Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

How are we justifying our existence today? I am justifying my existence by being aware of it. By being aware of existing. By seeing what I look at and listening to what I am hearing, and paying attention to what’s what, and knowing what is called for and doing what I can do about it with the skill set and tools I have to offer. By, asking, seeking, knocking, probing, poking, exploring, venturing into places and areas that catch my eye, call my name, and getting to the bottom of everything that arouses my curiosity. I have never known anyone busier existing than I am. I call that justifying my existence by existing to the max and wondering about everything I can find to wonder about. And you?

If you go there looking for this, you won’t find it. Hurricanes and tropical storms reshape the landscape annually as “circumstances beget circumstances,” and everything finds its way day-to-day, letting “Today’s own trouble be sufficient for today.”

Knowing what to do with the time left for living is a matter of dropping into emptiness, stillness, silence (One thing not three) and “Waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear” (Old Taoist saying), in order to know what’s what, what’s happening, what’s called for here, now–and doing that where, when and how it needs to be done, allowing one thing to lead to another, and letting that be that, throughout the time left for living. No thinking needed. Just seeing, hearing, understanding, knowing, doing, being. This is how nature works. We will be allowing intuition to take charge and doing “what we are told to do” all our life long. No will (Except to do what we are told), no agenda, no plan (Except to do what we are told). Just seeing, hearing, knowing, doing, being, day by day for the remainder of the time left to live. It works for elephants and ants, stars and planets. And has from the start.

I wrote the following 23 years ago: “What do we have to do whether we want to or not? What would we do whether we got paid for it or not? What would we do whether it were easy or not? What would we do even though there is, apparently, nothing in it for us? What are we willing to pay any price to do? What are the recurring, consistent (if not constant), reliable, returning interests or “drifts of soul” to which these questions would apply?”

I am still singing the same song after 23 years. I could have written this yesterday, or tomorrow. For me, these questions reveal how closely connected we live to the things that matter most to us, to our “Tao,” or flow, of heart and soul.

My first response to my own writing was to think, “Like a broken record,” and then I realized, “How different was the Buddha’s message over time?” And, “Wouldn’t Jesus still be saying the same things he had to say 2,026 years ago?” The things that need to be said do not vary much over time. We need to know what is important to us and how we live to serve that with our life throughout our life.

The Tao, Psyche, Intuition do not change over the centuries. Doing the right thing in the right way at the right time in the right place remains the thing to do through all the years there are or will be. May we all live to know what that is here, now, and do it. No matter what.

We have to make our peace with our life throughout our life. Making our peace with having to constantly be making our peace is, itself, an important piece of our being able to make our peace as necessary without warning all the way from start to finish. It is upheaval and disruption on the heaving waves of the wine-dark sea constantly, and we have to develop the art of keeping our sea legs under us all the way.

Being able to observe what’s what and to articulate the impact of our life upon our life is instrumental in meeting the day as the day needs to be met. If we don’t have someone to talk to, we have to write it out for ourselves, as I am doing here. Articulation is crucial to realization which is essential to adjustment and accommodation, which is the ongoing and unending work of keeping ourselves in accord with our life. Which is the work of being alive. No?

The river does not have a way. The river finds a way. Be the river.

My father reacted to me and I reacted to my father and we both could have done a lot better. And we both need to acknowledge that about ourselves to each other and simply allow that truth to be a part of our individual makeup, and let it go.

And this is so with way too many of us around the world throughout time. All for whom this is so, need to take ourselves to a cosmic wailing wall and say our say and make our peace with ourselves and those we need to make our peace with, and let that be that, as the old Taoists might say. And let it go.

Sitting quietly and assessing the quality of the things that occur to us in the silence will develop our curiosity about the nature of the drift of our thoughts over time, raising the question, “Why do we think naturally, spontaneously, of the things we think about and not something else instead?” And, “How might that have shaped the direction of our life over time?” And, “How might we direct our thoughts toward different life choices in the future?”

I am not going to care about things that are not worth caring about in the time left for living. I will leave all of those things for someone else to care about. And I recommend this as a life posture for everyone. Care about the things that are worth caring about and let the rest go. That is the way Blue Whales do it. And they get by just fine with that as a way of life. Be the Whale.

As far as I can tell MAGA is merely another term for White Supremacist. I have been white all my life and I have never felt the need to be supreme. What would that get me? What is it with white people who need to be supreme? Who need to be supreme to such an extent that they have manufactured ways of manipulating the voting process throughout the united states to guarantee that no black person will ever be elected to public office of any variety, anywhere ever throughout these United States of America? That is caring deeply about your white supremacy. And a reflection of how deeply you fear being in any way ever at the mercy of black people who intend to do you harm. That is evidence of a psychological disorder with the word “phobia” somewhere in its description. And it would apply to nearly half of the white people in the US, and perhaps throughout the world if the turnout that elected Donald Trump TWICE is a reliable indication of the fear at the heart of those voting. Which I find to be an appalling and disgusting psychological condition with no remedy anywhere to be found.

There is a solace in the pathos of aging and cognitive decline. In the pathos of life. Solace and a sense of the sublime side of being alive. What a wonder it all is. To experience the IS-NESS of living. The sadness, and madness, and horror, and joy, and delight–the IS-NESS and the ALL-NESS of it.

The experience of living is so beyond words, so incapable of being expressed… So beyond us all, yet we are all together in the tragedy and the wonder of it all. And I get to go out with Trump! Is that not horrific? And laughable? If I’m not crying, I’m laughing. What a release and relief death is going to be, and yet, I don’t want to miss anything! It is all so unbelievable it has to be lived to be believed!

And there is a comfort in the community, in the commonwealth, in the gathering of those who are together and bearing each other up! My liege loyalty and filial honor to you is that I will be here as long as my house has power, and will be chanting the Om Mani Padme Hum long after that! (The Jewel is in the Lotus and the Lotus is in the mud at the bottom of the pond!) No greater irony or contradiction than that! And Buddhism declares “No Duality!” But paradox and contradictin apleanty! Exactly what I’m talking about with the wonder and the pathos of life!