Possess It

Posted on November 13, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
An untitled watercolor I did years ago

An untitled watercolor I did years ago

Last night P-Tom said, “This is the time of year that everyone is telling us what we need and where we can go to buy it.”

Yesterday I worked on website language. After a year-long hiatus I’m re-visioning what was once a coaching practice. All day I was aware that words like “potential” and “purpose” are abstractions; they are marketing terms. Many years ago, when I was first establishing a coaching practice, I read articles and listened to recordings full of advice about “how to start a coaching business;” the recommendation was unanimous: host free calls, help people see their problem, and end the call. Leave them standing in the mud so they will need you. Create lack (isn’t that a great definition for marketing?).

What does it really mean to fulfill your potential? What does it mean to “find your purpose?” Look to the layer beneath. To fulfill, to find…, these are terms from the canon of outcome and result. No one willingly seeks his or her endpoint. If there is a universal problem it is that we see our existence as something with a bottom line and hire coaches and therapists to help us do the accounting.

(Insert mantra: nothing is broken. You do not need to be fixed).

Good coaches, teachers, mentors, and therapists get you out of the spreadsheet and into the moment. Looking for the fullness of life is usually a process that requires the cessation of looking so we might see what is right in front of us. Stop the search and you will be found. As the old saying goes, life is the thing that is happening while you are running around looking for it.

I’m a world-class note taker and always take notes when I work with people. For me it’s like mapping verbal terrain, capturing inner geography. Lately I’ve been reviewing the maps before I destroy them and I find not seekers of potential and purpose, but people overwhelmed by the experience of 1) feeling lost, 2) feeling that something is missing or they are missing something, 3) feeling that they are pushing on a door that won’t open, or 4) a yearning for a different way of being. These are questions of feeling. These are questions of orientation to life (experiences of life). “Potential” and “purpose” are words of doing. These are questions of being.

What if meaning, value, purpose,… in life was not something found or bought but something that is already possessed?

Go here to buy hard copies (and Kindle) of my latest book: The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Innovator, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator,…You.

 

Filed under: Language, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Expose The Value

Posted on November 3, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

photo-3We debated our costumes for Brad and Jen’s Halloween extravaganza for months prior to the party. The letter for this year’s costume theme was “T” (with extra credit for using a “Q”). During the long hours of our summer road trips, our conversation sounded something like this:

“We could be Trollops.”

“Trollop is good. We could be Tin men.”

“I like that. What about Tootsie Pops!”

“Someone will come as a Tootsie Pop. How about Tramps.”

“No. I did that when I was twelve. What about tsunami! We could be a tsunami!”

And on and on we’d go. We finally settled on this bit of whimsy: Too-many-ideas & Too-many-questions. Kerri was going to be Too-many-ideas and I was intended to be Too-many-questions – but we changed our minds in the final hours.

At the party you might have asked, as many people asked us, “What is a Tarving Artist?” We wore paint-spattered clothes and artist aprons filled with paint and brushes. On the aprons we wrote: Dying Of Exposure. Between us we carried a donation bucket with a sign that read: Our “S” was repossessed. Please help us buy it back.

In the week prior to the party, Kerri was asked to play for an event. Every artist in the nation is used to hearing the words she hears weekly: “We have no money to pay you but it will be great exposure for you.” She is a consummate, career musician with 15 albums, (going on 16) and needs no help with her exposure. I loved her response: “Let me call my accountant and ask if she accepts exposure for payment.” Her latest encounter with empty exposure started a long hysterical conversation and note-comparison session of all the amazing ways people have asked us to work for anything and everything but money (Yes, it is true. When artists make art they are working as surely as a plumber who plumbs or a doctor who diagnoses. When was the last time you asked your dentist to work for exposure?).

The common mistake at the center of every work-for-exposure offer: it will be good for the artist. It’s never good for the artist. For two reasons it’s a notion that is good for everyone but the artist. First, no artist wants the kind of exposure that reinforces that their work is without real value. Second, no creative artist wants to be defined as a player of background music or drawer of dog portraits (unless, of course, their dream in life is to draw dog portraits). The act of drawing or playing a musical instrument is not what defines the artist or their art. It is a mistake to assume that because I can draw and paint that the act of drawing and painting is what constitutes the art. A carpenter uses a hammer but the hammer does not define their work. It is a tool. The keyboard, the paint and brushes are tools.

People who pay artists with exposure see the tool but not the artist. That is why Kerri and I opted to change our costume. Certainly dressing as a Tarving Artist was a statement but more than that, we realized that only a starving artist would agree to play for exposure; only a starving artist would agree to hammer incessantly to get the attention of people who can’t see them to begin with. It’s never good for the artist and is always a costume or role they assume for the empty promise of exposure. The cost for the artist is always greater than the exposure and at the end of the day, after trading a bit of their integrity, they still aren’t able to pay the bills.

title_pageGo here to buy hard copies (and Kindle) of my latest book: The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Innovator, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator,…You.

Yoga.ForwardFoldGo here for fine art prints of my paintings

 

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

What Do You Value?

Posted on June 25, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
One of the windows by Max Ingrand at Saint Pierre de Montmarte

One of the windows by Max Ingrand at Saint Pierre de Montmarte

What has value? What has merit?

Or, here’s a better question: What is value? What is merit?

During our travels I looked at a lot of art and architecture from across the centuries and across many different cultures. There is a very old church, Saint Pierre of Montmarte, one of the oldest in Paris, seated adjacent to Sacre Coeur high on the hill overlooking the city. This ancient church has been outfitted with stained glass windows, designed by Max Ingrand, that I can only describe as cubist. The collision of ancient church and modern window is breathtaking and perfect. The windows were so beautiful (to me) that they brought tears to my eyes. It was hard for me to leave the church as I was so taken by the windows yet I was also aware of the number of people moving through that were not impacted at all. Later, I entered Sacre Coeur and felt nothing. To me, it was impressive, impersonal, and left me cold – yet I watched others catch their breath with its scope and grandeur. They were moved to tears.

Is value purely personal and subjective?

I remember listening to a recorded lecture by Joseph Campbell. He said that you could tell what a society valued by the buildings constructed in the city center. For centuries, churches occupied the village center. Financial institutions occupy our village/value center. Is value an agreement? Is it a focal point of worship? Take a gander at the titles in the local bookstore and you will find that money, morality, spirituality, and success are odd bedfellows. Is a good life richly lived demarcated by the size of a bank account? Tourists in the distant future will visit the holy sites occupying our village center and read placards about what we valued.

Near Sacre Coeur is the cemetery at Montmartre. We descended the hill to the cemetery and walked the paths through the monuments and graves. They fascinate me. They are essences, value statements distilled to a thick concentrate of marble and stone. There are angels and gargoyles, draped figures in repose and riders of the apocalypse. There are statements: loving father, devoted mother. There are roles: composer, writer, soldier, painter, baker, philosopher, politician. The famous are interred next to the ordinary. In a cemetery, all lives are even. Standing amidst the graves I see lives lived, dreams dreamed and realized or unrealized, and I wonder what each person valued during their allotment of days, and what they valued on the very last day.

Value is relative and passing? An extraordinary moment, when conscious, is valuable.

This is from Rumi: Spirit is so mixed with the visible world that giver, gift, and beneficiary are one thing. You are the grace raining down; the grace is you.

Value is grace? You? What surrounds you?

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Know The Value

Posted on February 26, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I once read a series of books in which the main character, a successful real estate broker, so despised the emptiness of his life that one night he took off his clothes and walked away from his life. He literally left everything behind. He stepped away from every illusion that he maintained. From zero, he rediscovered himself and emerged a man rooted in the essential, living in the present. He relinquished the culture of comfort and embraced the textures and struggles of a life unprotected.

These past few months, as I stepped away from what was known and am now wandering, I have thought often of these books and this character. Just as the character learned that his needs were never fulfilled by possessions and always fulfilled through relationships, I am learning that I can only truly offer my gifts to the world when I fully allow myself to fully receive.

In these months I have stayed with Alan, Judy, Megan, Mark and Teru, and Carol; I have traveled from Boston to Hastings to Champaign to Denver and Seattle. I have enjoyed the retreat of my parents’ empty home (they are snowbirds). I’ve received untold kindness and experienced the generosity of friends and strangers. And, the lesson over and over: I need do nothing to deserve it; I need only receive it. In my life I’ve learned to give but have protected myself from receiving and am apparently out of balance. Carol said, as she threw her apartment keys at me, “It’s time for you to learn to receive!” And then she laughed at the pained look on my face. Judy reiterated the lesson. Mark told me I am always welcome to stay. These generosities are worth more than gold to me.

Todd and Lone are keeping tabs on me. Mark takes me to lunch when he knows I’m in town. Chris popped me on the head and told me to drop my illusions – I know more than I am willing to admit. David called as I drove across the country to touch base and hear my voice. Kerri toasts me with java everyday; this list could go on and on. I am like the character in the book. I’ve always known that the real value of my life was in my relationships, I just had no idea how rich I really am.

Filed under: Gratitude, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Understand My Confusion

Posted on November 20, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I’m not getting you anything for Christmas. It’s not that I don’t want to give you a gift. I do. It’s just that I’m having a crisis of value; I’m not sure what is valuable anymore.

For instance, I was unplugged from the news last week so I missed the disappearance of the Twinkie. Honestly, I probably would have missed it had I not been unplugged from the news. What I didn’t miss was the profiteers that raked clean the Twinkies from store shelves only to sell them on eBay to panicking Twinkie fans for a hundred times the market price. And they are selling, thus establishing a new market price. I recognize the rules of supply and demand, the demand-fever produced by a limited supply and all of that; I can even entertain the appeal of Americana, the passing of the Twinkie era and the emotional crisis that might evoke. But, truth be told, I am shaking my head in disbelief.

Just for kicks I googled the list of endangered species and wondered where is the frenzy over the limited supply of Assam Roofed Turtles or Australian Sea Lion’s? If we have the energy to horde and save Twinkies, where is our verve to protect the Bactrian Camels? I understand there is a very limited supply. Of course, it is a rhetorical question; according to the law of supply and demand they have no value. No demand. No market. Best to just let the supply disappear. You can understand my confusion. For kicks, google the list, read it, and see how long it takes you to get to the bottom. You might want to sit. You’ll certainly want to brew some coffee; it will take you a while.

And then there is the day we set aside each year to give thanks. We gather with our families. We make a big meal to demonstrate and celebrate our abundance. Given enough time we might even sit around and tell stories of the people who came before us that lived hard lives so that we might enjoy our abundance. But, this year the stores open at 8:00. I hadn’t recognized the shortage of stuff – or perhaps it is a shortage of time to get stuff; either way, somehow we’ve managed to turn our ritual of Thanksgiving into a festival of lack. I’d ask you to explain it to me but I think that might only serve to depress me.

Given the clear value message displayed by my community, I have learned that the best gift I can give to you this year is a Twinkie. And, I can’t do it. I value you more than that. You can understand my confusion.

Filed under: Perspective, Random, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

« Previous Page
  • buy us a coffee :-) Thank you!

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com