Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

Is it real or is it AI? The line is becoming increasingly impossible to recognize, making disclosure significantly important in those situations where it matters, and how can we be sure where that is? Perhaps we should simply assume that nothing is real/actual/true/for certain and take it for granted that the House of Mirrors is where we live, and treat everything with the degree of seriousness we think it deserves. Which perhaps would have been a good idea before AI.

What is called for here, now? Being right about that and doing it where and how it needs to be done is all there is to it, moment by moment. When we get that down, we have it made.

I don’t put much stock in what someone else says, so I don’t expect anyone to put much stock in what I say. What we have to say is more help to us than to someone else, I think, in that it reflects us to ourselves, like looking into a mirror, so that we know who we are at that particular time and place, and can reflect on it, examine it, inspect it and see if it is an accurate expression, exhibit, of what we think and where we stand and who we are at that particular time in our life, giving us something of a time-place marker for our way through our life. And perhaps benefiting us from a future vantage point as a way of gauging our progress or just reminding us of who we were “back then” and comparing that to “who we are” in the future.

I have finished three volumes of the “200 Zen Thoughts by Jim Dollar” series posted on my WordPress site, and they will stay up there until I publish them on Amazon Kindle, when I will have to take them down as a part of my author deal with Amazon.

I’ve been hobbled by a complete lack of sophistication all my life–a spinoff of the Puer Aeternus syndrome of never growing up and always being surprised that life turns out to be this way. (Of course, I don’t see how any of us could have ever seen THIS present state of affairs coming.) And needing to call a Do-Over from birth to now. Do-Overs would be a nice touch, I think, particularly if they were infinite and eternal, where we could play each scene over and over until we got it right. Or perhaps a specific memory eraser so that we didn’t ever wake nights ashamed and aghast over Remember This? Dreams that don’t allow us to forget anything. It can be a humbling experience having to deal with who we are, but it is also affirming that we can still be going after all these years with an exterior that appears to be none the worse for wear, and you would have had to have been with me all the way to know who I really am.

What do you have to say that needs to be said? Write it out. Saying what needs to be said will open the door to what else needs to be said, and that will open you to all that needs to be said all of the time. Say it by writing it out.

Jesus did not worry about believing anything in order to get to heaven when he died. His only interest was to do what was called for in each situation as it arose, where and how it was called for. With Jesus, it came down to doing the right thing, in the right way, in the right place, at the right time. Which was the old Taoist formula presented in the Tao Te Ching about 500 years before Jesus was born. And is, to this day, the only thing that is asked of us by the time and place of our living all our life long.

Theology gets in the way of that kind of focus. Getting to heaven when we die is a self-centered, selfish, distraction. Getting what we want at any point along the way misses the point, which is to do what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, in each situation as it arises. For the joy of doing it and the satisfaction of having done it. And is the only thing that matters, anywhere, any time. Everywhere All the time.

169. From 200 Zen Thoughts #3 on my WordPress Blog

Curiosity and no ulterior motives are the two character requirements for the exploration of spiritual reality. We aren’t in it for anything we can get out of it. We are simply wondering what’s what and what’s called for and what might happen in an if, then, therefore kind of way. It is called being open to life as it winks at us and unfolds before us for the joy of the experience alone. We aren’t in it for what we can get out of it. We are in it for the wonder of the Mystery alone. 

And the best thing about it is the inability to say anything of it. There is no vocabulary for the wonder of knowing what’s what and what’s called for and doing what needs to be done, when, where and how it needs to be done, only laughter and/or tears. It can’t be said, told, explained, taught, only done, here, now as determined by the situation at hand.

Meaning we have to be attuned to, attentive to, aware of what’s what and what is called for, here, now all of the time. And that means we cannot allow what we want, desire, fear, dread to impact our life in any way at any time. We have to be open to what needs to be done in each situation as it arises and be ready to step forward with the best we have to offer with nothing on the line or anything to gain beyond the joy of doing what is called for and the satisfaction of doing it throughout the time left for living.

I don’t want you–any of you, all of you–to lose heart. I want you to believe in you. To not give up on you. You are precious beyond words. When we run out of words and there are no words for what we have to say–as in the experience of this photograph, for example, or for the experience of your looking into your bathroom mirror and seeing you as a two year old child and how precious beyond words you were then, and consider the illogic if not abject stupidity of thinking, “That was then, this is now” as you consider you in the mirror as a two year old and you in the mirror as a here and now year old, and I am calling FOUL!!! on you!!!

There is nothing about the intervening years that has taken precious, and more than words can say about you away from you! Surely, you can see the truth of what I am saying, and embrace your present preciousness! And I do so hope you are crying now, or laughing, because tears and laughter are all that is left to us in the space where there is no vocabulary to say the truth of what we recognize to be so in the deepest, most truthful, kind of way. You are precious and worthy of love in the deepest, most truthful, kind of way. It is so! And know that it is so every time you look in your bathroom mirror for as long as you shall live!

We need more help than we get. We can nod in agreement and then go back to doing the best we can. Here’s to you! Good luck with what you’re facing today! And tomorrow! Etc. A moment of silence for us all! And may we find there solace and direction, comfort and peace with the situation as a whole worldwide! May it be so! No?

There are people who think the Garden of Eden had latitude and longitude and evolution is a preposterous lie. I don’ t know how we all can hope to get together in more than a superficial and insignificant way and do anything in the service of a deeper good for human kind and the planet we live on. If people cannot think for themselves in assessing the truth of a situation they will live at the mercy of propaganda and indoctrination all their life long, doing what they are told to do, thinking what they are told to think, with no idea of in what direction the public good lies and what shape and form it should take, in the matter of global warming, for example, or public health with regard to vaccines and water purity. They will never know when they are being lied to and led along the way to voting for their own worst interests. They are swayed by the loudest voices to absurd conclusions and catastrophic outcomes, having no idea of what they are doing. What is the antidote to stupidity? The cure for ignorance and narrow mindedness? How do we get from where we are to where we need to be as a nation? As a word?

Where would you go to be alive? Fully alive? Completely removed from the things that keep you from being alive? Completely immersed in the things that bring you to life? What brings you to life? What prevents you from being fully alive?

Our work is to be fully alive. When we are fully alive, we are at the place Hindus call Satori. Translated into English as “Awakening,” “Enlightenment.” The Buddha called this state of being as “Peaceful abiding, here, now.” The Taoists would have said it is being “At one with the Tao.”

Our work is to help this state into being by separating ourselves from all the things that prevent it from being. What is keeping us from being fully alive? What can we do to move away from that into a life that is fully alive? How can we stop devoting ourselves to the things that are keeping us from being fully alive? And start devoting ourselves to that which is life itself?

I suggest that we understand silence/emptiness/stillness as the transition experience between “death” and LIFE (With “death” being the things that keep us from being fully alive). Start there, with silence/emptiness/stillness, and see what occurs to you, what realizations occur to you, and what changes you make in the way you are living that help you transition from “death” to LIFE.