Creativity

If we can inadvertently destroy through our creative powers as we find we have, can we not then with the same powers create something beautiful? Something that speaks strongly to the future positive. History has shown us through fact and devastation what we are capable of. Who we are. And to that, who we may become or can become as we have the choice. The ability to turn ourselves around. To stop, pivot and redirect. 

This may entail small steps, but steps forward nun the less. We continue to send rockets into space exploring the expanding universe, steps forward, steps outward. Steps that are both explosive and calculated and built through benchmarks of time. Regulated through bravado and determination, trial and error as we know through the work of Thomas Edison. Step. By. Step. 

The architect and muse Zaha Hadid left us with what's possible. Left us not only with inspiration but with a challenge. To be and to become what we are capable of. To see with clarity and the emotion of inspiration the built environment as influence and fact, marker in time. A place to begin and to continue. Onward, upward and outward. And too, in a sense inward. 

Perhaps this is the greater point. The inward realization of our capacity. Where inspiration becomes introspection and back again. Maybe what we need in these times of great challenge is to go deeper into who we are, but just for a moment as action is needed. Action is the arrow propelled by history and knowledge. And in this era, propelled not just by desire but fear. Fear just may be the needed bow that sends us forward. Saves us. 

It is our innate creativity that defines and destroys. Yin and yang. But in this is a path through, as Robert Frost wrote:

  He says the best way out is always through

  And I agree to that, or in so far

  As I can see no way out but through. 

This is the positive spin. There is an exit. A sign so bright we can see through to the end. The sign is our decision making. Our choice to use creatively for the good of humanity or for our demise. Virtue or vise. Do we perpetuate the doctrines of history or do we scale the mountain that precedes a challenging terrain. Either way the terrain awaits. Our choice. Our future. 

I believe in the possibility of humanity and creativity. I also know and have seen our worst. I know the facts and lean to the positive. This is my guide. My light through. My sign. This is both arrow and bow. 

CB 04/02/18

Can/Cannot

There is a perpetual notion of can't in our society. A thought that inhibits action. That keeps us small. Pulls us down and keeps us down, not only in how we see ourselves but how we behave. Our day to day, future forward. This can't is historically perpetuated both by genetics, our brain's purpose to keep us safe and by society, our playing safe. Fear in the mind and body. 

It is this belief system that allows us to feel powerless. To step back rather than forward in the face of change. The face of presumed hierarchy. Presumed power. It is this that our government and those we allow to have power, count on. This is psychological manipulation. The knowing that fear is a tool. That can't is equal to fear and that fear is the fire that becomes what it consumes and builds a larger force. A larger movement of paralysis. Once that spark is started it's game over, or that is the desire. 

But view this from a different perspective and we find the opposing, can. The interesting thing here is the ability of can to have power over cannot. As again the brain's function is to keep us safe, therefore we can if we see this as safe. And if we see the two as options for safety not as fear we then have clearer control on the playing field. 

If we build our lives with equal realistic layers of can and cannot we build a stronger resistance. Stronger homes. Stronger bridges. And eventually, hopefully stronger minds. Build a wall of fear and you have a wall of can't. A wall of powerlessness and stagnation. A wall not only around the body but the mind. 

This is not a matter of romanticism. It is a matter of fact and philosophy. Easy choices, hard life, hard choices, easy life. This is a matter of reverse manipulation. The reversal of power. Again, the building of a stronger structure. Stronger life. 

To move forward is to have the dexterity of will. The clarity of what is at hand. Of mind and hand. To push forward and think forward. Day to day. Can't and can. The mind says push, the hand asks how far. 

~~~

From overthink, to overcome, to become.

From beginning, to middle, to never end till end.

CB 03/28/18

Push the rock and pull the weed

 To live life is to take one step at a time or a series of jumps, a series of forward actions. Whatever works to live one's authentic life. Actions speak loudest. In this era what may be necessary to move forward is all the above. A full court press, side shuffle and precise push. What may be necessary is the agility of the mind and body. Forward thought, forward action. Peripheral vision. The acknowldgement of the need for change. The desire or better still, the fire in the gut. 

To move forward in this era of regression, of mental backsliding is a matter of going beyond words. Yes words have meaning, they speak to who we are, our genetics and cultures, but it is the physicality of doing that builds the bridge and digs the trench. Paves the road. 

It is the doing or making that solidifies intent and thought. Emotion reaches its peak by way of the hand. Love turns to fire by touch, trust by a handshake and structures topple with a push.  No longer is the usual rhetoric suficing in general, therefore what is required is personal reflection and outward gesture. The relationship with the individual to the community. What is necessary is the push and the pull. To force the hand of time by pushing back what keeps us in the muck and perpetuates  our current spiral down.  And to pull, from the depths of our desires what will propel the spiral up. To frankly halt our current government, all our government and reshape it for what it's made for. For the people, by the people. 

Lets not mince words here, if you can read this you know how life works. How government works or should work. You and I both know this isn't working. By this I mean government and life. They go hand in hand, affecting each other. A necessary relationship as to be human is to be governed. But at this point we need a marker of change. A place holder. Something. An action that holds up and redirects this backward slide. This stagnated air. Blinding wind. 

What we need, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said is peaceful demonstrations. United in our multifaceted wants and needs. To acknowledge our dream. To acknowledge we have a dream. We, have a dream. Every thought, every gesture, every stand tall and be loud moves us. Moves us emotionally and physically. This is our capability. This then, is our everyday marker. Our notch in time. 

Moving forward is a coming together of the like minded. Not same minded, but a mutual understanding  of the need for change. A change for all, eventually, someday, maybe. It is an understanding that to affect the future is to affect our today. To till the soil, sow the seed, push the rock and pull the weed. 

CB 02/17/18

Language

I am increasingly interested in language, both visual and written. How these arenas can inspire our everyday. It is language that binds a culture and helps to solidify a belief system, a way of self governing both in the individual and the collective. 

 Visual language is our first step to understanding the world, how we process information.  As we take in the visual landscape and digest its stimuli we then interpret it through words, personally deciphering and editing according to how we see and understand our reality. This process runs through the mind and gut, emotion and intellect. Emotion is key here, it is what transports information forward into a bigger picture, into inspiration and action. Igniting the cannon of time.

It is not through rules and regulations that we live our best lives and reach our potential. Though necessary to counter our fallibilities, It is through understanding our innate selves that we best navigate, weaving through time and experience. Emotion and fact. It is through our connection of self and language that we piece together and connect the dots, creating meaning while vacillating desire, wants and needs. The manifestation of life well lived, life affected. 

The languages of the self activate an inner expansion, an explosion of who we are as matter and ethereal emotion. They affect our cells and frontal cortex, eliciting forward thinking  and evoking introspection. Binding together the outside, inside. What we see and then feel. This is how change occurs. How fears are faced and how politics are tweaked as growing buds. It is through language that possibility is born, from which emotion becomes physical. It is not fully through fact that life moves forward, it is through the culmination of all things human that pulls us and drives us to create. It is first and foremost the emotion of language that catapults our need to understand and counter. To smooth the wrinkles and settle the vibrations. To then take the streets, build the signs and defend our humanity. 

CB 02/07/18

Steady Wins The Race

It's not the goal, it's the journey. Steady wins the race. These days I yearn for steady and continue to chase a seemingly elusive goal. A goal of fog and mirror. Minefields of wants and needs. It's not that I do not have goals, I have them and confront them daily with determination. It's just that my goals are of the heart. Emotion before fact. My goals are lofty, they float over the horizon. Taunt and plead. Of ego and fear. 

I have a romantic default setting that steers my desires. Counters my rational fact-needing self. That trips me up, picks me up and dusts me off. Self be damned, I live for this. For me, this is what life is, this is what goals are made of. The golden grail. The end all, be all. 

Life for me is beyond myself. As life is huge. Or seems as such from my perspective. Speck amongst the stars. Boy Scout in the woods. Determined survivalist. 

There is a bigger picture here. Albeit blurred, I know its outlines as I envision it daily. Create it in my dreams and write it down in words. Its shine is familiar enough to find in the dark, warm enough to desire it and far enough to frustrate. But steady wins the race no matter how unclear the path. Or so it seems. So they say. 

If I were to define my goal, I'd pin it to the future positive. Vague as it may be, this is what I call it. How I paint it in my mind and trace it in my everyday. This is my goal and my journey. My steady race, push and pull. 

This is what I live for. My breath in frozen air, seeing what I feel. Being led by emotion, pulled by determination and fed by facts. This is my living. Mine to rescue and to give. To write it down, build it up and paint it. To set it forward, floating above the horizon line. 

CB 02/02/18