Look.
Listen.
Pay attention
to what you are seeing
and hearing.
Particularly,
to what is coming from within you.
Where do you get the ideas
that are your ideas?
From the outside?
Or from the inside?
How do you decide what's so is so?
Who tells you what to think/do?
How do you know they know
what they are talking about?
Especially if it is you, you are listening to!
How do you know whom to trust
about what's what?
I regret that no one in my life
was asking me these questions
from birth to now!
Where did my ideas of how things are
and ought to be come from?
Mostly from people who did not know
any more than I did!
Where did their ideas come from?
From people just like them!
And how much reflection did they apply
to what they were seeing/hearing?
How much examination?
Inspection?
Exploration?
How many questions were they asking
regarding statements that were made
as the absolute truth?
Who played the role of the Grand Inquisitor
in their life?
In your life?
In my life?
Without a Grand Inquisitor
instructing us on how
to be a Grand Inquisitor ourselves,
what kind of chance did/do we have
of finding our way
to seeing/hearing/understanding/knowing/being/doing?
It isn't too late!
Examine everything!
Question everything!
Challenge everything!
Notably from people who know everything!
Including you!
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Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 