looking the other way was, in fact, your cliff.

Master Marsh once asked me why I had the need to run and jump off every cliff. At the time I said, “I don’t know!” My latent response comes straight from Vonnegut: wing development. Apparently my wings took their sweet time developing and needed some extra cliff-age. And, as we all know but are too polite or arrogant to admit, wing development never ceases. There’s always another cliff until there’s not.

We had a rare warm day so took a walk on our favorite trail. The brilliant raw sienna of the empty pod caught Kerri’s eye. While she took photos of the pod I thought about the thousands of seeds it once held that took flight on the wind. A few certainly found fertile soil. Most did not. That’s the idea behind Kurt Vonnegut’s advice. Don’t hoard your idea seeds. Put them out. Audition for the play. Submit your story. Offer your idea. There’s great truth to the advice: your job is to put it out there, not to decide whether or not it is good enough. Explode the pod rather than protect the seed.

Greg recently told me said, “it doesn’t have meaning until it’s published.” He wasn’t speaking about publishing in a newspaper or by Random House. Sending an email is an act of publishing. To text is to publish. Greg was referring to sharing. It has no meaning until it is shared. And, sharing your creations can be -and often is – vulnerable and scary. Giving a speech is terrifying to most people. Dancing, painting, composing a song, playing a solo, offering your idea in a meeting…all are acts of publishing. All are potential cliffs to jump off.

Explode the pod. Let the seeds fly. The wind will carry them. Some will find fertile soil. Most will not. Wing development is easier when you realize that you are a pod of ideas and not a judge of worth or value.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE POD

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Edges, Education, Identity, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: advice, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, edges, ideas, judgment, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Kurt Vonnegut, nature, offer, risk, seeds, shame, shared fatherhood, story, studio melange, the melange, watercourse, wings | Leave a comment »

Free Your Freedom [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 27, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

dontgrowup copy

David sends photographs of his young son, Dawson, painting. Or playing. Or just enjoying the moment. I love them. They bring smiles and a Picasso-esque reminder. Paint like a child. Play-to-play and for no other reason. Wear a cape and fly!

Adults get enmeshed in all manner of weird issues. They come to think that things like wearing-a-mask-during-a-pandemic can be an inhibitor to their freedom when, in fact, they gave away their freedom ages ago. They grew up and forgot how to play, how to mush color around with their fingers, how to roll down a grassy slope and run back to the top to do it all over again. They forgot how to play with others. They muzzle themselves.

Adults give away their freedom when they come to believe that a brand of car or the label on their clothes gives them status or makes them sexy. They confuse their money with their morality. They give away 5 days so they might live for 2 or, worse, they suffer through thirty years of toil with the zany idea that they will live life when they “retire.”

Adults get lost in illusion. They snap towels and brag about their wild-side while pulling on their uniform-stiff-collar-suit and cinching up a tie around their neck. They somehow come to think that pushing other people down will raise them up the ladder. They create odd justifications: dog-eat-dog or business-is-business or divide-and-conquer. Play-to-win and for no other reason.

Let’s face it, adults fill themselves up with fear and judgment. They can’t paint with their fingers because someone might call them childish or stupid or worse! And, horror of horrors! What if their finger painting isn’t perfect in the eyes of others?! Shame is a great inhibitor especially when it is the imagined response to fun-and-free-self-expression. The only safe thing to do is put away the dangerous color, wash the paint from your hands. The only safety is to judge others! Establish some mask of authority; become the arbiter of right and wrong. Dole out the shame so as not to receive it. Phew.

Adults mistakenly believe that power is control, that power is something wielded over others. Every child knows that power has nothing to do with control. Power is something created with others, like painting with your dad. That is power-full! Even infants know that power is a relationship of mutual support, it crackles between people. Humans-of-every-age are never more powerful than when helping others grow.

Poor sad adults have it upside-down and backwards. As I used to tell students, “Any idiot with a pistol can take life, it takes a very powerful person to give life.” There’s no real power in the taking. There’s infinite power in the giving.

Just so, there’s no freedom in the taking. There’s infinite freedom in the giving, the free expression, the playing, the laughing, the sharing. Every child knows that.

read Kerri’s blog post about DON’T GROW UP!