Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

Circumstances have a mind of their own.
We are awash upon a sea of circumstances.
A pandemic comes along,
global warming washes away the world,
fascism becomes a thing,
Republicans threaten to end civil rights
and health care...
and it all boiled up seemingly out of nowhere,
but there was a long build-up
of apparently unrelated events
that produced the crescendo of madness
sweeping over civilization,
carrying all of us into experiences
we did not ask for,
and calamities that were on no one's wish list.

The current state of affairs
call for the application
of age-old advice:
Stand pat.
Sit tight.

Remain focused on
integrity,
sincerity,
spontaneity,
emptiness,
stillness
and silence.

Ride it out.
Wait for a door to open, and walk through.

Thinking we can change,
avoid,
escape,
the the times that are upon us,
we miss the lesson of history:

We cannot change the world
to suit our idea of how the world
ought to be.

We can modify its impact on
ourselves and others,
soften its ruthlessness
with kindness and compassion,
and be what is needed
in each situation as it arises,
but expecting things to be 
much different than they are
is to invite misery and dismay
to be constant companions.

We take what comes
and do our best to turn it
toward the good--
day after day,
all the way 
to the other side.

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Cooperation,
coordination,
being on the same page,
or, at least, in the same book,
makes life possible,
even enjoyable.

Where do you experience 
something akin to this
in your life?

And where do you experience
being alone against the world?

"Community" means abandoning yourself
at the door,
putting on your corporate face,
and thinking/doing
what you are told to think/do
for the sake of the appearance of 
belonging to something that knows
better than you
how to live your life.

Appearances form the world we live in.
Nowhere are we connected with ourselves,
taught to listen to ourselves,
trust ourselves, 
serve ourselves,
think for ourselves,
do what we perceive/know needs to be done,
and shown how to find and live our own life.

We live to disappear ourselves 
as much as possible,
and live as the appendage
to a series of groups ("communities")
that tell us how to do it--
how to be a success,
how to be happy,
how to be rich...
anything but how to be who we are.

The pathway to you
is the path to the way--
is the way.

The way is the way of being at one
with ourselves
in association with other selves,
aligned with the good of the here/now
in doing what needs to be good 
in light of all things considered
in each situation as it arises,
all our life long.

True to our essential/original nature
and the innate virtues/character
that come with us from the womb.

Where do you hear this being said
anywhere in your life
other than here?

Where do you find a community
geared to connecting you to yourself,
your life
and the things that are meaningful to you
as the individual you are?

Where in your life are the terms
"emptiness,"
"stillness,"
"silence"
used easily, naturally, 
in talking about the source and core
of our existence?

Connecting with a community worthy of us
begins with our individual/personal work
to become a community of one
in association with that which is
deepest, truest and best about us,
and experience the magic of attracting--
and being attracted to--others who are
on the same path,
the path,
the way
of finding and being who we are
within the conditions and circumstances
of life in the world, 
here/now.

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Our perceptions are our impressions,
our understandings,
our interpretations,
our assumptions,
our inferences,
our conclusions
regarding apparent aspects of reality.

My perceptions of a mound of dirt
near the patio of our next house
on an inspection tour
with the HOA president,
matched his when he identified it
as a fire ant bed
and began telling me how to get rid of it.

My wife noticed a large flower pot
leaning against the outside of the house,
and said the fire ant bed 
was a lump of soil
that had been dumped from the pot
by the previous owner of the house.

A swift kick proved her perception
was accurate and our perception was not.

Verifying our perceptions
is a practice not often undertaken
by people who look
and take what they see
for the way things are.

Our perceptions change
when we broaden our perspective
to take things into account
that do not readily appear
in our line of sight.

We do that by seeking to see
more than we are looking at,
by asking questions that examine
our assumptions/inferences/presumptions/etc.
and expand our field of view
to explore possibilities and alternatives
that did not come immediately to mind.

Narrow perspectives are not as accurate
as broad perspectives.
Broad perspectives are more time-consuming
and troublesome
than narrow perspectives.

Seeing asks more of us than looking.

And so the importance of including
silence,
stillness,
and emptiness
in our regular pattern 
of examining and assessing 
what we are seeing/saying/doing
in a day.

Poke
probe,
explore,
consider,
contemplate,
imagine,
wonder...
transform your world
and the world of normal,
apparent, reality.

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