Everybody wants to be safe and secure at everybody else’s expense. Vulnerability is the bane of the species. We are vulnerable and cannot bear the idea. The Old Testament has a line, “We run from a bear, and slam the door shut behind us, thinking we are safe at last, and a spider bites us.”Continue reading “October 05-A, 2022”
Author Archives: jimwdollar
October 04-B, 2022
Living between the extremes, between the contradictions, between the dichotomies, between the contraries, between the mutually exclusive polarities… takes all the fun out of being alive. And so, denial. In the form of diversion, distraction, dismissal, disregarding, denouncing, delaying, postponing, rejecting and refusing to consider anything we don’t want to think about. The entertaining pastimes–Continue reading “October 04-B, 2022”
October 04-A, 2022
Everything turns on how we perceive our life. No one teaches us about perception. About interpretation. About hermeneutics. About ascribing meaning. About seeing. About understanding what we look at… We stumble into some mode of explaining to ourselves what’s happening, making things up to suit ourselves, call that knowing how things are, and responding toContinue reading “October 04-A, 2022”
October 03-B, 2022
There is no peace as long as wanting is running the show. The only companion of peace is knowing. Knowing what’s what and what needs to be done about it, and doing it with our original nature and our innate virtues. We never need more than that to live in the service of what needsContinue reading “October 03-B, 2022”
October 03-A, 2022
We make things worse than they need to be by enlarging them beyond the absurd into the realm of things Hollywood hasn’t come up with. We scare ourselves sick with our endless “What if that then?” scenarios. I recommend that we stop it. And tell ourselves instead, “We will deal with whatever comes up.” InsteadContinue reading “October 03-A, 2022”
October 02-B, 2022
Fear is our base emotion. Everything falls into place around fear. Fascism is Fear and Denial. Its grounding premise is, “If we kill our enemies, we will be safe.” Judaism and Christianity are Fear and Denial. Their grounding premise is, “If we keep God happy, and do as we are told, God will take careContinue reading “October 02-B, 2022”
October 02-A, 2022
Those who have known have been quite content to live out their lives chopping wood and carrying water, doing the day-to-day chores and taking care of the business at hand, doing what needed to be done, when, where and how it needed to be done in each situation as it arose as long as theirContinue reading “October 02-A, 2022”
October 01-C, 2022
Getting what we want and having our way are the hallmarks of success and happiness. We know nothing of what we ought to want. We just want what we want as though wanting knows. The story goes that the tribe of Delaware Indians who traded Long Island for shiny beads and silver mirrors got whatContinue reading “October 01-C, 2022”
October 1-B, 2022
We have to know where we stand, what we stand for and what we stand against. And everybody else has to know it as well. Some Christians like to say “God isn’t a Democrat or a Republican.” Who would God vote for is the question. Who would God have you vote for is the otherContinue reading “October 1-B, 2022”
October 1-A, 2022
Our life is a string of coincidences and another string of luck intertwined and playing out, and what we make of it is our gift to the mix. It helps to have little in the way of expectations, agendas, plans, opinions, judgment, willfulness, demands and requirements. Being true to our essential nature and our innateContinue reading “October 1-A, 2022”
October, 1st Week, 2022
What are the meaningful things in your life? How many meaningful things do you do in a day? In a week? In a month? Our joy of life varies in direct proportion to the amount of meaning in our life. No meaning, no joy. You could look it up. Or, you could experiment with yourContinue reading “October, 1st Week, 2022”
September 30-B, 2022
We want that and don’t want to give up this to get it. “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” gets to the heart of the matter. The only way out of the morass is bearing the pain. How well–how consciously–how deliberately– how consistently–how utterly and completely– we bear the pain of beingContinue reading “September 30-B, 2022”
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 