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We are the center and ground of our own existence. We interpret our experience (reality) to suit ourselves. What we say goes. We are our own authority. Our own God. We see all we look at, all we experience, in light of all we have looked at, experienced, and how we have responded to all of it up to now. Past experience influences present experience, and we cannot get outside of, or away from, what we have experienced to this point, in order to experience things afresh, with no assumptions or expectations, here and now. We see here and now, from the perspective gained then and there-- and we guide ourselves forward based on the impact, and our interpretation, of our past. We live in a bubble generated by the assumptions and expectations flowing from the past interpretation of our experience. Our life is as we say it is based on the way we have said it was from our beginning to our here and now. We cannot see any way other than the way we have seen-- until we begin to see in ways that take our seeing into account. When we begin to see our seeing, we become free-enough to talk about "hypotheses" based on our assumptions regarding "reality," and "see more than meets the eye," by bringing ourselves into the picture as the origin of the projections we bestow upon the world around us and all that is therein!
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01
Living well comes down to two things: seeing what is happening and doing what needs to be done about it. This is difficult because we interfere with both the seeing and the doing. Interpretation is everything. Right interpretation is everything! Right seeing and Right doing are everything! Learning to see our seeing/doing is the primary task of the Hero's Journey. Self-transparency, self-examination, self-realization, self-correction, are the four steps in self-direction. And we generally have more important things in mind. Which makes being right about what is important the most important thing. We are all sure we are right about what is important. We are all sure we are right about what is right and what is wrong. What is right is what we say is right. What is wrong is what we say is wrong. How do we know what we are talking about? We "take it on faith"! Everything hinges on how right we are about the things we take on faith! Whether we live in the Wasteland or in the Promised Land depends on our being right about the things we say are right. And the journey from the Wasteland to the Promised Land is how long it takes us to change our mind about what is right-- and be right about it.
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 