Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

If we can put people on the moon,
"Why can't we just get along?"

On May 1, 1992, Rodney King nailed it.
And we still can't get along.
We have never gotten along.
We will never get along.
Why not?

John the Baptist couldn't get along with Herod.
Jesus couldn't get along with the Sanhedrin. 
I can't get along with the fascists.
Or the extremists of all persuasions.

How many of us feel safest only in seclusion?
Show of hands?
What's up with that?
How many waving hands would it take
before we understand that 
we have a problem here?

I hunch we have always been here.
That the percentage of hands waving
within the world population
has always been about where it is today.

When have we ever just gotten along?
Who do we get along with?
Who lets us be who we are?
As we are?
When, where and how we are?

In whose company are we safe to be?
Who is not safe in our company?
Where are the places of safety and refuge
in your life--
other than, or in addition to, seclusion?
What does that say about us as a species?

Who is just naturally a good place to be?
How many of us are that way?
How many do we know who are that way?
What would it take for all of us to be that way?
Why is common ground no larger than it is?
We all have life in common
and it drops off sharply after that.

What can we do to enlarge our common ground
around the world?

–0–

Beauty is both escape and immersion.
Both distraction/diversion and connection/alignment.
Anything is/can be all things.
Everything comes with manifold sides/aspects.
Reality is a shape shifting collection
of appearances/perceptions.
All it takes is looking
to see that it is so.

How we think things are
is always only how they seem to be.
Wait long enough before issuing
final judgment
and you will have a hard time
making up your mind.

"Real" is what appears to be real now.
Live a bit longer 
and things are not so clear.

Everything is in flux,
moving, changing, coming, going...

So, don't be a quick,
impulsive,
spur-of-the-moment suicide!
Bride! Groom! Mother! Father!

Take your time, wait it out.
Seek the insight 
found in emptiness,
stillness,
silence,
solitude
of vision quests
and walk-a-bouts.

Know what you don't know,
and wait until you do.

–0–

Finding our work and doing it
is a matter of allowing our work
to come to us
and not rejecting it when it does.

Our work finds us,
appears to us,
occurs to us,
calls us.

If we want to "find" our work,
the place to start is 
by digging through
our pile of rejects.

"The stone the builders rejected,"
you know.

We are great with saying,
"Not this, and not that, and not that over there!"
And talking ourselves out of things
we can't easily explain,
defend,
justify,
excuse...
even though they keep coming back,
catching our eye,
attracting us,
inviting us to look closer
or let them take us for a ride.

Our work often begins
with seeing what we look at,
hearing what we listen to,
knowing what we know,
caring about the things
that need to be cared about,
and doing the things 
that need to be done.

We probably couldn't be paid to do it,
and have to work it in "after hours,"
or "on the weekend."

Hobbies can become what we live to do,
and what we do "for a living"
supports us in doing the work that calls our name.

Life can be funny that way,
and we have to laugh along,
making our path through terrains
and territory
we would not think of as being
"path worthy,"
yet knowing that our heart 
is deeply in what we are doing,
and allowing ourselves 
to love what we love
and go where we are called to be.

–0–

One way of assessing our Aliveness Quotient
is to be accurate and honest about our degree of:

Balance
Harmony
Integrity
Sincerity
Spontaneity
Vitality
Emptiness
Stillness
Silence

This is a check-list for maintaining and regaining
our alignment with the way of life everlasting
in seeing what's what,
knowing what is called for,
being right about what is important
and doing what needs to be done,
when, where and how it needs to be done
in each situation as it arises
without regard for personal gain,
recognition,
advancement,
achievement,
success
or merit--
but of exhibiting/expressing/serving
the gifts of our original nature
and the innate combination
of virtues/traits/characteristics/talents/etc.
that are unique to each of us
and prepare us for offering what we have to give
out of who we are
in meeting the moment
in all the circumstances
of every day.

Which calls for time spent in realizing
who we are and what we have to offer
in responding to what needs us 
moment-to-moment, day-to-day.

–0–

Growing up comes down to bearing graciously
the legitimate pain of being alive.

Nature is against nature! 
The ocean against the beach, 
the lion against the antelope, 
the big fish against the little fish... 

The system feeds on itself, 
attacks itself, destroys itself! 
It makes no sense whatsoever! 

So, we get in there and do our thing
in doing what needs to be done
in light of what's happening here and now,
when, where, and how
it needs to be done
and don't worry about the outcome!

We don't care what our chances are!
We just meet the moment 
the way the moment needs to be met
without keeping score,
or adding up our losses,
or fretting over 
"the meaninglessness of it all."

We get up and do what needs to be done
(With or without the strength and courage
of Powdermilk Biscuits)
the way it needs to be done,
and let that be that,
one thing after another
all our life long,
"smiling and singing in the rain."

–0–

Growing up 
is growing in our ability
to take "No" for an answer.

This is "dying" to the way
we wish things were,
want things to be.

This is the kind of "death"
Adam and Eve are required to "die"
in getting back to the Garden of Eden,
and it is the kind of "death"
that leads to "resurrection and new life"
in all times and places.

If we are going to take anything on faith,
why not let it be that Jesus 
survived the crucifixion
but "died" to his idea of how things ought to be,
and lived out his life in Galilee
with Mary Madelaine and their children,
working as a carpenter and fisherman
to make a living?

And that all the hoopla was created
by the fledgling church
to justify its existence
and serve as the foundation 
of its power and influence?

This continues to honor the core feature 
of our faith,
that we all have to "die" to the way
we want things to be
and live in the service of how things 
need to be
all our life long.

No aspirations,
no personal ambitions
or desires,
no plans,
agendas,
purposes
or expectations--
just seeing/knowing/doing
what needs to be done here/now
as it needs to be done
in all situations and circumstances
forever.

We have to be growing up forever
to live like that.

–0–

It isn't what happens to us 
that makes the difference in our life,
but how we respond to what happens to us.

The most important thing
is how we respond the moment
right here, right now,
and what it is asking of us.

The more noise, complexity,
drama, trauma
characterize our life,
the less capable we are
of exhibiting appropriate
response-ability
in the moment-to-moment world
of clashing rocks and heaving waves.

The solution to all of our problems
is living out of 
the right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

Cultivating our relationship
with those things
provides us with the foundation
necessary for meeting 
what meets us in a day
and doing with it 
what needs to be done.

And that is all that can be asked
of any of us.

Though it may have nothing to do
with the accumulation
of wealth, power, success and such.

So, it helps to be clear 
about what is important.

And what is not. 

–0–

Don't settle down with anything
as The Right Way To Live!
Unless your Right Way To Live
is doing what it takes
to get things done
the way they need to be done,
when they need to be done,
where they need to be done,
through all of the circumstances
and situations of your life.

Jesus would do it differently.
The Buddha would change things.
The dance is not the same dance
day-to-day.

We have to see what's what
and feel our way into doing
what needs to be done about it
throughout the day.
No agenda.
No plan.
No expectations.
No demands.
No opinions.
Just being right about 
what needs to be done
and doing it when/where/how
it needs to be done
no matter what.

Every day.

–0–

We live in the service of corrections
and adjustments
all the way to the grave.

Each situation as it arises
presents us with new opportunities
to amend, modify and reform
our batting stance
or our pitching motion,
to tweak our golf swing
or the ratio of seasonings in the soup.

Experience produces alterations
and improvements in our behavior.

The old is always passing away
and behold the new is always coming into play.

Ideally that is the way.

Too often, we settle into 
doing things the way we have always
done them,
seeing the results
as they have always appeared to us.
Never learning what is to be learned,
and "forty years of experience
turns into one year of experience
repeated forty times."

How do we wake up in a world
where being woke is detestable 
and contemptible--
and everybody does it 
the way somebody else says
it ought to be done,
always and forever,
no variations allowed?

Sometimes, Jesus raised the dead,
as was the case with Lazarus,
and, sometimes, Jesus left the dead
to bury the dead,
learning situation by situation
how to respond to the moment at hand
with the best he had to offer
out of his own original nature
and the virtues/characteristics
that were his to work with from birth.

His legacy is ours to share:
"Be who you are,
do what is yours to do
with what you have to work with
in all situations and circumstances
as best you can,
then step back
and let nature take its course--
and, if you can improve on that,
by all means, do so!"

–0–

The horse is our life
waiting to carry us
along the way that is our way
if only we will get in the saddle
and say, "Let's go,"
and mean it.

We trust ourselves to the road
that chooses us,
and to the kindness of strangers
we meet along the way.

Those who know do it that way--
by not having a way,
but being open to the way
that is the way
for them, personally,
individually, 
uniquely theirs
and theirs alone,
like their fingerprints
and the cones in their retinas.

The story of Adam and Eve
is the story of forsaking our way
for the way we aspire to,
the way we want to be our way.

The drama and trauma of our life
flows from our insistence
on having our way
when it is not our way at all--
and being at war with every way
that is not the way 
we want it to be.

Fascism is the name for this spirit
and attitude--
the way of forcing our way upon 
and through the world
and all of life.

The opposite of that could be called Kyiv 
because it is exhibited in Kiev
and all of Ukraine--
the way of being free to choose the way
that is truly our way
and allowing everyone that freedom
in an association of kind strangers,
assisting each other
with the type of help 
that help is all about (Shel Silverstein).

Being the type of help 
that help is all about
is the way to the way
for all people and things--
the Tao of Here/Now,
doing what needs to be done,
when/where/and how it needs to be done,
moment-to-moment
all the way.

Which requires being attuned
to the Here/Now
in a way that perceives/knows
what's what and what needs to be done about it
with the gifts of our original nature
and the virtues/traits/specialties
that are ours to share and serve
along the way,
without worrying about what we 
are getting out of it,
or when it will be "our turn."

Just free to be who we are
offering what is needed
Here/Now,
and being pleased knowing 
that is enough,
and always has been,
and always will be,
all there is.

–0–

Transitions, alterations and transformations
require adjustment, accommodation, and alteration
all our life long.

"That was then, this is now,"
all along the way.

Our adaptability is a function of
our openness to change
and our ability to see the possibility
of adventure and growth 
tucked away in all things.

We never out-grow additional growth.
Growing up some more again today
is what is called for in many of our days.

The same-old same-old is for people
who have died to the opportunities
unfolding before them at all times.

"What are you afraid of trying?
Go there! Do that!" applies to them all.

My heritage is people who never did anything
they hadn't done before--
that hadn't been done by anyone they knew.

"Nothing is new under the sun"
for those who lack the capacity
to grasp and appreciate that
"The old has passed away,
behold the new has come"
again and again
throughout their lives.

I thought about them 
the first time I walked into the Fish Taco place,
and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I do that with my heritage a lot.
I work at developing the art
of finding/doing all things new.

I track down and nose out
transitions, alterations and transformations
for the wonder of it--
to see what I will do about it
and what it will call forth from me,
in a "No expectations,
no opinions,
no fear," kind of way.

I'm eager to see what's next.
And what I do with it.

–0–