Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

02

One of my favorite questions is 
"What would you go to hell for?"

Totally serious.

It may be the most important question.

There are sacred covenants
that require our filial loyalty,
our liege devotion.
What are yours?
I hope you have a long list!

I will put it another way:
What commitments do you honor,
what activities do you engage in,
what relationships do you cherish,
in what ways do you spend your time,
that are so precious to you,
that being unable to engage in them
would be worse than going to hell?

What is the source of your energy,
spirit,
vitality,
balance,
harmony,
LIFE
that to be without it
would be worse than going to hell?

How often do you go there?

How long do you stay?

–0–

01

Joseph Campbell said
(Quoting James Joyce, I think),
"A mature person
is like a wheel rolling 
out of its own center."

I prefer to think 
of a wheel turning 
out of its own center--
a gyroscope maintaining 
its own balance and harmony
through the turbulence 
of time and place.

Living out of its adamantine loyalty
to its relationship with--
and commitment to--
itself.

It knows who it is
and what it is about--
what grounds it,
centers it,
sustains it,
feeds it,
nourishes it,
replenishes it,
guides and directs it
in and through
each situation as it arises
in all contexts
and circumstances 
of its existence.

There is nothing that can happen
that will knock it off its foundation
or keep it from its mission
of seeing what it looks at,
hearing what is being said,
knowing what's what
and what needs to be done about it
and doing it
with the gifts/daemon/genius/virtues
that are inborn and at its disposal
in each moment of its life
that call it forth to meet the day,
day-by-day-by-day.

Our problem is how to get to that place
in our life.
The 10,000 things are arrayed against us.
Nothing in our past experience has prepared us
to deal with our present
or our future--
though everything has,
and we have only to realize it.

To quote Campbell again,
"No one is given a mission they are not ready for!"
Our lives have prepared us for this moment.
It is our time to step forth
and be who we are--
despite all of the fear,
and insecurity
and excuses we could make.

We have all that we need
to find what we need
to do what needs to be done--
we only have to know that it is so,
and act as though it is--
in the strength of the Two Powers
that are always with us:
The Silence and The Source!

Sitting quietly,
seeking The Source
of our Original Nature,
our Essence,
our Virtues,
our Self
our Imagination,
our Ideas,
our Courage,
our Spirit,
our Energy,
our Vitality...
We discover the truth
that has been true from the beginning:
We are not alone,
and we have all that we need.

Bring on the day!

The key here is to step into each day
"Without hope,
without witness,
without reward!"
( Steven Moffat, Doctor Who),
like a wheel turning out of its own center,
not desiring,
not contriving,
not scheming,
not designing,
not planning,
not preparing...
just living moment-by-moment
in the service of what is called for
in that moment,
with nothing invested in the outcome
and no profit or gain or success or motive in mind.

With only the joy of being able to do 
what is set before us
to propel us into the day.
Each day.

02

History is always coming around.
The times are always changing.
Coming and going.
For better or for worse.
For better and for worse.
Better for whom?
Worse for whom?
Only time will tell.

"The more things change,
the more they stay the same."
Time tells that much all the time.
"The poor will be with us always."
Some things never change.

"No matter how things are,
somebody wants it to be different."
"Everything could be 
more like it ought to be
than it is."
The work in the service of the good
is never done.

"The Good is the enemy of the Best."
"The Best is the enemy of the Good."
Perspective shifts see the enemy everywhere.
"Who's on first?"
"NO! Who's on second!"
How do we live together
in ways we all like?
It would be easier to live together
in ways we don't like,
but are, at least, livable for everyone.

How do we live together 
in ways that are livable for everyone?

Tax everyone according to their means.
Pay everyone a living wage
adjustable to the cost of living.
A fair and reasonable tax structure
with no loopholes
and no favoritism
and good faith all the way around,
is the solution to all of our problems today.
And every day.

So, why won't it fly?
Because there are those of us
who want more than we need
to live the life we want to live--
which is different
from the life that needs us to live it.

Greed in the service of unquenchable desire
is the source of all of our problems today.
That is why
"The more things change,
the more they remain the same."
If you want to change something,
change that.

–0–

01

On June, 25, 2014, I wrote,

Our life is up to us.

We actually have to live it.

Why hold anything back?

Why try to save ourselves from that which can save us?

Only one thing means anything: Living our life
the way it needs us to live it!

At the end of the movie, Jersey Boys, 
Frankie Valli, 
reflecting on his career, 
said, “They ask ya, ‘What was the high point?’ 
The hall of fame, 
sellin’ all those records, 
pullin’ Sherry outta the hat?' 
It was all great. 
But the first time the four of us 
made that sound under the street light, 
our sound, 
when everything dropped away 
and all there was, 
was the music…
that was the best.”

The challenge for each of us 
is to find our music, 
and live it—
to let the music live us—
and see everything that happens to us, 
both positive and negative, 
as an opportunity 
to further align ourselves with the music, 
dance with what life brings us, 
and become who we are.

We are afraid to do that,
and think there is something better than that—
like safety, and security, and never stepping out of line—
because we’ve never stood under a street light
and made the music
only we can make.

But the music is there waiting
for us to show up.

That was written six years ago
and the music is still waiting.

What's your music?
What is your life?
We don't have any idea
because we have so many ideas,
all of which
revolve around having money
and having it made.

We want the fame
and the fortune,
but it's the music.

Ask a musician if they know
what Frankie Valli is talking about.
Ask them if they can remember a time
when it all dropped away
and they became one with the music,
and the music was playing them,
singing them,
and they disappeared into the music,
were lost in the music,
were the music.

Ask them how often it happened.
And what they would give
for it to happen all the time.

Can you remember anything like that 
happening to you?

What do you think your equivalent to the music
might be?
Was?
Could be?

What life is waiting
still,
even yet,
even now,
for you to live it?

What's holding you back?

Why hold anything back?

We thread the needle
between Scylla and Charybdis,
moment-by-moment
through each situation as it arises
all our life long.

We walk along the straight and narrow,
with all its twists and turns,
on the slippery slope,
the dangerous path,
like a razor's edge
every step of the Way--
circumambulating the center,
the core,
the Source
the Self--
growing up some more again day-by-day.

Or not.

It is entirely up to us.

Every day.

The eye of the needle
is "the still point of the turning world"
(T.S. Eliot),
in the midst of the conflicts and contradictions
that define our life
within the context and circumstances of our living.

We can care too much
and we can care too little.

Between those extremes
(and all the others)
we find the middle way,
the balance point,
and dance with the music of the spheres
throughout our life.

This is our work.
It is the work of Sisyphus
rolling his rock up the hill
and following it down the hill
to roll it back up the hill
day after day.

Threading the needle between the extremes
all the time.

We have to be invested in our work
without taking it seriously.
It has to matter to us what we do
without it mattering so much
that it interferes with our being able to do it.

We have to know what is important
without being owned by what is important,
lost in what is important
unable to set what is important aside
when the situation calls for it to be set aside
because something else is more important.

There are no doctrines.
There is no dogma.
There are no laws
or recipes.
There is only seeing,
hearing,
knowing,
understanding
what is called for here and now--
and doing that as best we can
with what we bring to the moment,
every moment. 

We step into every moment 
fresh for the adventure,
without the burdens of past or future,
looking around,
seeing what's what
from the vantage point
of the stillness
and the silence,
waiting for the Way to appear before us
and allowing what needs to happen
to "just happen."

If you think that's easy,
plop yourself down
on the big bull's back,
fasten your grip onto the rope,
and tell them to open the chute.

Remember to enjoy the ride.

That's the most important thing.

You do you!

The way only you can do you!

In ways appropriate to the occasion.
In every situation as it arises.
All your life long.

How long has it been?

Do you even remember?

Do you even remember how to do you?

What happened to you?
Were you shamed out of doing you?
Was it just not paying off?
Was it not worth it?
Was it getting you in trouble?
Was it in your way?
Was it an embarrassment?
     To yourself?
     To others?
Was it pointless?
     Futile?
     Absurd?
Did you get tired of excusing what you were doing?
     Explaining?
     Justifying?
     Defending?
Did you merely grow up
and leave it behind
with your Binky and your Passie?

Would you even know where to start?
How to begin?
Doing you?

Your nighttime dreams would be a good place to look.
And your daydreams.
Your flights of fantasy.

You could start with being aware 
of the white rabbits
that appear out of nowhere,
catching your attention
with a wink and a wave
before hopping around a corner
hoping this time you will follow.

You are everywhere you go,
everywhere you look,
everything you think about doing,
but don't.
Why not?

You finding you,
getting back to you,
being you,
doing you
are the only things worth doing.

Why wait one second longer?

01

Robert Ruark, writing in The Old Man and The Boy
had the Old Man say, about fishing,
"A fish is only a fish.
If you make too much of it,
you lose the whole point of it."

Robert Ruark missed the essence
of his grandfather's sutra,
and failed, throughout his life,
to apply the fish as an analogy 
to everything in his life.

His grandfather was saying,
"Listen to me, dammit, Robert--
if you make too much of anything,
you lose the whole point of it!"

Success, for example.
Or happiness.
Or meaning and purpose.

Alcoholics Anonymous preaches the same sermon
with different words:
"Acceptance is the solution
to all of my problems today."

Acceptance is the refusal
to make too much of any of it,
even acceptance.

Robert Ruark became an alcoholic
because he made too much of the wrong things,
and not enough of the right things,
which is one thing all alcoholics have in common,
along with all the people
who take their disappointment
with themselves and their life
to some different manifestation of The Bottle,
and "get by with a little help from their friend."

Everything is analogous to us and our life.
What does "fish" equate to in your life?
What does "the bottle" equate to?
What are you taking too seriously?
What are you failing to take seriously at all?
What are the right things?
What are the wrong things?
Where are you in the flow of your life?
Where are you out of sync with your life?
Where are your expectations in line with your possibilities?
Where are your desires at odds with your chances?
Where are you willing what cannot be willed?
Where are you forcing what cannot be forced?
Where are you consoling yourself in ways
that are contributing to your disenchantment
and dissatisfaction--
making things worse and not better?
Where is your pain so great
that you will escape it at all costs?

We are all we have to work with
in the time left for living.
We have from now to then
to right our boat on its path through the sea,
get on track with our life
put ourselves in accord with our nature and our heart,
trust ourselves to the unfolding
of the life we are capable of living--
even now, even yet--
and see where it goes
(With no destination in mind,
and no opinion about how things are
to obscure what is being called for
here and now, moment to moment,
day to day).

02

Here come some disparate statements
that I am going to pull together
like a wild rabbit from a hat
in a completely non sequitur kind of way:

1) Jesus was homeless
and he died on a cross.
When we hear him say,
"If you throw in with me,
you have to pick up your cross daily,
and follow me,"
somehow, we never connect following Jesus
with being homeless and dying on a cross.

2) The Dalai Lama's bodyguards
carry automatic weapons.
When he preaches compassion and peace,
he is also saying,
"If you cross me, I will kill you."
Which is not at all different from anything
a Mob Boss ever says.

3) If Elizabeth Warren only had
more cooperation,
it would be a better world overnight.
We want a better world
with Big Banks and Wall Street
and all of the distractions and delights
wealth and privilege can produce.

4) A high percentage of the world's population--
and your county's population--
is not going to make enough money
to pay their bills.
And that leaves them doing 
exactly what with their life?
We have to be able to pay the bills,
but they have to be the right bills,
and we have to know
what we are paying the bills to do.
And be right about the rightness
of what we are doing.
In order to do that,
everything has to change.
Everything has to change.

It all comes down to knowing
what we are doing here
and having the wherewithal to do it.
And "wherewithal" is about 
more than money.

"Wherewithal" is about clarity,
balance and harmony.
We have to "run a tight ship."
We have to exhibit,
express,
incarnate
loyalty and devotion to the cause.

The cause is our life--
the life we are living--
the life that is ours to live--
doing what we are here to do.
Bringing who we are to life in our lives.

Here's a hint for you:
We are not here to make a lot of money
and pass a good time.

We are here to serve 
what we are here to do
with our life.

And, in the words of the woman
who wouldn't wear a mask
and stay away from the crowds
at the beach,
"That's asking too much."

We want to live like we want to
and pass a good time.
Doing what we are here to do
doesn't factor into that equation. 
The economy is based on good times,
not on right living.

And that is the foundational dichotomy
at work in the heaving incongruities
of life as we know it.
And it is the nature 
of the cross we have to bear
on the path of finding our life and living it.

It would be easier to keep things as they are
and not pay the price of transition
and transformation.

"That which you seek,
lies far back
in the darkest corner
of the cave you most don't want to enter"
(Joseph Campbell).

"Pick up your cross and follow me" (Jesus of Nazareth).