The Smallest Thing [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on June 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday was a hard day for me. It sometimes happens that the smallest thing – a comment, a slight – rubs, becomes a hotspot, and blisters. The rub became the focus-of-the-day and I made myself miserable. Obsessing. I blistered.

Until the sunset.

Sunset came like a soothing balm. Towering storm clouds passed through earlier in the evening. We heard the thunder and saw flashes of lightning (emblematic of my inner state of mind) but the system moved to the north so we had nary a sprinkle. And, just before sunset, the clouds parted. Suddenly vibrant yellow and orange clouds danced on a field of light cobalt blue. By the time the purples appeared, I was back in-my-right-mind. The rub vanished with the waning sun. The blister began to heal. I sighed and was careful not to ponder why I gave away the day to the smallest thing.

The smallest thing. What other people think. What happened yesterday. What I fear will happen tomorrow. What I think (ask Kerri, I have more than my share of opinions and perspectives and I sometimes lack an internal editor. If you are a compassionate human being you will immediately send to her your condolences).

What I think. The sunset dissolved my roiling inner monologue. And, again, I learned that what I think is… just that. No more, no less. I heard this phrase a hundred years ago and again last week: where your thoughts go, so too will your energy. Yesterday my thoughts went into a very dark place. So, too, went my energy. A day of my life.

The sunset brought me to a lesson I learned a hundred years ago and apparently needed to learn again yesterday: I have choice. My thoughts need not be reactive. I can aim my focus anywhere I choose. I can attach my thought like a barnacle to any-old-whale-of-an-idea-stream that I desire. And, the deep dark secret to making the thought-choice-of-the-day easy? Recognize that what I think is just that – what I think – no more and no less. Lose the import. Drop the judgment. Let go the valuation. Recognize it for what it is.

The smallest thing.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUNSET

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Water, Water [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

‘For in the end, he [Huxley] was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” ~ Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death

The water rises.

Last week, at dinner, disconcerted by the headlines, 20 asked if I could explain the politics of our day. “Entertainment,” I thought, but did not say. We – the community – talk about politics – the news of the day – as if it was serious business – because we want it to be – we need it to be – but we seem mortally blind to the emptiness of the chatter. Song and dance. The purpose, after all, is not to inform us but to keep us hooked.

“Water, water, everywhere. Nor any drop to drink.” ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Thirst. Purpose.

It’s not an insignificant question to ask, “What is the reason for being?” We seem puzzled by our purpose or at least conflicted, as made apparent by our insatiable division. My theory is that our division is a distraction, it’s an old colonialists trick, baked into our national dna. A magician’s sleight of hand. There’s no better way to control a populace than to divide them. A people united – and not distracted – demand purposeful and responsible governance. Honest discourse. They demand it of themselves, too. They live from and in-service to a cohesive and shared narrative. The deep root of integrity. Purpose, after all, when clear and meaning-full, is always about others; it is always about service to the community. The betterment of all.

“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” ~Paulo Coehlo

May You, 55″x36″, mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about WATER WATER

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Why Bother? [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 12, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Here’s the hazard:

“I know what will happen.” “Same old same old.” “It’s always been this way.” “Why bother?” “Nothing ever changes.” “Who cares anyway.” “Tomorrow will be the same as today.” “It doesn’t matter.” “It’s just an idea.”

Pattern thought. Repetition’s repetition. Dulled life.

Looking up, the tree line cut a diagonal across the sky. The sun peeked from behind evergreen. I could have thought, “I’ve seen it a thousand times.” And, truth be told, had that been my thought, I probably would have reduced it to something without words. A yawn. Or worse, it would have gone unnoticed as a lost moment in a mind full of complaints.

As it was, I’d never before been on this particular turn of the earth or looked at the sky at that precise moment. What, exactly, “caught my eye?”

I do not know what will happen. Nothing is ever the same. Ever. It is impossible to have been this way before because no one has ever lived this moment until now. That’s the response to “why bother.” It always changes. And I care. Tomorrow can’t possibly be the same as today so it matters.

Every idea reaches beyond the confines of “just.” Ideas are expansive. Just is reductive.

People are expansive unless they choose otherwise.

Why just live in the reductive?

Good Moments/This Part of the Journey © 1997, 2000 Kerri Sherwood

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN AND TREES

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Comprehend The Incomplete [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 29, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Three evenly spaced periods. An ellipsis, “used to indicate the omission of words or an incomplete thought.” This series of ellipses punctuated the horizon, marking the line between the dark night sky and the farm fields.

The omission of words. As I watched the horizon-ellipses twinkle, I wondered how many times I’ve omitted the words, “I love you.” Too vulnerable. Not safe. Revealing.

An incomplete thought. Not surprisingly, this brings to mind a thought about thoughts: namely, thoughts are never complete. Every thought is a running ellipsis, a water drop in a raging river. A complete thought is an oxymoron. Because we are given to writing our thoughts – trying to capture them – we are deluded into believing that the stream of babble that runs though our brains is containable or fits neatly into discrete compartments that travel in a single direction, like the boxcars of a train. This thought is connected to that thought just as this letter is connected to that letter so a chain of meaning might be assigned. Someone, somewhere, wrote that our thoughts are the mother-lode of comedy. Random. Surprising. Multi-directional. Rolling, roiling rivers. Shapeshifters.

My word of the week is “argle bargle.” It means nonsense. Motherlode of comedy. Argle-bargle-avalanche.

In the dark of night I look at the ellipses on the horizon; no one can convince me that love, like thought, is ever complete. I look higher into the night sky at the glittering light-dots that have completely ignored the rules of even-spacing and scattered themselves across infinity. Maybe that is why I sometimes omit the words, “I love you.” it’s too big to comprehend. It’s sometimes too much to contain in my one tiny heart…

read Kerri’s blogpost about ELLIPSES

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Put It On The Wall [on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 27, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.” ~ Buddha

I sometimes wonder what the Buddha might think about how words, attributed to him, are now available on Wayfair.com as posters or large decals for every living room wall. Does the ease and ubiquity of the message make it less meaningful? A decoration rather than a wisdom? Or, that we are capable of immersing ourselves in inspiration, a reminder-to-live-well in every room, are we meditating on the messages? Are we incorporating them into our actions and choices?

I’ve read that the only requirement when hanging prayer flags is to hold positive thoughts and intentions in the mind. Intend goodness and goodness will spread. That is, after all, the point of the flag. To spread on the wind goodness, peace, kindness,…

Kerri’s philosophy – her religion – is much the same as Dolly Parton: “You just try to be nice to everybody ’cause you know everybody’s got a dream.” Kerri’s version: “If it’s not about kindness it’s not about anything.” It’s simple.

Minds are powerful things. It’s why stories are so impactful; stories are the stuff that fills-the-minds. What you feel. What you think. What you imagine. It’s not passive. Although a trick of the English language, your thoughts, your feelings, your imaginings, are not really separate from “you.” They are you. The story you tell yourself about yourself in the world.

I suppose that’s why we rub the sentiment onto the living room wall. A desire to be better in the world. To tell a better story. Better about each other. Better for each other. What else?

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRAYER FLAGS

In Serenity, 46x30IN, mixed media

in serenity © 2018 david robinson

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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

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Breathe At Human Pace [on KS Friday]

Posted on April 22, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

We live in a time in which cars are capable of parking and braking themselves. I am able to type a message into a little box that I carry in my pocket and my message, through space and time to anywhere in the world, is delivered immediately. I write my thoughts in this device and then publish all over the world. I’ve learned of a software that is able to write my thoughts without me – faster and with fewer grammatical errors at the outset. I think and write in a pattern capable of being recognized. I am, therefore, capable of being approximated. What is amazing today is common tomorrow. So it goes with the pace of change.

I read in The Dream Society, written two decades ago, that the aim of the industrial era was to spare humanity physical toil and the aim of the information age is to relieve us from the exertion of thought. We’re producing data at a staggering rate and, ironically, the explosion is both serving the intention and overwhelming our capacity to keep up. We can’t possibly process the tsunami of information that washes over us everyday. We are human. We have a tough time sussing out truth from belief-fantasy even when not washed down the roaring information streams.

It is why I hang out with Desi. Desi is the little tree sprout that we rescued from the Des Plaines river trail over two years ago. When Desi came home with us, her tiny trunk was needle thin. She is thriving in her pot and has more than doubled in size, yet, by the standards of data, her growth is glacial. And that is precisely why I visit her each day. She is in no rush. Efficiency for Desi has nothing to do with speed. Health is about good soil and light. Like all plants, she could be pushed artificially, but why? Pushing might get her to adulthood faster but would also damage her systems. Efficiency and health, for Desi, are all about natural pace. Slow, slow, slow to human eyes.

Desi reminds me that the pace of my life is artificial. A choice. The pace, the incessant noise vying for my attention, are human-made, unnatural. Don’t get me wrong. I delight that Google maps gets me where I want to go. I appreciate having a phone available while walking a backwoods trail. One of the great joys of my life is watching Kerri photograph – with her phone – the world she sees. I love to write and push a button to share. I am, despite my advertising, not a luddite. I’m also aware that the media – the medium – is the message. We are – we become – what we consume and how we consume it. It is a necessity in our age of rolling miracles to keep both eyes open.

I think it is healthy (although virtually impossible) to occasionally crawl out of the stream and breathe at human pace. To think without the expectation of assistance. Each day, for a few minutes, I hang out with Desi, a reminder that an inch of growth every year is sometimes fast enough.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about DESI

taking stock/right now © 2010 kerri sherwood

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Receive The Message [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 30, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

We just made a pact to lighten up. It’s not the first time we’ve made this pact and it probably won’t be the last. What’s important in this particular version of our pact is that we are growing more capable of keeping it.

The week before Columbus died, my sister-in-law sent some pictures of him. He was at the very beginning of what would become a rapid decline. She sent the photos to reassure us but they had the opposite impact on me: I was shocked.

Those photos threw me into a pendulum: some days, nothing seems worth getting riled up about. This ride is short and it ends. I know my mind can whip up a fruit-smoothie of drama in a nano-second but that doesn’t mean I need to drink it. And, on the other end of the pendulum, everything seems worth getting riled up about. This ride is short and it ends. Both/And.

I know the pendulum will settle. I know equilibrium is merely a matter of not indulging in the swing but stepping back and watching. The thoughts will sway to-and-fro and I need not sway with them. To lighten up, as Don Miguel Ruiz advises, “Doubt everything that you think.” Or, as someone once told me, “What we think is the mother-lode of comedy.” Changing a mind begins with realizing that a mind, although it will tell you otherwise, is not the keeper of truth.

We hit the trail for many reasons but first and foremost a good walk serves to restore our balance. Someone has been leaving good spirits along our favorite trail and we delight in discovering them. We leave them for others to find. We’ve encountered happy messages, halloween goblins, and folks just like the red and orange googly-eyed fellow that made us laugh. He was sitting with his back to us in the middle of the path. Kerri did a photo shoot with him; he was a willing subject.

I’ve decided that he crossed our path to affirm our pact: he is the spirit of lighten-up. He is the messenger of you-are-not-all-that so enjoy the day. A trail jester to remind us that nothing we imagine or create compares or is more real or important than the step we are currently taking. “Alas, poor Yorick…” he had his time and so do we. What we decide to do with it, how we decide to live it, is not happenstance; it is completely up to us.

read Kerri’s blog post about GOOGLY EYES

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Compose [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 9, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

Many years ago I attended a workshop facilitated by Sam, a brilliant landscape painter. I was delighted and amused when he demonstrated his technique. Rather than paint what he observed, he took great pleasure in rearranging the elements. He moved the trees, altered the hills, relocated the barn. He laughed while mixing up his elements. His eyes sparkled with mischief. Rather than a workshop on painting, the day became an exercise in joy-in-art. Seeing and playing with what we see.

This morning I read that the word ‘composition’ means “putting together.” Definers-of-art-terms associate composition with freedom. “The artist has freedom when choosing the composition of their artwork.” It is a mistake to believe that compositional freedom is the sole province of an artist. If the mind is a canvas then thought is a composition. It is patterned and composed. Arranged and rearranged. We choose where we place our focus. Point-of-view is cultivated, it is not a default setting. We design the story-we-tell-ourselves-about-ourselves. And, then we project it onto the world.

The trick in both art and thought composition is not to wear ruts in the road. Sam was joyful in his art because he was constantly challenging and engaging with what he saw. Art was fun, not morbid tradition. Art was delight-full, not rule-bound or laden with the pressure to capture. Recall that stepping out of the rut was the first lesson in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Morning pages and artist’s dates are meant to both see the ruts and open new paths. The same process applies to the thought-canvas. See the rut. Step out of it.

As Sam taught me so many years ago, seeing and playing with what we see begins with letting go of what we think we see. It begins with a blank canvas, an unfettered mind, and the freedom to choose the composition.

read Kerri’s blog post about COMPOSITION

Unfettered, 48x48IN, mixed media

Unfettered ©️ 2018 david robinson

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Practice Thinking [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 2, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The capacity to think astutely is often undervalued in the world of action. But philosopher Hannah Arendt identified the capacity to think as the foundation of a healthy and resilient democracy. Having experienced totalitarianism in Nazi Germany, then having fled it, she devoted much of her life to studying it and its opposite, democracy. She believed that thinking thoughtfully in public deliberations and acting democratically were intertwined and that totalitarianism is built upon and sustained by deceit and thought control. In order to resist efforts by the powerful to deceive and control thinking, Arendt believed that people needed to practice thinking.” Westley, Zimmerman, Patton, Getting To Maybe: How The World Is Changed

If thinking clearly is the hard line between democracy and totalitarianism, then we in these once-united-states are in a world of trouble.

For evidence, look no further than this past week. I begin with a single word: debate. Full stop. To assume thought is to assume too much. It was painful to watch conservative pundits attempt to spin sense and justification into 90 minutes of lie-vomit and fact-abuse. It was even more painful to watch thinking people, already exhausted by years of gaslighting, grasp for some sense of what they had just witnessed. The transience of the American experiment.

I shook my head during a post-debate-news segment when a woman cloaked in MAGA swag said that there shouldn’t be fact checkers at the debates because, “People should be able to say their truth.” Where-oh-where has our thought-practice gone?

Beneath the noise of the debate was a ruling in a slander case brought against Tucker Carlson of Fox News fame. The court ruled in Fox’s favor citing,”… that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, that any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.” It has not been my experience that watchers of Fox News are necessarily awash in reason or any amount of skepticism. They believe the spin they hear in that big bubble of fantasy. The judge wrote, “The “‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’ “

O accountability, where is thy sting? O thought, where is thy champion?

Democracy is dependent upon our capacity to discern between exaggeration and fact, lie and truth. We are now a nation that cannot grasp the simplicity of science in a pandemic. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing. Those two actions could have saved thousands of lives. They still could save thousands of lives. I shook my head in despair when people I love repeated with gusto the claim that our numbers of infection are so high because we do so many tests. I thought but did not say, “Think! For god’s sake, just think about what you are saying!” It is too much to ask.

Kerri and I have met walls of angry criticism when we ask folks to check their media sources. How dare we suggest that propaganda isn’t news! It’s easy to check whether or not you are being led by the nose if you care to do it. And that, I fear, is where the line between democracy and totalitarianism dissolves. The care to do it. We would rather be comfy and fixed in our news bubbles, gloating in our mutual agreement, than practice thinking.

Without that hard line, the foundation of our healthy and resilient democracy can only crumble.

TRANSIENCE on the album RIGHT NOW is available in iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about TRANSIENCE

transience/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

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