01
If you are waiting for things to make sense, you are standing in the wrong line. There isn't a line. Things do not make sense. Coming to terms with that positions you well to make it the rest of the way. Now, you only need to square yourself up with doing what needs to be done even if it makes no sense-- doing it anyway, nevertheless, even so, whether it makes any sense or not. If you can do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, where it needs to be done, how it needs to be done, whether it makes sense or not, you have exactly what it takes to make it all the way, no matter what. And that is exactly what everyone else needs as a model of how to do it. You will be saving the world simply by doing what needs to be done for no reason. Because there often are no reasons. If anyone asks you why you are doing what needs to be done when it makes no sense even to try, tell them you are doing it for lack of anything better to do, and stay with it, go back at it, at doing what needs you to do it whether it makes any sense or not. Do not have to make sense! Do not have to have things make sense! Just do what needs to be done for no reason-- and do it the way it needs to be done, as though everything depends upon it, because everything does depend upon it! It all rides on our doing what needs to be done, when, where, and how it needs to be done, for no reason beyond its needing to be done, moment by moment, in each situation as it arises. This is the key to a life well-lived: Do you live well anyway, nevertheless, even so? Or do you live well only when it makes sense? Give it your best all the time! When it doesn't matter! When it makes no sense! When no one cares! For no reason! For the lack of anything better to do! This is also to say, do what your little heart loves to do for no reason! Do your thing for no reason! Do what you love to do for no reason! Serve your gifts, your specialties, your talents, your virtues, your daemon (sounds like "diamond"), your shtick, what you are here to do, for no reason! And don't have to have things make sense! Be good for nothing! Do all that you do for nothing! And do it like you mean it! Do it like it matters! Whether it matters or not! It matters!
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02
"Live Like It Matters!"
Should be a bumper sticker.
And a tee-shirt slogan.
And what we all do around the clock,
in season and out of season,
for no reason,
especially when it makes no sense.
Do not have to make sense!
Live like it matters
anyway,
nevertheless,
even so!
Be different that way!
All the time!
"Live Like You Mean It!"
That's another one.
Bumper sticker.
Tee-shirt slogan.
What we do around the clock,
in season and out of season,
for no reason,
especially when it makes no sense.
What does "making sense" have to do with
what we do and why we do it?
Why does it have to make sense?
What's the reason we have to have a reason?
Who says so?
How do they know?
Tell them they need to start
doing what needs to be done
for no reason!
And get back to living like you mean it
for no reason!
Look around and you can't help wondering,
"Why try?"
"Who cares?"
"What difference does it make?"
"What good will it do?"
"What's the point?"
And concluding,
"It's all useless,
hopeless,
pointless,
meaningless,
futile
and absurd--
and coming to a very bad end
(We all are going to die!)!
So why try?"
The answer to that, of course, is
"For the lack of anything better to do!"
Which is to say,
"Who cares if nobody cares?"
"What difference does it make
if nothing makes a difference?"
"What good does it do to insist
that everything be good for something?"
"What's the point
of having to have a point
to everything we do?"
(A corollary to that one is
"What's the point of ice cream?")
("Or baseball?")
And,
"So what if it is all useless
hopeless,
pointless,
meaningless,
futile and absurd,
and coming to a very bad end?
"Why should what I do
and how I do it
depend upon any of that?
"Now, excuse me,
I have work to do!"
And get back to doing what needs to be done
when, where and how it needs to be done
because it needs to be done
no matter what!
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03
Our life is faith-based in that we live grounded on things we take on faith, without being able to prove, verify, explain, justify, define, validate, etc. And these things always remain a matter of faith, and never become facts, never pretend to be facts. Not so with the things all religions take on faith. No sooner does religion take something on faith than it becomes instataneously an absolute fact, beyond question, and necessary for the eternal salvation of the entire cosmos. Wait, wait... faith is faith and facts are facts, and faith doesn't make anything factual. I take it on faith that it matters how we live, but that will never be a fact, although it can be substantiated in a number of ways. How we all ought to live will never be a dogma upon which eternity depends. I take it on faith that doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, where it needs to be done, how it needs to be done, because it needs to be done, moment by moment in each situation as it arises is all that needs to be done to live balanced and harmoniously in tune with ourselves and the context and circumstances of our life. That will never be a fact that anyone could go to hell for not embracing, though they might all create hell on earth by refusing to honor it with their life. Religion with its false claims to facts that are not factual-- and cannot be factual-- adds unnecessary complexity to our existence and encumbers us with rules and conditions that have no basis in reality, distracting us from the necessary work of seeing what's what, and what needs to be done in response, squaring ourselves up to life as it is and stepping forward to meet it with the gifts, talents, virtues, characteristics, specialties, shtick, daemon (Sounds like "diamond"), and our original nature-- all of which came with us from the womb (Think Original Nature! Not Original Sin!), in doing what needs to be done, the way it needs to be done, where it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, because it needs to be done, in every moment throughout our life. No one can do more than that, and everyone needs to be doing it for the sake of themselves and of all the cosmos (Which is not factual statement, but a faith-based one).
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 