Joseph Campbell said, in one of his interviews with Bill Moyers, “Arthur Schopenhauer said, ‘When you reach a certain age and look back over your life, it seems to have had an order about it, it seems to have been composed by someone. And those events that when thy occurred seemed merely accidental and occasional, and just something that happened, turn out to be the main elements in a consistent plot.'" From birth to death we are on the path, living out who we are without knowing we are on any path, or doing anything remotely connected with who we are, and the path can only be discerned by looking back, not by looking forward. We are making the path, invisible to us, by the way we live day-to-day, choice-by-choice, decision-by-decision, reaction/response-by-reaction/response, and living out the truth of the Tao Te Ching's statement, "The path that can be discerned to be a path is not a reliable path." We can only live not-knowing what we are doing, or what we will do next, trusting that we are being carried along by forces we cannot know to be benevolent, wise and kind, and be amazed when, at the end of our life, we look back and see the thread running through the whole thing, and wonder at the marvel that we have been a part of, thinking, "If we had known what we were doing all this time, we would have laughed more often, and been more relaxed and at peace all along the way." Trust yourself to your life! Relax and be at peace with yourself and your circumstances! We are being guided on our path through the sea by forces we cannot imagine or comprehend. Our life is a wonder, astounding, a marvel. Trust that it is so, and live it with all your heart!
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Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 