Steve Robison's Blog
April 29, 2021
Lifespan of Loss
There once was a man and that man lost fifty coins in a business deal and was understandably disappointed. In a few days, he forgave himself, both the loss of coin and of his mind, and got back to the business of life, earning his keep. A few weeks later, he lost two hundred coins, and was understandably disappointed. As before, he forgave himself and got back to business and life. He knew it was not good to dwell on past losses. Again, a few weeks later, he had a loss, this time ten coins. He was understandably disappointed.
The man called on the wise sage, posing the question of why his feelings seemed the same with regard to all three losses, fifty, two hundred, and ten coins. The old sage said, “Lack is lack and loss is loss and the feelings do not measure but only feel. The feelings do not measure for they cannot. Feelings are not rational.”
Slowly, the man learned to better deal with his feelings of disappointment, to handle them like the irrational children they were, not needing explanation nor reason, but safety and comfort. Slowly, the effects of the losses lessened, regardless the magnitude of each loss. Slowly, the man became less susceptible to the vicissitudes of life, and grew more happy, knowing that most things in life brought contentment, and that the lifespan of a disappointment was proportional to the level of happy acceptance of pain.
February 9, 2019
Brother
I was kneeling on the floor, overwhelmed in the bright glory of the real and actual Son of God, my Brother, Jesus, prostrated soul, humbled mind, overwhelmed, moved. Tears flowed freely from the spring of my wounded heart. Thoughts of disbelief crossed my crowded mind. Shoulders tight, neck pained, the situation, the reality, the heavy MIRACLE of that moment stretching through and to the gates of heaven wore me down, smoothed me, revealed to me my essence. Resistance tempted me. Resistance begged me. Resistance commanded me to halt the tears, hold the breath, dismiss the sure and certain knowledge of the sureness and certainty of that long moment, that longest moment. And then He spoke. “Brother.” A floodgate of joyous tears and ecstasy crowded out the grey malaise and black fears and all was perfection, brilliant, the whitest white.
How could doubt ever visit my house after that experience? How? And yet, doubt still plagues me. The curse of humanity. The beauty of incertitude. The sweet innocent state of needing to ever grow, stretch, LEAP to faith, not faith from yesteryears, but the subtly brave faith, bathed in fear, salted with doubt, the faith of a perfectly imperfect adult child of God, big brother to my best friend, Jesus.
A Typewritten Page
It was a typewritten page. At first I had assumed it had been a laser printout, from a computer, or, these days, from a tablet, or even a phone. But no, it was an actual typewritten page. There were no clearly discernible errors but there was an apparent, though subtle, difference in *intensity* of some of the letters. I’d never really thought about it but laser printers produce a high level of consistency that typewriters, ubiquitous in decades past, rare today, didn’t.
There was no date.
There was no indication of authorship.
There was no title.
It was part of a larger work, as the start was not indented as subsequent paragraphs were, nor was it capitalized. The page was full, a page from an unknown manuscript, with no page number, nothing unique. It was not on good paper, just the typical white copy paper sold at Staples or Walmart with five hundred sheets per ream for a few dollars.
I inspected it more closely, standing from my desk chair, walking to the dual sliding glass doors leading to the terrace of my oceanfront unit on the fourth floor overlooking the ocean. The sun was still visible a little after eleven, a bright yellow ball of fire warming the chilled March beach below. No white out, no corrections, no strikethroughs. The page was typed by someone far more skilled at touch-typing than I am. Backspace is my most used key, sometimes as I choose to change words as I change direction in the narrative in my head before it transcribes itself from mental images to keystrokes on my MacBook to electronic impulses to digital representations in the computer’s memory, and later, to longer term storage, and later still, seconds or minutes, to the mysterious “cloud,” stored forever, accessible from my various devices, MacBooks, iPad, iPhone, but more often due to fingers untrained to be obedient to the instructions from my head. I’ve had lots of practice, both from writing and from computer programming, my day job till three years ago, when my bestseller allowed my early retirement, as well as the beachfront condo and a BMW.
machination of manipulation had worn thin. My interest had waned hours ago. All that remained was the dull writhing, evaporating as the wet sheen on midday asphalt in south Florida in August after a short afternoon storm.
"The thrill is gone," I heard in the hollows of my throbbing head in the voice of B.B. King. The thrill had certainly departed, and all that remained was the throbbing the dull ache the crazed indifference and my bold resilience, refusing to let him win, refusing to allow a single tear, refusing to scream, to give him the satisfaction of besting me. The incessant drip of the faucet in the steel sink threatened to steal my serenity, my very sanity, but then a thought occurred to me that I could use the rhythm, feel it, the pulse, the drip, drip, drip, pulse, pulse, pulse, regulating my heart rate, regulating my mood, regulating my perception of pain, of the lack of pain, of the sheer unnecessaryness of it all. Jan, my yoga teacher, would be proud, I thought wryly.
He's been gone for 742 drips, 742 heartbeats, 742 moments of stunned relief. The throbbing in my head is in someone else’s head; the ache from the handcuffs are someone else’s wrists; the eerie misplaced wanting of his return is some evil doppelgänger’s wanting, surely not mine. 743, 744, 745. Sweet, blessed moments of reprieve. Drip, drip, drip.
I didn’t want to read any more. I didn’t know that I could stop. I liked horror and blood and gore as much as the next guy, in movies, in novels, but this seemed too real, too personal, too… I didn’t know just how to finish the thought.
But, I told myself, either this page was pure fiction, and therefore nothing to be feared, or if it was based on truth, it was in the first person, so that person, that first person who had typed the page I held, survived. I chastised myself then, realizing my thinking allowed for torture, for terror, for abuse, so long as the victim survived? I shuddered, walked back to my desk, placed the thin sheet in my inbox, headed to the bathroom to shower. I’d decide later whether to finish reading the page, and what I might do with and about it. Later. It would keep.
June 30, 2017
What are the ingredients of innovation?
Innovation is form, function, reality, imagination. Innovation is collaboration, noodling, navel-gazing, and actual action.
We choose to allow time to breathe, to listen, to observe, to wander, to think, and when the muse speaks, when Innovation speaks, we listen, take note, choose to act, and then ACT, with little need for validation, deliberation--and zero need for hesitation.
Actual action in the actual direction of vision and goals creates actual and concrete results. There is a time to think and a time to act.
Walt Disney said it well when he said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” Finesse allows us the luxury of knowing the appropriate mix of imagination with specific movement, where theory intersects with process, where dreams become manifest reality.
We shall forge a new company, with audacity, courage, and creativity. We innovate. We are innovators. We know well that we must innovate or perish and we’ve no interest in shrinking nor of shirking this calling.
March 20, 2017
We and I, thoughts and feelings, creating, creating, creating
Life is, in large part, as I think it is.
While I know this to be true, I sometimes get stuck.
I get caught up sometimes in the concept of shared reality, of “one plurality.” We are one and we are many. I affect the universe but am but one of many co-creators. Some of what I see, I have created directly, and much of what I see was created by others.
Other times I get confused because I create not only by conscious but by subconscious thoughts and feelings. (Feelings are thoughts, too, much like news and poetry both express and communicate, but at opposite ends of a spectrum.) If I want a new car but don’t feel I deserve it because of subconscious habitual beliefs, I won’t get the car.
All this is to say I must continually work to uncover the hidden beliefs that limit me if I am to live an expansive and fulfilling live, and that I must choose with care those I choose to be close to.
Life is as I and we think and feel it to be.
March 14, 2017
Seeking Magic
I have three writing modes.
1. Disciplined
2. Intentional
3. Inspired
I’m not sure those are the perfect adjectives, but they’re in the ball park. I spend most of my time in the middle, as it flows easily enough and I rarely feel the need to force myself. And when I feel I can’t write, I just start, and that feeling falls away soon enough. Once I start writing I can pretty much always write. I’ve proved that hundreds of times at free writes and the last eight weeks writing my weekly assignments which all turned out quite good.
But I don’t feel I spend a lot of time in that inspired place, the place where rainbows spark the neurons and pixies visit and sprinkle their dust and angels whisper words and I just write, write, write.
I suppose I could consider it befriending the muse, tapping into the limitless creative flow that’s the essence of our universe, the space between atoms, and between moments.
Or I could more simply call it what it is: magic.
February 12, 2017
No Pixie Dust
“There’s no magic,” he said, with spewing vitriol. “Why do you insist on this silliness?”
“It’s not silly. And you’d know that if you let your guard down.”
“I tried that. Over and over. I was raised in the fucking church and I’ve got the T-shirt. Maybe it works for some people. But not for me.”
“I’m sorry you feel—”
“I don’t want your fucking pity, Sarah. And I don’t want your advice.”
“So there’s nothing left to say…”
“Nothing at all. I need someone who’s grounded in reality, not some Pollyanna. Your pixie dust won’t buy groceries. Or pay the back taxes.”
“Is that what this is about? Money?”
“No. It’s about reality. It’s about living in the real world. It’s about having the courage to stand up and face life as it smacks you in the face and getting back up after it knocks you on the ass.”
“You’re right then.”
“I’m right?”
“I mean you’re right that there’s nothing left to say. My life isn’t only about the physical. Don’t you see? There’s so much more to—”
“I see what you mean. We’re living in different worlds. I’m not going to give up my pragmatism and you’re not going to give up your delusions. So be it.”
“I’ll call my sister and see if I can move in with her this weekend. Want some coffee?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
December 23, 2016
Hopeful Fog
She likes dismal as I like blood. We’re the exes who became best friends, only we’ve never been together. She’s the best friend I never really knew, and that’s likewise just as true in reverse.
Driving through the fog, slowly, carefully, in a rental four-door Ford sedan, all the world is a blur. But the fog lights show just enough of the road ahead, and we continue traveling, westward, while a Brahms CD fills the slightly chilly air, on this second longest night of the year. Onward through the fog, we drive. I steal a glance, catch her smiling, guess she might be thinking the same thoughts I am. We’ll drive on past Toledo, find a Motel Six, get two separate rooms.
Better safe than to risk what we have.
December 13, 2016
Removal of Envy
Envy is a result of competitiveness. But what is the value of competing? Have I not stopped being combative, divisive, and coarse? Is there some reason inside I must win? Will it prove that I am somehow worthy?
But I am worthy! That I know, simply because I am a loved child of a loving God. Regardless what I do or do not do and regardless of whether I “win” or “lose” some competition I have created in my overactive and delusional mind, God loves me completely, for that is the very definition of unconditional love!
To compete then is of no value and if I revel in the triumphs of both myself and my brother, I will have removed the catalyst for envy.
Or so it seems to me…
October 5, 2016
Impending Storm
There’s a grey indecisiveness to the mood of the sky today, above the ocean, her anger slowly building, past my perspective, beyond the curved horizon, there’s a new storm at brew, the tickling of a rage not held by the ticking of any invention so lame as time. On the sand, near the rocks of the inlet, with my pole, not expecting any fish—they’re as nervous about the impending storm as I, and while they’ve not got the knowledge of location, timing, intensity, millennia of evolution has taught them all the same—danger lurks, tumult and terror and drama.
I got a brief nibble a few hours ago, when the sun was still young in the new autumn day, but then nothing, for an hour, two.
Days away still, so there’s no immediate threat, and I’ve cleared my schedule, set aside time for imagining, for contemplation, for fishing, for sitting on the beach enjoying the responsibility of nothing, after a season of much. It’s been a hard summer, a self-imposed harsh summer, after an emotional spring, The long sprint of ten sixty hour work weeks has left me dry, brittle, and the ocean might, I hope, provide some much needed emotional moisture through the power of her endless breadth, her inconceivable energy, most especially on a day like today, as the waves grow gradually yet surely, as the hurricane rages south of Bermuda, as the sun struggles to burn through the insistent fogginess, fails.
At the office, lists beckon, messages wait, impatiently, unanswered. Here, in the proverbial calm, preceding the storm, in the slight hints at mere premonition, by weather witch doctors with dubious PhDs, here by the inlet, gazing across an angry and curved expanse, nothing is okay, but there’s a reprieve. And that’ll have to do.
RBWG writing for Art in the AM
Inspired by a painting by Margie Spaulding
