Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

I have realized that we cannot discern the difference 
between where we stop and our experience 
of ourselves, our life, the world around us starts. 

There is no objective vantage point from which 
we can gauge/determine the validity/truthfulness 
of any experience we have, 
or of any statement about the validity of any experience.

Everything is our interpretation of our experience. 
We say what is truth, but how do we know? 
It is only our evaluation of our experience, 
but we cannot get beyond our experience to know 
what we are talking about, and we can be influenced by the 10,000 things.

We see what we expect to see,
what we look for,
and call that "seeing,"
and call seeing "knowing."

Everything we see/know is projection all the way down.
We do not know where our experience of the world stops
and where the way things actually are with the world starts.

We project our experience onto the world and say,
"This is the way things are."
It is the way we believe things to be,
NOT the way things are!

You are the closest thing to Jesus
that a lot of people will ever get.

You are also the closest thing to Buddha
that a lot of people will ever get.

So throw out theology, sin, redemption,
doctrine, dharma, dogma, creeds, prayers of confession,
and related paraphernalia.

It is all unnecessary, beside the point and in the way.

All we need is the right kind of
emptiness/stillness/silence
and a genuine interest in serving/sharing
the gifts of our original nature,
our innate virtues--the things we do best
and enjoy doing most--our inherent imagination,
and our intrinsic intuition
in doing what is called for 
in each situation as it arises,
when, where, and how it is called for,
and always returning to the silence,
waiting for clarity regarding what's what
and what is called for,
and when that arises/appears in the silence,
we arise and engage in the right kind of action
on the field of action,
then back to the silence to await the compelling
realization, urgency, calling, direction 
regarding what is called for,
back and forth throughout the rest of our life.

Which is all Jesus and the Buddha did.

We get closer to Jesus and the Buddha with every 
drop into the silence and the emergence onto the field of action.

There is nothing difficult about the process,
and high time we started implementing it!

The things we are moved to do
are the most wonderful things about us.
Children in a sandbox.
Guided by their own sense of what now, 
lost in the process of one now
leading to another
are my image of the best life
has to offer,
and if we aren't giving ourselves
to what moves us
for the wonder of it
and the enjoyment of being lost in it,
not knowing where it is going,
and loving the idea of being 
captivated by forces quite beyond us
for nothing more than the experience
of its own joy carrying us away through
hours of superfluous compulsion.

Edna St. Vincent Millay nailed it with her,
"Life must go on, I forget just why," line.

It doesn't matter why.
We don't have to feel like it,
like doing anything.
We just have to do it.
When, where and how it needs to be done.

Having the fire for it,
the life for it,
helps,
but it isn't necessary.
"Fake it 'til you make it,"
Is the AA form of encouragement.

Acting like it matters
will do in the absence of
it actually mattering.

The baby doesn't care why
you change their diaper,
as long as you do it 
the way it needs to be done.
Fake tender love and devotion,
so well that the baby can't tell
the difference.

That's all that life asks of each of us.
Live as though we care about what we are doing
so that no one can tell the difference.
And, soon enough, we won't 
be able to tell the difference either. 
Faking sincerity to the point of fooling ourselves
is living sincerely.

Or close enough.

My extended family,
particularly on my mother's side,
was not a place you would care
to spend much time.

One day was like another,
one conversation was an extension 
of all the others, continuing, on-going,
unending repetition of yesterday
and the day before.

"Original" and "Interesting" would not be terms
used to describe anything that was going on.
Their diet was the same year after year.
A new dish of anything was out of the question.

I couldn't get out of there soon enough,
or far enough away.

Where did that come from?

We choose our environment.
What we do and how fits us,
expresses us,
exhibits us.

We are who we hang with.

That was the Mississippi delta I left behind,
moving east.
Now, I don't want to go an farther west
than my back yard.
And am glad I don't have to.

But, the Delta mentality is everywhere.
Trump is a wealthy landowner
in Sunflower County, Mississippi.

Human beings seem to generate conditions conducive
to their own anguish
at a much higher rate than all other species combined.

I have watched cows, gold finches and snails quite a bit
and have never seen any of them do themselves (or each other, for the matter) in.

History is a record of our making ourselves and one another
miserable.

Leading me to conclude that God rushed production well beyond
the amount of time that he (And given God's desire to rid the 
Old Testament world of all female deities, he has to be a very
insecure HE) would have been wise to take much more of before uttering that fateful "Let There Be!"

My deep regret, and the burden that we all bear, is our failure to do better with what was handed to us at birth. Sending people to the moon fails to qualify as a significant off-setting achievement, and stands through time as being of no actual value to anyone ever.

This is the best time of my life.
I can meet the day with equanimity 
and do what needs to be done there 
without remorse or sorrow,
fear or anger about the reality 
of the dangers we all face with Trump and Company
at the helm.

This is what we get with stupidity, fear and greed
voting like they know what they are doing.
So we do the best we can to make things as good
as they can be and let that be that.
Without letting it get us down
and ruin what's left of our life.

Find what we can enjoy,
anyway, nevertheless, even so,
and enjoy all that can be enjoyed
about the future that remains.

I enjoy chocolate shakes and brownies.
Looking out the window
and having lunch with our daughters,
grandchildren,
and great grandchildren 
for as long as that is an option.

Make your own list
and live the life that is left to live!

When we live intuitively
out of our own authority
we live out of the center of who we are,
grounded in our sense of what's what
and what is called for
in each situation as it arises.

Neither the Buddha nor Jesus could do more.

Reading the times 
and responding to them
with the best we have to offer
out of our original nature,
our innate virtues
(What we do best and enjoy doing most).
our inherent imagination
and our intrinsic intuition,
is all the can be asked of anyone.

In addition to this,
it is the way of wild things,
doing what needs to be done.  

Every living thing has preferences.
And the preferences of every living thing
are eventually blocked by their circumstances,
which includes the conflicting preferences
of other living things.

This is what war is about.
The collision of preferences.

It is also what breakfast is about.
Lunch and dinner.

It could be said that life is about
the collision of preferences.

Making our peace with that 
is the mark of a mature,
well-adjusted individual
through all species and life forms
everywhere.

It is the way.
And it is pretty much a dumb-ass way.
If you think about it,
I am sure you will agree.

Some thing's life
requires some other thing's death.

Who thinks, "That's cool!"?

Where do we go to file a protest?

Life is the dumbest idea 
in the encyclopedia of ideas.

I am flummoxed and agog.

And am sure that I have plenty of company
throughout my fellow species over time.

I do hope there is something spectacular 
about death that compensates us royally
for being forced to participate in this 
ludicrous process.

We have to suffer the truth of how things are, and live to engage the world with lovingkindness, anyway, nevertheless, even-so.

We may sit in emptiness, stillness, silence,
waiting for the mud to settle and the water to clear,
but this is only bidding our time.
it is not quitting.

We gather ourselves in the silence,
and when the way appears,
we rise and do what is called for
as servants of the force of intuition
leading us to action in the field of action,
as has been done by all who have gone before us
when the game is afoot.

Who says so?
Whose word is the law?
By what authority do they determine
that they are the authority?
Who get to interpret Jesus and/or Buddha?
Who gets to say
"My view of Jesus/Buddha 
is the authorized version of Jesus/Buddha!"?

There are a lot of ideas circulating about Jesus/Buddha, etc.
Who knows what they are talking about?
How can we be sure?

I'm thinking one person's view is as good as another's,
in that we are talking about sketchy evidence
between 2,500 and 3,000 years old.

Talk about hearsay! That's some hearsay there,
claiming to be the last word.

The Cosmos is waiting things out
as time goes by.
It's as good as it gets
for a survival strategy
moment by moment, day by day.

The Buddha called it
"Peaceful abiding, here, now."

Lao Tzu said, "Do your work and step back,
let nature take its course."

No striving.
No pushing.
No going to war.
Just waiting things out
as time goes by.

See what is called for
and do what needs to be done about it.
With the gifts at your disposal,
that you are here to serve and to share.

Living out of emptiness, stillness, silence,
sizing things up and rising to do
what is called for,
then dropping back into the silence,
to see, rise and do.

Moment by moment, day by day.

No striving.
No pushing.
No going to war.
Just waiting things out
as time goes by.