Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

01

Live to be appropriate
in the time and place of your living.

"Appropriate" is the right combination
of what is needed in the moment
and what is allowed by the moment.
And if you are going to err,
err on the side of what is needed.

Dance on the boundary line
of what is allowed
in every situation as it arises.

Disappoint the routine,
surprise the expected,
flirt with the unheard of,
have nothing to do 
with the common and the ordinary.

Show your stuff
in an appropriate kind of way.

Don't rub it in.
Don't be flamboyant and outlandish.
Don't flaunt the exhibition of YOU.
Don't overdo it.
But don't hide your light
under a basket either.

Say what is yours to say.
Do what is yours to do.
Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
Say the things that cry out to be said.

In an appropriate to the occasion
kind of way.

And smile as you do it.
Or laugh.

In an appropriate to the occasion
kind of way.

When in doubt about what "appropriate" is,
take a chance.
Appropriately.

–0–

02

The truth of the moment
waits to be revealed in every moment
to those with eyes to see,
ears to hear,
and a heart to understand.

That is to say,
to those who make inquiries,
asking all of the questions
that beg to be asked,
and saying all of the things
that cry out to be said--
and being intently aware of it all.

It is an exhausting process
to know the truth,
and painful--
because it is not
what we want it to be,
and so the phrase,
made popular by Col. Nathan R. Jessup
in the movie A Few Good Men,
"You can't handle the truth!"

The truth asks hard things of us,
forcing us to come to grips with the truth
that the way things are
is not the way we want things to be,
and requiring us to make a choice,
whether to live a lie that we want to believe,
or embrace the truth that means
giving up what we want.

This is the conflict at the heart
of all of our problems.
We will not grow up
and deal with the way things are.

We will wrap ourselves in thick layers
of denial, diversion, dismissal, distraction,
escape and rejection
in order to live out our life 
in a world of fantasy and illusion/delusion
in order to avoid dying to our wants/desires
and living in sync with the way things 
actually are.

That is the story of humankind 
from the beginning until now.
And it is up to us
to not allow it to be our story.

We begin to do that
by getting to the truth 
of the next moment
and seeing where it goes,
committed to living truthfully
all the way
to our very last breath--
even though it means dying
to our wants and wishes
in every moment
all along the way.

o1

There is only the pain--
dancing with the pain,
bearing the pain,
coming to terms with the pain,
making our peace with the pain...

Growing up is an exercise 
in pain management.

Living is adjusting ourselves 
to the pain of being alive.

If you don't know what I'm 
talking about,
you are in denial.

Denial is our favorite way
of coping with the pain of our life.

Then comes escape,
diversion and distraction
in the form of sex,
drugs and alcohol,
and sugar.
Yes, I said "Sugar."

And pain provides
the background music
for it all.

What is the nature of your pain?

How many different versions/varities of pain
invite you to come out and play
in a day?

What is your favorite remedy
for the pain in your life?

How do you take your mind off
your pain?

How do you deal with your pain?

I deal with it with a wink 
and a grin,
and getting back to work
in the service of what 
needs to be done here and now--
accommodating myself to my pain
as best I can,
in a "This, too. This, too,"
kind of way.

I receive my pain mindfully,
consciously,
aware of where it comes from
and what it is saying to me
about me
and the way I'm living my life,
and altering my way with life
by taking my pain into account.

There is no avoiding it,
or getting away from it.
There is only increasing it
or decreasing it,
and all too often,
our efforts at decreasing it
increase it.

Through it all,
our relationship 
with our pain
is the single most important factor
determining how well our life is lived.

Mind how you go.
There is no pain-free life.

–0–

02

There is only balance and harmony
and the peace with which we go about our life.

Of course, there is a catch.
Catch-22 (Wasn't that a great idea
for a book?).
Actually, its Catch-1.
The first catch there is.
It is the fundamental catch of existence.

In order to be at peace with our life,
we have to be living the right life.
That's the catch.

If we aren't at peace,
we are also out of balance
and awash in disharmony.

Every good thing depends 
on our living the right life.

All the churches,
all the religions,
of the world
need to throw away their 
theology and their doctrines
and transform themselves 
into places where people
are assisted in the work
of finding and living their right life.

This is spiritual work
in the fullest sense of the term.

"Spirit. Energy. Vitality"
Flow from balance and harmony,
emptiness and silence,
sincerity and integrity,
courage, virtue, resilience,
compassion and caring--
all of which are characteristics 
of living the right life.

Stop what you are doing,
sit down
and don't get up
until you are getting up
to begin living your right life.
The life that is right for you.
Everything is waiting 
to fall into place around that.

Make finding and living 
your right life
the organizing principle
of your life.

When people ask you what you are doing,
tell them you are looking 
for your right life,
and ask them if they have seen it.
And then ask them 
if they are living their right life.
If they are,
ask them for tips you might use
in finding yours.

It will be a far better conversation
than any of the others
you have in a day.

–0–

03

We have to be stripped of everything
before we can access the Numen,
before we can stand in the presence
of the Source of Life and Being.

We cannot get there by seeking an audience
and looking for the right spiritual practice,
the proper rituals,
the prescribed path.

We are not transported there by motive
and/or desire.
The way is via the one thing
we dread the most:
Emptiness.
We get to numinous reality
by way of the Void.

It can be thrust upon us by life experience,
or we can open ourselves to it
by self-abnegation
and emptying ourselves of all 
our void-avoidance techniques and behaviors.

And sit empty 
in the stillness
and the silence
waiting for something to stir,
arise,
emerge,
appear.

How empty can we be?
For how long?

That is the way
to The Way
that is the Source of Life and Being.

01

We maintain our balance and harmony
by being aware of it
throughout each day.

Pausing to take a
Balance/Harmony Inventory
from time-to-time
will be a great addition to your schedule.

Simply sit quietly,
focused on your degree
of balance and harmony,
and allow yourself 
to become aware 
of the wobbly nature of the world
and your life,
focusing on the things
that are destabilizing forces
especially impacting you here and now.

Just observe what arises 
in the silence
without being hijacked
and carried away by any of it.

Simply refuse to react emotionally
to anything that comes to mind.
Check it in
and tuck it into your awareness,
and return to watching what emerges
in the stillness.

That's it.
When your allotted time 
for the exercise expires,
take a deep breath
and return to your life in the world,
trusting your own psychic forces
to distance you 
from the upsetting realities,
as you do your part
in remaining emotionally distant
from all of the terrors of the day
(and night).

Notice when your balance and harmony
shift back toward the normal range,
and look forward to your next
"Time Out For Sanity
(Balance and Harmony)."

–0–

02

The primary source of the pain of life
is our emotional response
to the experience of being alive.

We wail over everything.
Cut off the water at the tap!
Pick yourself up!
Dust yourself off!
And get back in the saddle!

What's with all the whining, 
crying,
pouting
and complaining?

Shake it off
and do what needs to be done!

Nursing our wounds
doesn't heal our wounds.
Healing happens
as we grow beyond our woundedness.
We grow beyond our woundedness
by not feeding our resentment,
not giving vent to our anger,
not soaking in our disappointment,
not stoking our bitterness,
not rehashing our grievances,
not counting our losses,
not remembering our sorrows,
not bearing our grudges,
not plotting our revenge,
and not seething with fury...

What needs to be done
is waiting for our willful devotion
and attention.

And what needs to be done
has nothing to do with our 
having been slighted.
It is what the moment is calling for
beyond our feelings at the moment.

Find that and do it,
and let that be that.

All the Buddha needed to say.

01

It's the quiet life for me.

In preparation, perhaps,
for my eventual return
to the eternal silence,
from which we come
and to which we belong.

Just being, I suppose,
with what we have done,
and what we have failed to do,
in the time that was ours
to show/discover/make our peace with
our stuff.

What is your stuff, by the way?
How are you doing with it?
What are you doing with it?

The time is coming, you know,
when time's up.
And what's done is done.

What we do with what remains 
of our time in the meantime
can be an extension 
of what we have done with it
up to this point,
or an expansion,
an evolution,
an exploration
of possibilities unconsidered
up to here, now.

Whatever we do with what's left of it,
my recommendation is that we allow it
to call us forth,
to bring us out,
into what still might be--
by being quiet
and listening/looking
for what stirs within
and emerges, arises,
to lead us into the adventure
of discovering what more there is
than we ever thought could be.

–0–

02

It is easier to find and do what is wrong
than what is right.

What is bad than what is good.

Where not to be than where to be.

Where we have no business being 
than where we belong.

Where do we belong?

We can't be in such a hurry to find it
that we jump for anything.

It takes time to know what we know--
to know what clicks,
what resonates,
with us
on a level beyond appearances
and presumptions,
and wishful thinking.

Where do we belong?
What belongs to us?
Where have we been
that was "IT"--
or close to IT?

If we were looking for it,
where would we go
to pick up the sent,
to find traces,
to be in the presence of where it was
once,
perhaps not long ago?

It is worth every minute it takes
to find and be with 
what is right,
what is good,
where to be,
where we belong.

It is the most important thing.

Everything falls into place around that.

What do you have to do
that matters more?

01

I want you to make peace
with your life--
while being true to your original nature
in conjunction with 
the context and circumstances
of the time and place
of your living.

I want you to live truly,
to truly live,
to live truthfully
in light of all that is true
in a "This is the way things are,
and this is what we can do about it,
and that's that"
kind of way.

No despair.
No hopelessness.
No remorse.
No desperation.
No anger/fury/hostility.
No resentment...

Recognition.
Acquiescence. 
Acceptance of the fact
that the way things are
is the way things are,
and that how that impacts us
is up to us.

With filial loyalty
and liege devotion
to the essence--
to the truth--
of who we are
no matter what
all the way
to our final breath.

Now, I recognize that 
you probably want more than this,
and I'm not going to be
much help to you
in doing/being more than this.

I can offer what I have to give,
and whether it is worth your while,
is for you to say.

And whether we are together,
or apart, for much, or all, of the way,
I say, "Happy trails to both of us,
to all of us, all the way!"

And, speaking of Happy Trails,
my deep faith is in the validity--
in the truthfulness--
of The Way,
The Path,
in the sense of Martin Palmer's phrase,
talking about the Tao,
"The path that can be discerned 
as a path
is not a reliable path."

Our allegiance is to The Path,
The Way, The Tao,
that winds through all of this experience
we call Life,
for the sake of being fully alive
in the time and place of our living.

Remaining steadfastly true to ourselves
and true to the path
is the part we play,
after that, it is out of our hands,
and we say "YES!" to whatever that may be.

That's what I mean when I say, "Happy Trails,"
trusting, as I do, that it will be so,
always and forever.

–0–

02

We have to believe/trust the path we are on
to lead us to the path we need to be on--
which means that the path we are on
IS the path we need to be on,
and we need to walk it with our eyes open,
seeing what we look at,
hearing what is being said
(including what we are saying--
to ourselves and to others),
asking all of the questions
that beg to be asked,
and saying all of the things
that cry out to be said,
feeling what is to be felt,
thinking what is to be thought,
doing what is to be done,
with mindful awareness
of all that is going on,
receiving it all
in emptiness and silence,
watching for what emerges/arises/appears
of its own volition,
and following what needs to be followed,
and doing what needs to be done,
and letting that lead us wherever it goes,
trusting ourselves to the process--
to The Way--
all the way.

–0–

03

In every situation,
there are the way things are,
and the way they need to be,
and the way we want things to be,
and the way we wish they were.

Our questions to answer in each situation are:

In light of what do we live?

What guides our boat
on its path through the sea?

Where does our liege loyalty
and our filial devotion lie?

To what do we plight our troth?

To what do we award our undying devotion?

What do we serve with our life?

What sends us forth to do its bidding?

How do we decide what to do?