Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

I like wandering around, seeing what’s there. It’s a different way of looking out the window, only I can stop and take a picture. I drive through a lot of poverty that way, and I imagine a lot of lives I am glad are not mine, and I grieve for those living them. I have a personal Wailing Wall replica in my office to remind me of all of the anguish and agony in the world, and right down the street. Jesus and the Buddha lived with grief and suffering and bore the pain. So do we all. Letting it be with sadness and sorrow and deep regret, knowing it was there long before I arrived and will be here long after I am gone, and lightening human despair is beyond all of us in every generation, and the Wailing Wall is a reminder of that, and of what we are reduced to: Wailing and witnessing the sorrow that is pervasive across all of the ages of humankind that should not be but was and is, and will be for as long as life shall last. This too, this too. Anyway, nevertheless, even so. We all bear the pain and let it be because it is.

I have chosen to forego scenes like this one for the rest of my life. To take these images I have to be where the images are. In two months I will step into my 83rd year and the zeal for the journey, any journey, is long past. So I look through the old images and raise a cup of coffee to their glory, thankful to have had the experience and relieved that I don’t do that any more. It is called making a welcome accommodation to the truth of how things are. And I can smile at that, and look out the window.

People are God the way waves are the ocean. How are we to go about being God? How are we to make the fact that we are God apparent and real in our life? How do we bring God forth in our life? We take this as our foundational problem into every day, and do that what needs to be done to make God real in our life.

I am perennially amazed to be here, now. How did that happen? How did I get from there, then to here, now? What were the chances of that happening? The same thing applies to you and your life. What are the chances that you would be reading this here, now? The odds were definitely against us being together in this way. We all are living miracles. Are we all predestined or accidental? I am going with blind luck. We all had to be somewhere. Why not here, now? It would be here, now, wherever we happened to be, and wherever we would be would be just as miraculous as being here, now. So, it is our perspective, perception, projection that sees the miraculous in the hum-drum everyday. Take our interpretation of the situation out of the picture and it is all suddenly just the way it is with nothing special about it. So. Special or Not Special? It is all in how we look at what we see. And that, too, is a miracle! Or not! How are things really? Who is to say?

After a certain age we get it figured out. We know what matters and what to do about it, and what doesn’t matter and leave it alone. Some of us are angry about everything all of the time, and I laugh at pretty much everything and let it be. We can’t do anything about much of anything so why take it seriously? Love what’s to be loved, enjoy what’s to be enjoyed, and let nature take its course, which it will, of course, no matter what, and that’s how things ought to be, with things allowing things to take their course. Be well! And be just fine with all that is not well! Be just fine with how things are regardless of how that is. That is the secret to having it made. It is perspective all the way to the end of the way, which gets closer all the time, and being fine with that is really having it made.

Walking slowly through the majestic scenes is my favorite way of spending time with the things time was made for. Being there is what we were made for. Silent witnesses of natural beauty. That is our place in life. We are born for wonder, gratitude, appreciation, amazement and the sheer delight of being alive. It is a role I love to play. I think the grizzlies and the moose must feel the same way.

Wholeness is a fantasy. We all walk with a limp. The idea of perfection is a burden from birth. Whose idea was that? Living to be one with ourselves, and proud to be who we are is enough of a load. Let’s be satisfied with that! And see the Ideal Us as the fiction it is as we take it to the burning barrel, glad to be free at last from the weight of not good enough.

Keeping things the way they ought to be is too much for the average person. We have to let some things go. Weeding the flowerbeds ranks low on my list of deeds worthy of my attention. And keeping the car washed. Being a cork on the water or a leaf in the wind are high priorities, and need to be because staying abreast of my responsibilities is not what I do best. What I do best is looking out the window. And being ready for an ice cream and Sprite shake.

Wu-Wei is the Tao at work in the Cosmos, getting things done without doing anything. The way a glacier moves, or melts. The way water creates the Grand Canyon over time. The way the Appalachian Mountains produce Balds where trees do not grow. The way things are, and also are. Who knows how? Or why? It is “the force of nature,” for things to be as they are and not some other way instead. “The way of a ship on the sea. The way of a snake on a rock. The way of a man with a woman.” Who can understand these things? Who can deny them? Tao at work in the Cosmos.

The Tao is the natural flow of things, how things are, the way things are expected to be. Being aligned with the Tao is being at home with how things are done and are fluent with how things follow each other and able to dance with any tune the band might play next. Being comfortable with the moment and ready for the twists and turns of time and place. At home with ourselves and at peace with the world. The key to which is the perspective, perception, viewpoint and outlook with which we view the events of the day, every day.

James Joyce said the “Secret Cause” of our death is the driving force of our life. The thing that is most true about us and most valuable to us will be what kills us. Maybe it is our impatience. Our being in a hurry. Our failure/refusal to take our time with anything. I like to sit, looking out the window. I wonder if that will kill me. I hope so. I hope I die there, because there is always more to see, more connections to make, more to be aware of… And I can look out the window anywhere, doing anything, even if there is no actual window anywhere around. It has become a metaphor with me for considering important things great and small.

Where would you like to spend the rest of your life? It’s looking out the window for me, and I don’t care where the window is. I can look out the window anywhere, which means I am perfectly content to be where I am. I think that means having it made. Like a cork on the water, a leaf in the wind. No ambition, no aspiration, no incentive, no motivation, no life plan… Just being happy to be here, now, looking forward to exploring what’s next, and what’s after that.