Taking it Easy in the Isn't-Matter-World

The ocean pours through a jar, and you might say

It swims inside the fish!

This mystery gives peace to your longing,

and makes the road home

become home.

                                                   Rumi

Yep, sometimes it’s a challenge just to take it easy.  This world does assault us. This world makes a lot of demands on us. But then, which world is it that asks so much and gives so little, and which world is it that really gives us everything (and maybe even more, if we let it)?

Any major Buddhist will tell you that the world of material attachments is an illusion, composed of a constantly changing—constantly coming and going—surface “reality.” What we think we need often turns out to be not what we thought we needed at all, and it’s all because of what we’re thinking. It’s because we’re usually making things up.

So, okay, it’s not really real…but then it is real, isn’t it? It just isn’t always too reliable, and a lot of it doesn’t come when we want it, or stay as long as we’d like.

This world is a made-up world. It’s made up of outside appearances, of important occasions, of accelerating schedules, of stuff you have to have and stuff you have to do. But all of that stuff comes and goes, and often it’s just fine when you realize that you forgot all about it, until it was too late. Oops! I missed it!...and it doesn’t even matter that I did.

That’s the world we usually think really matters—the world of matter. That’s the world that’s so alluring, so demanding, so unforgiving. The “matter-world.” The world that you usually forget about (the one you take for granted) is the one that’s always there, but always sort of underneath everything. That’s the world where everything of real importance actually comes from. It’s the (often invisible) world that doesn’t change. 

It’s the Isn’t-Matter-World.

The Isn’t-Matter-World is the world of beautiful ideas that never go away, that stick with you until maybe you bring them into the material world, if you really want them there. It’s the world of Love, which is the deepest fundamental connection and motivation we have for everything of real value that arises in this life. It’s the world of miracles (like this miracle we’re all participating in, in every single instant).

The deep river water under the ice is the real, unchanging world of Love, of Art, of wonderful ideas and miraculous synchronicities—like meeting each other, or doing something really nice for someone else. It’s a world of elemental innocence, of compassionate connectedness, and of the awesome power of true humility that flows through everything of real value and beauty.

Skate lightly on the material surface, and know the deep river water-world is running through you. Live in that world, showing up (with an open heart) for the easy-does-it demands of the ever-changing surfaces. Then, the Isn’t-Matter-World will carry you in it’s flow.

Rumi by way of Coleman Barks

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Inspiring Commercial Creativity: Blue Bears, Branding, and Intuitive Intelligence

Over all the years now that I've been entering into "The Creative Process" as a means of earning a living, I've had plenty of chances to consider the hows and whys of it all. All my crazy experiences – from drawing portraits of thoroughbreds as a teenager, to providing illustrations and designs for hundreds of media outlets, to creating animations for advertising and network television – have led me to some slightly esoteric, but I believe pretty accurate conclusions that I'd like to share with you, and that I hope will help you understand your own relationship to the creative process.

Out of all the creative solutions I've stumbled across in my day, this one thing has become pretty clear to me:  The most meaningful, powerful, and effective ideas aren't always the result of brain power, or an ability to collaborate effectively. They don't come from rounding up a bunch of options and cutting out everything but the "best." They aren't built from the raw materials of project criteria and market goals – forced, fabricated, fashioned, hashed-out, or in any way massaged or mentally manipulated into "success." Don't get me wrong, a lot of typically (and many regrettably) useful solutions perhaps are. 

Usually the most focused, most profoundly effective ideas simply arise from a mysterious, and rather magical (but very reliable) source. Since they are not the result of any willful intellectual process, more often than not they are essentially dreamt up – the product of a kind of personal, immediately shareable vision.

The more you've taken part in this process, the more likely it is that you can identify with the mysterious leap that I'm trying to describe, but then where does that clear, nearly perfect idea come from – that idea you only could have dreamt of finding and never induced through brain power alone? This query should evoke a little mysticism and magic, as I believe it does. In an effort to locate it's source, let's try to put the whole curious process into a greater, even more "scientific" context for a minute, starting at the very beginning:

We are all sitting on a tiny planet in a tiny solar system in a tiny galaxy in the vast, unimaginable infinity of "outer space." Infinite numbers of stars, planets, galaxies, and probably universes too are constantly being created, coming into being, atrophying, and disappearing within a scale of existence that can only be described as timelessly eternal, and more to our point, beyond imagination. Somewhere within that overwhelming picture, we can begin to form a sense of The Creative Force – the essential field of everything becoming.

In Quantum Physics, the principles of non-locality and entanglement describe just such an active, invisible field in which everything is connected – an aquifer of innate intelligence at a sub-atomic level, in the realm of an equally infinite "inner space." That might all seem overly magical and unlikely to boot, except for the fact that the functions of our modern technology very reliably depend on those, and other crazy realities revealed by our most practical form of physics.  

On a more personal physiological level, medical science continuously defines and redefines the character of our brains – our thinking organs – in a sense as an organic collector and conduit of different, extra-ordinarily elaborate capacities, driven by basic instincts, and fed from a vast well of conscious and unconscious intelligence that originates from without, and within.

 On the left side of our brain we have our serial processor, constantly taking inventory, comparing and categorizing, scheduling, ordering, and manipulating; experiencing the demands of time and impending necessity. On the right side, we have our parallel processor, experiencing the holistic moment, the connection of everything to everything; the empathic bridge from the sensory to the eternal.

And beneath it all, on any scale and in every function, the power of creation flows along like a mighty river, animating, enlivening, and energizing everything from the greatest cosmological process to the smallest personal decision. Naturally it isn't a river that we can personally command in any way – it's one we may be briefly swept away by, or, for our purposes, one we may only hope to temporarily channel. And how do we go about that? How do we tap into all of that intuitive, archetypal intelligence? How can we reliably access our own artistic common sense? 

It's no surprise that in the world of commercial creativity, over-thinking a problem usually is the problem, so recognizing the difference between an intuitively inspired solution that arises from that mysterious source, and the willful, intellectual one that we force into existence is critical. Is it that the first thing that comes to mind is the best solution, as it so often appears to be – an instinctive stroke of brilliance? The best evidence in my experience (before collaborative comparisons are made), is that the first inspired thought that simply arises usually is the best solution. The challenge is then either to quickly go with it "as-is," or to protect and preserve it throughout the process of development.

There doesn't seem to be a perfect situation for allowing the intuitive to surface, it comes from a set of inner conditions – not outer ones, and so it travels with you through your life – from job to job, and place to place. The only way to encourage it is to try to recreate the circumstances that have best allowed that creative flow in the past, like placing a radio in the window sill where it can receive the strongest signal. Working in familiar, comfortable surroundings and relationships, at the right time of day, or with your preferred partner, privacy, music, or cup of tea. 

Focused time is absolutely essential – you simply can't be multi-tasking and expect any clear connection to take place. Texting, web-surfing, watching YouTube, making reservations, in short, worrying about anything else simply won't do it. Even our least encumbered mental processes already create plenty of obstacles without adding more. You need clear space – free of mental interference – to clearly receive intuitive inspiration. This is true whether you are formulating the most complex concept, or writing or drawing a single line well.

Probably the most effective means for encouraging and allowing your intuitive connection comes through meditation, which shares two very important goals with creative endeavor, namely: 

1. The observation and discernment of the quality and necessity of our thoughts; and 

2. The opening of the most direct connection possible with that mysterious wellspring of all creation (so you may listen to your client, and then listen to the universe). 

Either meditating as a practice, or folding elements of meditative practice into your creative process will open your channel for receiving specific answers like nothing else. Setting aside the demands of serial (left brain) thinking, and connecting with your (right brain) intuitive source becomes less of an applied second nature, and simply a more natural way to begin the process. Asking the universe for help is a pretty direct way to start things off  – after all, everything has come from that divine source anyway, and so realistically, any source that's responsible for the entire universe shouldn't have much trouble helping with our little songs or sayings, buildings, pictures, or other ephemeral, creative projects.  

Because of the undeniably profound nature of that source, it's actually easy for anyone to recognize a truly inspired idea – the clear, intuitive solution just has a special presence — it sings, in a way that strikes a deeper note. There's a magic to the moment that it comes into being, and everyone that witnesses it can recognize it, and could embrace it immediately, and hold on to it – if they could only keep their mind out of the way. 

The obstacles to intuitive inspiration in a commercial setting are usually personal and institutional, coming about as a result of company directions, project associations, egos, and personal issues. Quick, direct, intuitive solutions often simply are not part of a business strategy. It's (usually mistakenly) believed that only something more willfully fashioned will do, or some bosses or coworkers may refuse to recognize an intuitive inspiration that isn't their own. The spontaneous appearance of an inspired idea can challenge the egocentric thinking that typically requires (subconsciously or not) some degree of self enhancement, or false sense of control. It can be tricky politics, keeping a great idea alive.

When forces push back against an inspiration, you may need to take up the issue and defend it (though it will usually do that for itself), but you should never fight over it. Easy come, easy go. The creative source is constantly showing it's own way. Entering into a collaborative give-and-take may be the most fluid path to a reasonable (though perhaps less inspired) solution...and fluidity is a good metaphor for the over-arching inspiration empowering the creative process. It's like going downstream, being carried on a secure and powerful current and allowing solutions to simply arise. A dissolving of one's "ego-self" into the intuitive flow is necessary for an inspired idea to take it's proper shape.

On the teamwork side of the equation, when you suddenly see someone else channeling an intuitively inspired solution get out of their way and let 'em go – or better yet, help them bring it into reality as well as you possibly can. That kind of constructive yielding supports the power of the perfect idea. Allowing and encouraging intuitive inspiration will always leads to the best solution you'll ever get, and the highest quality results are often impossible without serious ego deflation taking place by one participant or another.

But it's a problem too that capitulation and compromise of an intuitively inspired idea will often knock a project right off it's foundations. It can destroy a client's (or teammate's) faith in your direction, and energize a painfully unconscious cycle of unnecessary reconceptualization and endless revision. In the clear light of intuitive intelligence, only an original vision will serve as the catalyst for the best solution of the creative problem it addresses. There really is no such thing as "re-visions" when one of these idea vacuums suddenly forms – almost instantly, the path to any solution becomes longer, more complicated and less rewarding. 

One sad sensation I've witnessed repeated over and over through my career has been the sense of loss at someone having had an intuitively creative solution compromised or abandoned. The knowledge that for awhile we had it! – and then egos and personalities prevented it from ever seeing the light of day. But the really great thing about working intuitively in collaborative efforts is that even if an inspiration is compromised, there is plenty more where that came form. In commercial efforts, as well as in all of life, the source of creative inspiration is infinitely abundant, adaptable, and forgiving. If you continue to allow it to arise, it will continue to show the way to a fresh and newly energizing solution.

Realizing that we are not completely in charge of the mostly uncontrollable collision involved in any creative production can help a lot too. It's by the grace of the Creative Gods, so to speak, that we're provided the opportunity to play a part in bringing something special to light as a means of making a living – that alone can provide enough of a purpose for a journeyman artist. We can simply show up, do our best, and leave the results to our Creative Gods (so to speak).

This leads to the bigger picture that recognizing and developing our creative, intuitive channel can give us, as we find the source of our best ideas is (not coincidentally) also the best source of our moral and ethical direction. When we start consciously opening our contact to that creative source, our consciousness expands, and we find ourselves in touch with more and more of that wonderful "common sense," and the ease and direction it can bring into our lives. Commercial projects and activities that were formally fought for – or over – become more difficult to live with, as our mystic creative channel directs us away from commercial ambition and towards serving our deeper needs.

...And deep is where those sweetest creative solutions live, and so they touch a deep and satisfying note within everyone. They unify and energize the entirety of a project, as well as the attitudes of it's participants – and it's at this deeper level that they carry the most commercial effectiveness: at that profound level of branding and brand association. Intrinsically, we all know what serves our real needs in the best, most commonly beneficial way, and so we identify with, and want to (even subconsciously) associate our selves to those inner essential shared values.

Gratitude, generosity of spirit, humility, and joyful participation work so well in every aspect of Life, that naturally they'll help in the largely inconsequential problems that the world of commercial creativity presents; after all, in the end, none of it is of any particular importance whatsoever, except for how we go about it, and whether or not we can bring that shared, intuitive understanding to life through our shared efforts. The need to open yourself up, get out of inspirations way, have a conversation, and follow the flow.

At last, at the risk of seeming overly subjective, I'll resort to an example that's specific to my commercial animation industry, just for the sake of making a point. Here it is: 

Would you rather hang around with Geico Auto Insurance's petulant, EastEnd salamander, or would you prefer spending the day with Charmin Toilet Paper's silent, cozy, big blue bear? Which character and direction suggests a comfortable, intuitively inspired creation, the quality of their product, and a sensation of shared benevolent purpose and meaning? ...and there's your brand. 

I'm not sure what you think, or better yet, feel about it...but it makes me wonder – just where do big blue bears come from, anyways? 

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct on this page or online; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for them it at your local bookstore! 

Codename: Kids Next Door – More 2x4 Technology on Wheels

For all you junkyard junkies, here are a few of the less often seen rolling 2x4 vehicles employed by numbahs one through five...the colors have been adjusted to jive with the junkyard Leonardo design specs I originally had in mind...

Animation Design in Flash! Fun BGs & Characters

It's fun to build a throng of Flashy fans and devotees, populating a plastic Everytown, U.S.A, occupying Flash's world of layers and symbols...click to see'em bigger.

Here's our jubilant crowd of up-close enthusiastic small-town pan fans and well-wishers, rushing past as you pass...

...here's a funny little smattering of distant sidewalk onlookers, and a rather anonymous mulling mid-range crowd...

...and here's where we started – with a typical, fun cartoon street, which Flash's plasticity can give an activity all by itself.

Codename: Kids Next Door – More 2x4 Tech Weaponry!

The KND had a never-ending need for new and specialized weaponry; here are a few of the more popular and often-used mayhem-makers that Numbah 2 cooked up in his junkyard lab...

The Phlazer was one of the first 2x4 weapons I "invented," a homemade light amplifying blaster that I'm not sure, but it just might really work...

...the Gumgunner (those gumballs hurt!)

...the Razorgun, for getting into close shaves. Adults with facial hair, look out!

...and Numbah Three's favorite, the Teddyzooka...nothing like getting a teddy bear right smack in the kisser!

Bass Angling, Animation Design Style (Fishing in the Weeds...)

This recent color-keyed flow chart is an homage to the Saul Bass, Mirisch, David DePatie/Friz Freleng schools of those wonderfully graphic show titles...and not to forget Jay Ward! This particular pitch didn't catch on, but it was a nice angle anyways...(to the tune of Malvina Reynolds "Little Boxes")

Animation Design Comes to Life – Actual Shots from Different Spots

Here are shots from actual spots demonstrating how animation design fits content and brand; a variety of looks I've come up with for a variety of requirements – and shown in a variety of venues...

from online to on-the-air...

Design for an online animation, the kind I specialize in at

IdeaRocket Animation

The hand-drawn style supplies unfolding action to the storyline...

Designing an entire world

where every character

is built from it's own word,

for Word World, airing on

PBS Kids...where I created a lot of easily-read characters,

their legible locations, and lots of their well-spelled stuff.

An editorial look for a groovy trip back in history...

And an upcoming animation describing what animation can do...

...maybe we'll end up with a corner office!

See what I do with IdeaRocket,

And a lot more animation design of all kinds at my site.

Call on me for any kind of animation design solution,

particularly if it's perplexing, pop, or playful!

Check out my profile on LinkedIn

Codename: Kids Next Door - 2 x 4 Technology, Flying Vehicles!

The KND needed lots of different vehicles built out of whatever I (and #2) could find out in the cartoon junk yard. A lot of them rolled, a lot of them sailed, and a whole lot of 'em – like these four here,

flew like crazy...

This was called "The TrailerChopper"

Here's "The BaitPlane"

...and "The CazhShip," cuz it was just so casual...

And of course they needed a "KndAirliner," for those special travel arrangements...

...color on these has been adjusted to meet original specifications.

Codename: Kids Next Door, From the Extra Sooper Obscure Vault – Crazy Killin' Time

Codename: Kids Next Door was probably one of the last animated TV shows on the air that was designed on paper, old school style, with a bunch of us sitting around "The Design Pit," each with our cubby-holes and boards. The grind of creating a heavily designed show season after season can lead to some unusual ways to fill the few and far between breaks in the ever-steady stream of work. Oftentimes, just to keep the juices flowing, it leads to slightly irreverent sketching, mostly on Post-Its and on scraps of paper...which I just happened to run across some of, cleaning out a drawer in my flat-file (remember those? They were where you used to store files).

Here then are a few scenes, out-takes, and time-fillers from the Extra Sooper Obscure Vault – for real gluttons for KND punishment, and definitely not for the faint of heart...

I'll lead off with some legitimate work (well, sort of...), an evil baby-abductor, a thumbnail mega interplanetary sooper rocket, and a guaranteed nugget mining device, for scratching and clawing your way to treasures...

Our kindly boss, Mr.Tom Warbuton, tried his best to keep us happy by plying us with candy and sweets – there was a huge bin of it available 24-7; but sometimes, like here when one of our BG designers, Gideon Kendall came back after a couple days off, what he discovered upon his return wasn't all that pretty...

Working on comics often leads to coming up with a few of your own.

Here's a classic waste of time: Salmon Man, and his arch-nemesis The Grizzly (with his troublesome little sidekick, Racoon Kid).

This is just plain wrong, and someone should apologize for it! (Run out and find me someone...) It's probably some kind of heresy for an animation guy to boot...but it did happen long ago (before I got better). Allow me to apologize to Mr. Lucas...

Uh oh...

...I've saved the last (and practically the worst) for last and practically worst. It's this imagined depiction of what happened when our erstwhile Inker Extraordinaire, Sir Robert Smith, (aka, The Iguana) didn't make it in to work due to illness. Man, did we ever miss him. In fact, I still do!

As well as Tom Evans, John Allemand, Todd Myers, and Kevin Kobasic.

PS to all you moved to L.A., out there you've got coyotes, but here there's just crickets...........................................................XO RK

The Nice Way to Do the Holidays: Having Fun and Changing Your World

Summer, Winter.....................................................................................Happy Holidays!

"None of the means employed to acquire religious merit...has a sixteenth part of the value of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness, which is freedom of the heart, absorbs them all; it glows, it shines, it blazes forth."

The Buddha, Itivuttaka Sutta

That's quite a precise break-down of the power of being nice, don't you think? I wonder how he knew? I tried it out myself at one time and I never looked back, so I'll pass it along to you as something of a challenge: The challenge to be as nice as you possibly can to everybody you meet. It's kind of a tall order, but not impossible, and can help quite a lot at this time of year – what with all the demands on your holiday cheer.

Of course The Buddha knew the difference between being religious and being spiritual – that it's a little like comparing apples to water. Going to church defines you as being a type of believer, while showing loving-kindness to everyone you meet gets right to the heart of the distinction, namely:

You're not what you believe, you're what you do.

Take this little challenge and try it yourself, from now through the holidays, and watch what happens! You'll suddenly find yourself a part of a slightly invisible conspiracy of kindness; of identification and compassion. Friends you never knew you had will show up ev-erywhere, and then disappear just as beautifully and mysteriously; leaving you with only the one requirement – to continue the chain of kindness.

First you'll be amazed, then you'll wonder, then you'll experiment more intentionally, then you might never go back. It's that powerfully amazing. It will change your world that much. You can't help but be grateful for the wonderful way people treat you when you show them unconditional loving-kindness, and you'll find you're happy all the time, because you have to have gratitude before you can be happy about anything.

How does it work so well (sixteen times better...)? Simply because being kind to others takes the focus off of who Your Ego ("Mr. Big Shot") thinks you are, and places it on someone else's well-being – which as it turns out is really yours too. And it's easy to show unconditional Love all the time, because Love is all unconditional already – it only becomes conditional when Ego begins demanding it. What a kvetch.

We all want Love and companionship. Compañero. We're all the same person, really. "No we're not!" your Ego says, "I'm not at all like Dick Cheney!" (–God Bless 'im). Well, I hope that's true, and you may have a bit of a point after all... should everyone get the same lovingly kind treatment, no matter what? Well, dammit, ideally yes they should (now that's "tough love"). But if that level of unconditionality is im-possible, then let's look for a rule of thumb to go by:

"Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked."

Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, 1.33

So three out of four ain't bad. Just don't pay no mind to Mr. Cheney. Better yet, see if you can find some Love in your heart for him, because that's how we're all evolving. We're all becoming more and more able to share in the medium of Love that actually lives under, around, and through us. It's the solution that staring us in the face all the time. Gratitude and compassion are the doors to realizing it in every moment; and when we're kind to everyone we meet, all the time, we're open to the force of evolution that's flooding our plane of existence. We're opening the gates to it ourselves – each one of us.

"Heaven arms with Compassion those whom it would not see destroyed"

The Tao te Ch'ing, 67

Kindness is a winning strategy. There's lots of people out there who've already known it all along, you know, those smarties who are always smiling. Compassion doesn't save them from physical destruction – it enables them to find spiritual realization. To remove the obstacles to Love, and so to really expand and grow and flow with Life. Ho ho ho!

Take my holiday challenge, won't you? Turn your frown upside down and look into the nicest mirror you've ever seen...You might never look back.

Happy Holidays!