Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy

The joy for me is found
walking/driving through the world,
eating in the world,
being here/now in the quiet of early morning,
but not so much in the grind of heavy traffic.

I would enjoy a chat with Henry David Thoreau
and Black Elk and Chief Seattle...
and being close to water...

Away from crowds of any kind,
and noise,
and complexity,
drama,
trauma...

I enjoy the pleasure of my own company
in any setting
that doesn't include bores
(Winston Churchill said,
"A bore is someone who robs us of our solitude
without providing us with companionship").

And too many people talk
without having anything to say.
If you find me stuck in a reunion of any kind,
rescue me with an invitation to the desert bar.

I am re-reading Joseph Campbell's Thou Art That,
and finding forgotten delights on practically 
every page.

And I am reminded again that seeing is a function
of how we look, that what we see is a reflection 
of how we see, and that we cannot get away from 
how we see in order to see anything without tampering 
with it, shaping it, "reading things into it,"
in significant ways.

So the observer tampers with what is observed
in the process/act of observing it.
And we cannot see/know anything
apart from our projections/assumptions/conjectures
about it.

How we perceive the world colors what we perceive
about the world,
and we have no idea what we are talking about
when we say anything.
Knowing that requires us to take everything we say
"with a grain of salt."

Keep a salt shaker handy at all times,
for what you say 
and for what others say to you.

–0–

Jesus is the archetypal human being,
doing the right thing,
at the right time 
in the right place and way,
time after time.

So was Betty White,
Helen Wolfe,
Iris Dement,
Dolly Parton
and thousands more
through the ages.

And we all have shown 
flashes and sparks of Jesus
here and there
over the course of our life,
doing things exactly as they
needed to be done.

Rising to the occasion,
surprising everyone
including ourselves.

The surgery center
where my cataract surgery was done
is filled with people being Jesus,
with a team of people
who know what their job is 
and do it as it needs to be done
in the way it needs to be done every day.

When we live our life as it needs us to live it,
we are Jesus incarnated then and there.
Jesus couldn't do better.

Are you soaking up 
what I'm pouring out here?

Being Jesus is as easy
as doing what's called for
in the moment unfolding before us,
with nothing in it for us,
beyond the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it,
knowing no one could do it better.

We all could do it 
in each situation as it arises,
if we came into the moment
out of the right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

It's automatic, instantaneous, 
natural.

It's the flow of life and being
in time and place, here and now.

Spontaneous, unplanned, unthought.

Even turtles do it.
And sea urchins.
Butterflies and apple trees...

And you,
and me.

–0–

The anesthesiologist, the nurses and the surgeon
who took care of my cataract surgery
did their jobs better than Jesus could have done them,
and the same thing applies to all the other
medical staff in the surgery center,
and to all the people everywhere
who are caring for people.

It is the Jesus thing, 
and all of us are capable of being Jesus
in the way we treat other people.
There is nothing to it.
Caring treatment happens all the time.

Jesus is among us in those who care for one another.
It is never any more complicated than that.

Surgery went fine. 
I have a plastic protector taped over my eye,
and can't get it wet for a week.
Try taking a shower without getting an eye wet.
So it's come down to the dreary details,
and when it's done it will be done,
and the new will have come
and the old will have passed away
and then we do the other eye
and repeat the process.

And I get to spend time with Jesus throughout it.
The good along with the bad. 

–0–

"God's will" is an interesting concept,
and it applies to everything that
"Amazing coincidence" would cover as well.

It also opens the way to the Grande Paradox of Life:
Everything is coincidental and nothing is.
Everything is a matter of chance and nothing is.

We walk two paths at the same time
and live with a foot in two worlds at once.
We are the bridge between transcendent reality
(Also called "The Mystery" [or "The Great Mystery"],
or "The Tao," or "The Totality," or "God,")
and personal experience
(Birth defects, accidents, wars, earthquakes, etc.),
as we try to put the experience of transcendent reality
together with the idea of ALS with the idea of "a loving God,"
for example.

And, as we look back over our life,
with all of the wrong turns,
dead ends,
disappointments,
wins and losses,
etc.
it appears that there is a thread
of cause and effect running through
all the events and experiences
that lead us to conclude
"everything worked together to bring me right here
right now,"
and "If that had not happened, 
that wouldn't have,
and that wouldn't have..."
and here I am!"

It all had to be just what it was 
to produce here/now.
And that looks like a plan,
and that implies a planner,
and "Anything can happen,
but nothing can go wrong."

But if something else had happened,
at the end, looking back, 
we would say, "Nothing can go wrong."

Yet, in truth, the end of the dinosaurs 
was quite wrong for the dinosaurs, etc.
And slavery and the genocide of indigenous people
was/is the highest form of wrong there is--
no matter what a distant outcome might be.

This is the thing about outcomes:
they never end.
Cause and effect is a false phrase
because the effects become causes
with more effects,
and things spin out in a good/bad/evil
blend so that nothing accurate can be said
about anything when everything is taken into account.

Things "just are,"
and they are good and bad and evil
depending on our point of view
throughout time.

Point of view/perspective/impression/judgment
is no way to evaluate/designate good/bad/evil
Good/bad/evil is always good for whom?
Bad for whom? Evil for whom? When? How?

Things just are
and whether they are good or not
depends on the narrow outcome we are using
to make the estimation.
Looked at from our point of view,
it appears to be "a miracle" 
that things worked out as they did.
Looked at from other points of view
(That of Native Americans, or African Americans, say),
and the outcome has a different value attached.

And "God's will" is impossible to declare
because it all is still being "worked out,"
and there is no end to the configuration 
of possibilities,
and no results are ever complete and final.

It is all process in the making,
chaos creating chaos
when looked at from far-enough away,
like galaxies being born
and black holes devouring other galaxies
eternally and forever. Amen.

–0–

Worldviews have to change over the course of our life.
We cannot see how we have always seen,
and certainly not how our ancestors have have seen,
and not even as the people we spend most of our time with see,
and expect to be able to see
what we are looking at
and comprehend what it means
and know what is called for
and do what needs to be done in response
here/now
from one situation to the next
all our life long.

We have to develop our ability to see our seeing early on,
and to ask the right questions in response:
How do I know that the way I see is the way to see?
How many different ways of seeing are there?
How does the way I see keep me from seeing?
What makes me think that the way I say things are
is the way things are?
How often have I changed my mind about what is important?
How often have the people around me changed their mind
about anything?
Who are the people I/We disagree with most vehemently?
What can they show me about what I am not seeing?
What would happen if I adopted as a basic principle,
"All people are entitled to their own point of view"?
And began to exemplify it by talking to other people 
about how they see things?
And why that way and not some other way instead?
And probing/exploring how some way they see
clashes with other ways they see--
and do the same thing with me and the way I see?
And allowing one question to lead to another
all my life long
no matter where it takes me
or what it means for the way I live my life?

–0–

I am going to have cataract surgery on my right eye tomorrow, and that may impact my writing schedule, which may mean that I write later tomorrow, or, maybe not at all. My absence should be only one day at the most, and then again in two weeks when we go for my left eye. In the meantime, fare well, question everything, “see” you soon, and better than ever!

There is what we do for a living,
and there is what we live to do.

Too much of the West
lives to make money
for/with which they have nothing to do.

"Let's go to the moon!"
"Let's go see the Titanic!"
"Let's buy the United States Government!"
"Let's destroy democracy!"
"Let's burn everything down!"

It is as though some twisted god somewhere
said, "Let's give adults at a 16-year old
maturation level billions of dollars
and see what they will do!"

When immature people have nothing to live for
that is worth living for,
we have society as it is today.

How many people do you know personally
who have something worth living for
to live for?

Who are serving a good greater than their own good
with their life?

Who are "in it" for something 
other than what they can "get out of it"?

Who have incentive,
aspiration,
ambition,
for something more important than money?

Who would give all their money
to do what they know is theirs to do?

Teaching botany, perhaps.
Or writing poetry.
Or playing a piano.
Training horses.
Tending a garden...

Who do you know who has a life
beyond making money?

–0–

We need to make things right--
as right as they can be made--
by making reparations and restitution
to indigenous people 
and descendants of slaves,
and stop talking about God and Jesus
until we do that.

God and Jesus demand/require that
reparations and restitution be made.
We make a mockery of our affiliation
with God and Jesus until we do
at least that much.

Candidates for political office
who don't make this a part of their platform
are unfit for office,
and people who go to church
without making this a part of their 
declaration of faith
are unfit to be called Christians.

And people currently in office
who want to "cleanse America of Palestinians 
and immigrants"
have to come to terms with the fact
that they, themselves, are descendants of immigrants,
which makes them immigrants,
and resign from office
for being ignorant,
stupid
and mean.

–0–

Consider the infrastructure required
for this bridge to do its job
at optimum efficiency.

Optimum efficiency demands balance and harmony,
whether it is a bridge in question
or you
and all the things that keep you running
at optimum efficiency.

Each of us is this bridge,
dependent upon our sitz im leben 
to keep us going.

How's your balance and harmony these days?
What can you do to improve it?
What is beyond your control
that you need to help you maintain and sustain
your balance and harmony?

These are essential questions to answer.
Everything depends upon our balance and harmony.
We have to do our part,
and the larger world has to do its part.

Toilet paper and electriity
are important elements
in the maintenance of my balance and harmony.
And a hot shower.
And the right cup of coffee...

We hang by a thread.
Start messing with our balance and harmony
and it all goes to hell like that (Snaps fingers).

We live to serve our balance and harmony.
Our balance and harmony
live to serve us.

Being aware of the tenuous nature of our position
may lead us to stop taking it for granted,
and honor it with our attention,
and guard it with our life.

How might you tend your balance and harmony
today?

–0–

There has to be an accounting,
a reckoning,
an awakening,
a realization,
a full knowing 
of who we are
and what we have done.

This is basic 12-Step stuff.

Squaring up to our lapses,
failures,
excesses and deficits--
and letting it be because it is,
learning from it,
and living to redeem it,
making amends where amends can be made
without making things worse,
and carrying the awareness 
of what we are capable of
with us all along the way.

We have to put things right--
as right as they can be put--
with ourselves and others,
and endeavor to keep things there
by keeping our eye on what's what,
within and without,
in each situation as it arises
throughout the time left for living.

This is the ground of compassion and kindness,
granting to others the same kind of
generosity that we extend to ourselves
in "letting be what is,"
and going on together
into whatever comes our way
over time--
over long stretches of time
in our mutual commune with ourselves
and all others all the way.

–0–

Now is now everywhere.
If everyone wherever they are
would only do what needs to be done now,
where and how it needs to be done,
and follow that
into the next now flowing from this one,
the transformation would be instantaneous.

And since there is nothing but now
in which to experience being alive,
we would have a taste of all there is to have 
now 
forever,
now.

And, even if we only do our part,
that would impact our immediate circumstances
in ways that will be transformative
right here, right now,
and who knows where that will lead!

We transform our part of the whole
just by doing what is called for,
where and how it is called for,
now.

Let's do it!

–0–

The people in Stonington, Maine
eke out a living as best they can,
like 99% of the world's population
from the beginning--
and, if they are lucky,
foster an inner life
that enables them to live
with joy, resolve and resiliency
amid the ebbs and flows 
of their outer life.

How many world-wide through all of time
have been that lucky,
and have known and benefited from
the inner peace, calm, balance, harmony
of a vital inner life?

How many live in the outer world
out of the vitality and vigor
of their inner life?

Returning regularly to the silence
in order to "recover from the past
and store up for the future" (Robert Ruark),
and do what needs to be done
amid the noise of the day-to-day? 

How many live daily out of the vibrant secret
of an adamantine foundation in their inner life?

And if we did not have that,
where would we go to find the way
of developing our capacity for it
and maintaining our connection with it
throughout the time left for living?

–0–

Hate, fear and greed are the primary motivators.
Peace, love and compassion have no chance against them.

"The Woke masses are going to take your guns!
And the people of color are going to eat your babies!"

Repeat that over and over from the pulpits
and the talk shows
and you have recreated Hitler Germany
and its unrelenting attacks upon the Jews.

What's the antidote?
You will not like the idea:
The right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence.

Waiting for the mud to settle
and the water to clear.

While the other side stirs up the mud
and brings the water to a boil.

Which is to say there is no antidote
and that is why the world is as it is,
rolling in hate, fear and greed,
as it has from the beginning,
is and ever shall be.

And those who know have to live
as though they know
in a world that doesn't know
and doesn't care to know,
because it thinks it knows
and that's that.

But.

"The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness cannot put it out."

Children of light have to be children of light,
and let nature take its course.

It is the way.
The only way.

Being who we are,
when and where and how we are,
not caring what our chances are,
anyway, nevertheless, even so.

Finding our solace, our strength
and our courage
in the right kind of emptiness,
stillness and silence,
and the right kind of company--
and living on, living on.

The Sisyphean Task
of being the light in the darkness
through the ages.

–0–