Author Archives: jimwdollar

Our circumstances are always asking/requiring/demanding something of us. We are always locked into an eternal and everlasting struggle with our circumstances, trying to impose our way on the way things are. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can be at war with our circumstances, or, we can dance with our circumstances. The choiceContinue reading “August 04, 2023 -A”

There is what we do to earn a living, and there is what we live to do. Too many of us get earning a living down without having anything to live for, and fall into the pit of drugs, sex, alcohol, money, or some other addiction, immersing ourselves in attractive distractions, diversions, and entertaining pastimes,Continue reading “August 03, 2023 – B”

Our place is to be who we are, where we are, when we are, in ways that are true to our original nature and our innate virtues/characteristics in each situation as it arises. We have all we need to do this, and it only requires the proper portion of emptiness, stillness and silence to knowContinue reading “August 03, 2023 – A”

It is easy enough to toss out theology and re-interpret the entire Bible as a treatise on the order of the Odyssey about the path to maturity and grace. But the draw of being magically in control of our future and our destiny is too compelling to set aside, so we tell the tales asContinue reading “August 02, 2023 – A”

We lived on the edge of the 22-acre woods in Indian Land, South Carolina (But, it is all Indian land, you know, and, before them, it was just land. I wonder how long it will be before the land returns to its original pristineness and is glad to “just be” again at last), for tenContinue reading “August 01, 2023 – A”

We know what is right for us and what is wrong for us, where we belong and where we have no business being. So, what’s the problem? Knowing what we know is the problem, and doing what needs to be done about it. Our practice has to be knowing what we know and doing whatContinue reading “August, 2023”

Our mission is to meet each situation as it arises from the circumstances that give it birth with the gifts of our original nature and the innate characteristics/virtues stored in our DNA in light of what’s what and what needs to be done in response– and to let that be that, because the next situationContinue reading “July 30, 2023 – B”

There are psychic/emotional factors that have us where we are, individually and collectively, and we cannot “get in there” to straighten things out because the psychic/emotional factors at play are beyond the reach of rational/logical approaches. We are–the entire world is–a mess we are unable to do anything about. Fascism and democracy will never seeContinue reading “July 30, 2023 – A”

What has living taught you about being alive? What has being alive taught you about living? What has life taught you about living and being alive? I’ve learned that people think the wrong things are important, take the wrong things seriously, and spend way too much of their life not being alive. Treat everything withContinue reading “July 29, 2023 – A”

Follow the zeal, the zest, the gusto, the enthusiasm, the excitement, the thrill, the meaning wherever it goes. And, if you have zeal-less, listless, mostly dead all these years now, don’t give up! Be awake! Ardor is closer than you think! Life has been waiting for you all these years now– looking for an opening.Continue reading “July 28, 2023 – A”

Today is the first day of my tenth year of sobriety. That doesn’t mean that I was a stumbling drunk nine years ago, but I was good for a half bottle of wine a day (And sometimes, a whole bottle), when my acupuncturist said, “Jim, alcohol isn’t doing anything for your knees.” So, I quitContinue reading “July 27, 2023 – B”