There are people in, amongst, around wild places throughout the world who don't appear to be any better off for it. Nature is everywhere, and the world has been in a mess from the start. Nature has as much to say as it ever has had to say, and who stops to listen? And what does their listening do? There have been sages, masters, yogis, oracles, hermits, wise ones, etc. forever. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, There are people in, amongst, around wild places throughout the world who don't appear to be any better off for it. Nature is everywhere, and the world has been in a mess from the start. Nature has as much to say as it ever has had to say, and who stops to listen? And what does their listening do? There have been sages, masters, yogis, oracles, hermits, wise ones, etc. forever. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, the Buddha, all the Bodhisattvas, all the Dali Lamas... And, for all the difference they have made, would we have missed any of them? It is clear that none of them were in it for what they could get out of it or give to it. Poof, they are gone, so what? The So What? question stands as solid evidence of their worth, and the validity, the truth, of what they had to say and were about. They were about it because of it-- in the service of it, true to it, for no reason beyond it, whether it did/does any good or not. They did not care what their chances were. They did what they did because they knew it must be done, whether it did any good or not. Theirs was a holy obligation, a divine obsession, a dear and glorious compulsion. And they could not help but honor it and serve it with their life. They are the proof we seek of the value of what they did. Because of them, we have all the reason we need to be as they were, with a wink and a smile, anyway, nevertheless, even so, all the way along the way. Take heart! Take heart! Carry on! Carry on!
–0–
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 