Everything is amazing to eyes that see. Eyes that see are amazing. To SEE is to be stunned into silence. So, we have to not-see in order to get around at all. We have to close ourselves off from wonder to find a toilet. Or a clothes hanger. Which, in themselves, are aspects/extensions of wonder. We seal ourselves up with the ordinary and customary to have a chance. Lost in wonder would wreck our life. We would forget to eat, and sleep. We wouldn't last an hour, certainly not a day. But. We have taken survival much too far. Being blind, deaf and clueless is no way to carry out the business of being human, which is to sing and laugh with joy and thanksgiving for the wonder of life and being, and to share the wonder with everyone all of the time, like children at the beach, or in the sandbox in the backyard, before someone gets the idea of MINE! MINE! pretty well ends the party, and war is introduced into the scheme of things. And hatred... You know the story. We quickly create a world where wonder stands no chance-- except for wondering, "What the hell?" all the time. What are we thinking?! We have to QUIT thinking, and breathe ourselves back to wonderment and joy. We have to reclaim the wonder of being alive by sealing ourselves off from the world of noise/complexity/ drama/trauma of MINE! And opening ourselves to the wonder of WOW! at the very idea of LIFE and living and tadpoles and trampolines and all the rest-- allowing all of it, ourselves included, to become, as it were, "Transparent to Transcendence" (Joseph Campbell), and live in the company of the radiance of life and being throughout the time left for living.
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Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 