Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

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!

How do things need to be here, now? How do we know? Take inventory? Consult the Silence? Check our email? Wait to see? I like easing into the day. Letting the day arrive slowly, at its own pace. Little by little. Giving it room to be what it needs to be. Without plans and agendas, schedules and deadlines. Seeing what’s what and doing what is called for when it is called for, by and by.

I am dealing with cognitive decline which shows itself in forgetting things I am supposed to know, like the name of one of our daughters, which I can remember by thinking of the name of another of our daughters, but forgetting how to get home from the auto dealership after getting an oil change is on a different level (I googled my name and my address popped up which I put in the iPhones GPS which guided me. home (which I remembered as soon as I saw the map). All of which is to say that knowing the difference between normal forgetting and something to be concerned about forgetting is a line that is important to be able to draw. And how do you know? Tricky, when you think about it. So I live not knowing if I am right to be concerned about not knowing or not. Which normal people don’t have to be concerned about. So, there’s that.

I am taken by the solitude that abounds in the world. Every scene conceals and reveals elements of solitude. And where do the lines lie between solitude and aloneness, between aloneness and loneliness? And the cure for loneliness is solitude according to Marianne Moore. What we have here is a circle of perception/perspective, and how much of our life hinges on how we see what we look at handing us what we see when we look. So that it is all an optical illusion, exposing us to who is looking as much as what is seen. And where do we end and our projections begin? Where does our experience of reality end and reality begin? And Joe Friday’s request, “We just want the facts, ‘mam” asks for the impossible. Where do we stop and the facts start?

The less we care about what happens, when, where and how, the smoother our life goes. The more we care, the more complicated/complex/trouble things are. The way to smooth and easy is to have no opinion about, nothing at stake in, any outcome. The moon, for instance, doesn’t give a damn about anything anywhere and has an easy path through the cosmos all day, every day. Want an easy life? Be the moon!

Trump in the White House means the South Won the Civl War. How are we going to recover from that? How do we get back to “Liberty and Justice for All”? How are we going to get back to who we were when Lincoln was President before the White Supremacists killed him? How do we recover the filial devotion and liege loyalty to Freedom! Justice! Equality! Truth!?

How do we get back to: We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosterity do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America!?

Doing what is called for situation by situation, moment by moment, when where and how it is called for, doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, throughout eternity is taking care of business the way business needs to be taken care of–but it does not take care of what we want, when we want it the way we want it for as long as we want it, and so we don’t do what is called for it the way it is called for and needs to be done, and so, here we are, of course.

My childhood friend, Eddie Stanton, was killed in an airplane crash when he was 27. That was 55 years ago. For 55 years I have felt what a shame that is. And what a loss, mostly for him, for all he has missed. And it rankles me to this day. His death is one of the many things “I just cannot stand” about how things are. Like 77MILLION IDIOTS voting for Donald Trump!!! for President of the United States. For Class Dumbass, I could understand. And a large number of those 77 million votes had to be cast knowing they were really voting for the Class Dumbass and they laughed about it. They did not care. And if you don’t care about that, what do you care about? And in all probability, Eddie Stanton would have voted for Donald Trump, laughing. That’s the kind of world we live in. Not a damn thing makes sense. Not one damn thing. What are we to do with a world like this? I am flummoxed by all of it. And if you are flummoxed too, here’s to you! That makes at least two of us!

It is up to us to make of it what we will and to do with it as we will, “it” being what greets us on arrival. It is a common mistake to rush to judgment, wondering, “Is this all there is?” Sitting with it, open to it, brings different aspects into awareness. The Yin/Yang symbol opens us to the depths rather nicely. Nothing is what it appears to be. Life is not a steady state of being. “Now we see it, now we don’t.” Koans and optical illusions are everywhere. Nothing can be taken for what it is, or for what it also is. And before long it is clear that nothing is clear and we don’t know what to make of anything, because, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” And, “Those who know don’t say, and those who say, don’t know.” The only appropriate response to the whole show is roaring laughter and a standing ovation. It is a wonderful joke that keeps getting better with age. It is all such a marvelous, wonderful world. The Buddha died from eating poorly cooked pork. How enlightened was that? Isn’t that exactly as it should be? Wonderful, wonderful in every way!

Diversion, distraction, denial, addiction help us pass the time. The Buddha called it “Peaceful abiding, here, now.” Being still and quiet, seeing what emptiness, stillness and silence have to offer. Contemplating what’s called for and what needs to be done about it where, when and how, doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right place and the right way. Entertaining ourselves by being enthralled by the moment, moment by moment, calling it “seeking enlightenment,” as the sure cure for boredom and what to do with time on our hands. Or, there are drugs, sex and alcohol. Or war. And buying, spending, amassing and consuming. Sleeping and eating. Life in a nutshell. Pick your poison. Or make your own list of favorite ways to pass the time. Conversation. Art. Music. Diversion. Distraction. Denial…