Finding our way to The Way one situation at a time. I don't know how great it will be, but I expect it will be interesting, and I look forward to it going on past all reason because wonder is just that way. Are you coming or not?
If you are against gun control or vote for people who are against gun control, you are complicit in the deaths of those killed in school shootings and in all other mass shootings, and are an accomplice in their deaths. You turn that around by being for gun control and by voting against those who are against gun control. Starting now.
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Waiting on the next thing is a great place to recover from the past and store up for the future, just being still, quiet and empty of all thoughts and emotions. How long has it been? How still, quiet and empty can you be? For how long? What drives you to noise? Complexity? Drama? Get to the bottom of it. See what's there. What does thinking about what you think about keep you from thinking about? Realization is possible apart from thinking. Things come out of nowhere to those who are still, quiet, empty enough long enough. That is what the Native American vision quests were all about. Being still enough, quiet enough, empty enough, long enough to realize what our psyche has to say to us all along the way. Our psyche is a resource we would do well to access on a regular basis. Tuning out to tune in, making ourselves available to realizations beyond rational thought. Meditatively making ourselves available to psychic resources throughout the day every day. I wonder why no one has ever thought of that. And why more of us don't do it.
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Living with integrity, sincerity and spontaneity, transcends the contriving, willful, pursuit of the acquisition of wealth and power, and opens the way to following the flow of life energy through circumstances and situations as they arise. In so doing, we create a path that can only be recognized as a path in hindsight by those who are living as if it matters that they do right by the moment, from moment to moment, with no sense of the bigger picture anywhere in sight. "As if" and "as though" do not get enough press. Assume for the time being that there is no absolute reality, that everything is only apparently real, and we all are living "as if," "as though" what appears to be real is actually real. We do not need anything to be actually real if we are all in agreement with one another in acting "as if," "as though" things are real whether they are or not. This is the flip side of R.D. Laing's observation, "They are playing the game of not playing a game." We, on the other hand, are playing the game of playing as though the game we are playing is real, even though it is only real because we say it is. We play religion as though it is real. We take everything on faith as though it is factual, and, like that, it becomes so on the strength of saying it is. Just so, when we live with integrity, sincerity and spontaneity, intent on following the flow of life energy, through circumstances and situations as they arise, we create a path that can only be recognized as a path in hindsight by those who are living as if it matters that they do right by the moment, from moment to moment, with no sense of the bigger picture anywhere in sight. Yet, when we look back from any point in the future, it is plainly evident that circumstances and situations have fallen into place as if (That term again) by magic and leading us straight away to right here, right now. "As if," "as though," are the golden keys to life with direction and purpose, foundation and validation in the most adamantine and unshakeable kind of way. When we give ourselves over to "as if," "as though," we put ourselves on a track that validates itself and our trust in it, with a life of examples proving the absolute reality of what is only apparently and ostensibly actual. Try it for yourself, and see if it isn't so!
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I've been retired ten years, and hope I'm just beginning. Retirement is a place for refining, perfecting and applying the lessons of the aging process-- it is all practice! In retirement, we continue the eternal practice of seeing what we look at and doing what needs to be done about it, when, where and how it needs to be done, repeating with increasing acuity until we transition back into the light. It's all practice! We live to refine, perfect and apply the eternal practice of being alive with our eyes open, attuned to what needs to be done here/now in each situation as it arises, in a here we are, now what? Kind of way. There is only the practice! The practice IS the performance! Our opus! Our legacy! From that, we never retire!
We help each other find what we need to do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises all our lives long. It isn't about getting ahead or having it made. It is about having what it takes to do what needs to be done. The right attitude is one if the things it takes. Adam and Eve did not have the right attitude. Jesus did. Jesus was a see what needs to be done and do it kind of guy. Life can be a sorrowful existence if entered with the wrong attitude. "Oh, woe, boo-hoo," you know. "Here I am and this is what I can do, where shall I get started?" Doesn't have time for sorrow and woe. We can feel bad if we enjoy that kind of thing, and we can look until we find something we can do with our original nature and our innate virtues/traits/specialties, and get to work. Helping each other find what we need to do what needs to be done is a job that always needs doing. Asking, "What do you need to do what needs to be done?" Is a good place to start. Asking yourself and everyone else who comes your way.
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A) This is the way things are, B) and this is what we can do about it, C) and that's that. D) And THAT'S the way things are! The A-B-C-D's of life/living/being alive. Coming to terms with them, making our peace with them, being okay, alright, fine with them is the work of being alive. Why do we fight it so? Hate it so? Resent it so? Deny it so? Denial is our most popular response. Drugs/Sex/Alcohol/Religion, you know. Compensation for being stuck in a life we can't bear to live. We take our mind off our plight anyway we can. Thinking about heaven and how it will be one day by and by. Or just not thinking about it at all, with the other three options offering distraction and diversion all along life's way. Through it all, the reality remains. I recommend embracing the reality. Dancing with the reality. Doing what we can with the reality. And letting that be that. Doing what we can with the reality includes not taking it seriously. And doing what needs to be done within the givens of our life every day in a "So What? Who Cares? Anyway! Nevertheless! Even So!" kind of way. If soldiers on the battle front can face what awaits them in that way, the rest of us can apply it wherever/whenever/however we are as well. What is our life asking of us? Do it! Smiling, laughing, dancin' in the rain all the way! Live each day like it needs to be lived! Like it needs us to live it! Like only we can live it! Anyway! Nevertheless! Even So! Every Day! In spite of the fact that we need better choices! These are the choices we have! Drawing from our original nature, our innate virtues/specialties the silence/emptiness/stillness and choose what needs to be chosen doing what/when/where/how it needs to be done! Every Day!
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Luck is the ground of life and being. And, the old adage applies: "The more I practice, the luckier I get." What is your practice? How often do you practice your practice? It is amazing what sitting still, being quiet and empty-- and having no expectations and nothing stake in the outcome-- can do for our luck quotient. The right attitude and the right practice lend themselves to being lucky. I became lucky the minute I quit trying to effect outcomes and have things go my way. Being a cork on the water makes it easy to find things to like about every eddy and crashing wave. It is always my lucky day with nothing to gain and nothing to lose-- just being glad to be here and watching for what happens next, it's amazing the things you can find to like about what comes your way.
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There is our business and there is none of our business. It helps to know the difference and to stay on the "our business" side of the line. Who are we? What are we about? What is our business? What is none of our business? Where do we belong? Where do we have no business being? What is ours to do? What is not ours to do? Who says so? If you can't answer these questions, where have you been? What have you been doing with your life? What have you learned that has been most helpful in being who you are, doing what is yours to do? "Who says so?" is the most important question in the lot. What is the authority upon which your life is based? It needs to be your own personal experience. We learn what works and what doesn't work, what is "us" and what is "not us," what is "our thing" and what is not "our thing," by getting in there and doing something, anything, and seeing what happens. And, "asking/seeking/knocking" in getting to the bottom of what's what, and what needs to be done about it. We can't take anything for an answer, even our own conclusions in the matter, any matter. Everything is a "tentative hypothesis" awaiting further experience/experimentation. But, we develop some pretty sound theories over time. For instance, "Noise/complexity/drama" get us off track like that (blinks), and "Silence/emptiness/stillness" get us back on track almost as fast, and we don't spend enough time in our own company. And "Reflection is the sure path to new realizations." And realization is enlightenment, and that is all we need to know what our business is, and what our business is not. And that puts everything in balance and harmony, and that is all we need to do what needs to be done, when/where/how it needs to be done in each situation as it arises. And that's all there is to it.
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I think we can't live our life-- the life that is uniquely ours to live-- showcasing our original nature and innate virtues/specialties, while living like life is being lived around us. I think we have to draw a frame around ourselves, set ourselves apart, listen to our own body, heart, soul, self. Tune into ourselves, and live from inner to outer, doing it the way we would do it, not the way it is being done by "everybody." What would you wear if the people you hang with did not select your clothes for you? What would you eat if they did not select your menu choices? What movies would you watch? Would you watch TV at all? Etc. and so forth up and down your life. How much of you is you, and how much is somebody else?
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Jesus was a fully Woke human being. Luke 21:36,and Revelation 3:2 are starting points for you, but the entire Bible is a textbook for Wokeness, demanding that everybody wake up and live Woke lives all the way to Beulah Land. If you are not Woke, you are a Sleeper! And you know what happens to Sleepers! Sleeping their life away and their Afrerlife along with it! My brother likes to say, "Bureaucracy is the end of Democracy!" Of course, he is right about that. Bureaucracy is the gift of Sleepers, and is a systematic way of being, and remaining, asleep at the wheel-- preferring as it does, doing things as they have always been done with nothing changing ever. Sleepers always want to return to the days when things were done right, and institute level after level of bureaucracy to make sure nothing ever changes again, unless it means making money, and then they are all for it, the more the better. The Russians have paid the Sleepers in Congress to sell out Democracy, which they have gladly done, and will continue to do, until they have all the money there is, and then they will print more. The Government is an endless gold mind, printing money and lowering taxes on themselves and their favored corporations, and raising taxes on everyone else, telling the people, "Don't be Woke! We gotcha covered!" (Which means, "We are robbing you blind!). You can Sleep through it all if you want to. I'm going to be as Woke as I can be, banging on the tops of metal garbage cans all the way! Just like Jesus did it, and would have it done! If you are not Woke, you are a Sleeper, sleeping your life away!
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You know the story of Adam and Eve? Well, "except for the names and a few other changes, when you talk about us, the story is the same one" (Neil Diamond). We have squandered, wasted, thrown away more than Adam and Eve did by letting Democracy slip through our fingers in favor of fascism and greed. What a trade-off. The Lenape Delawares are enjoying their revenge (They traded Manhattan Island for beads and mirrors, or so the legend goes). We traded Democracy for what? What are we getting out of the deal? As far as I can tell ABSOLUTELY N-O-T-H-I-N-G!!! We are getting a (If they were crows, we could call them a murder) of fascists, who cannot agree among themselves, to tell us what to do. If you vote Republican, that is what you are voting for. When you get them, then what are you going to do? With no Social Security, no Medicare, no retirement until you are 75, maybe 80, no public schools, no public anything (Including golf courses!), no bridges, no roads, no safe drinking water, no air to breathe, and that's just the beginning. The Lenape Delawares hope you are happy. Me, not so much. I hope you realize just what you have done because you thought someone was going to take away your AR-15's and make your children go to school with trans kids. The Lenape Delawres are rolling on heaven's ground, laughing. I don't think it's funny.
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In a world where we cannot trust anyone, everyone is a predator and a victim, and no one can trust anyone to be who they say they are. We all have to be self-reliant and savvy, and stay well within our comfort/safety zone for life. It helps immensely to have a family and long-time friends to depend on, and woe be unto those who have to fend for themselves all of the time. Only they know how oppressively stressful and exhausting that grows to be over time. Just to tag out and be able to trust someone! To be able to relax and enjoy the company of strangers! What a simple thing to ask. What a terrible thing to lose! And yet, and yet... Here we are. Making it our place, individually, around this small circle of a writer and his readers, to take it upon ourselves to form communities of innocence among our "friends" and associates, with the only requirement of membership being a place-- a person-- where others are safe to be. Ask two people to join you and keep it small, with 8 to 10 being large. Several small groups are much to be preferred over one large group. Meet to just talk, to just be together, over lunch, over coffee/beer/wine, to say what's up with you today, and see where it goes, knowing that you are less alone than you were when you started, and how sadly wonderful that is, anyway, nevertheless, even so.
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Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy