Know options please

We ourselves are among the objects formed in this way. A group of particularly fine atoms comes together to make a body and a mind in the form of a single entity, a human being, whose eventual dispersal is inevitable.
The Story of Philosophy • partial summation of Epicurus’s philosophy • Bryan McGee

One moment in time, 1/125 of a second when light is good and a photograph is made, One moment when these small particles came together to make this scene, the universe experiences itself simultaneously as subject and object!

This couple had just arrived from Appalachia in an old car with a back seat full of unpacked clothes, and a few personal belongings . . . and no money.. I was there at the moment taking photographs of the “bureaucrat at his desk.” Think of moments in your life when you felt deep in heart t you had no options; not did not have a good option, but no options looked better than the sadness you were in.

We often imagine childhood to be a time of “innocence”— a time when we were not aware of feeling there were no options in life, .a time we associate with the Garden of Eden.

Its one part of the human condition, Enabled, or condemned, to have the quality of learning/knowledge. In order to survive we have to do things, we have to behave. When we do things that are successful behavior we survive and then we do them again, and again, and again.They become bahaviour patterns and create a social structure of behavior. This is the process of culture.

Culture is always in process. As we behave we survive by changing/creating the material world we live in which prompts new behavours from individuals and the cycle keeps never-endingly repeating itself.—which it will do until human beings are extinct— culture is a property of human beings, it does not exist without them.

Some kind of a “ 1960s campus Be-In”, students and teachers taking time out of their lives to do this behaviour. Wil lit be successful?

Alameda Creek

Almost everyday I walk along Alameda Creek, along with doing such other things as waking up, eating, pooping and peeing, talking, lifting my hand up or down, watching tv while eating, turning on the computer, brushing my teeth, driving to LA, and on and on . Even sleeping is doing something.

We have words we speak and write to communicate with each other. Language is a great creation of human beings, and every peoples that have survived has a language. Often people confuse having a word for “something” with “knowing the something.

We have words for the things we do, but they all have their own meanings .. . . and sometimes the meanings are overlapping— driving to LA can be one thing, eating at a restaurant another thing, but sometimes the eating at a restaurant is included in driving to LA.. This becomes clear when you drive to LA with someone, no-one discussed eating but everyone expects to stop and eat on the way—its , an assumed part of the trip, no one mentions it before, and somewhere along the way someone says, “Lets eat?” and no one is against it.

Words are a human creation, and graphic representations of those words —writing— is also a human creation—spoken and written language are tools which facilitate success for human survival . . .

. . . as a society.

The universe has unleashed this phenomenon which we call “Us;” Humanity; people. Its our tool for successful survival, and its our greatest challenge, perhaps even our greatest enemy..

The thing that enabled us to successfully survive is also our negative.

We are all different, all individuals have a unique experience, it makes each us different. not different enough to destroy society but different. Our successfully survival comes with increased population, more people, having unique experiences making more differences . . .. . . Who is lost in the crowd? . . .Who finds themselves in the crowd?

Outside of our own experience we do not have anything else, its sad when we think someone else’s experience is better than ours—and even sadder when “those people” believe their experiences are better than ours. Flying first class feels good, but over 1000 people die from starvation every hour, Buy a car for $300,000, or a Van Gogh for millions??

End paper

Celebrating Mother’s day , painting by Janney

Who dresses the female mannequins in this store where the employees (I saw) were all male? This guy looks like he is admiring his own work tothe delight of the customer.

Walking to church Sunday morning in East Boston passing the Purity Cheese Company, circa 1970,

Artist Momo-Cha using a liquid chalk to paint the sidewalk to celebrate Asian/Pacific Heritage Month inferno of the e San Jose Buddhist temple.

Chant the Heart Sutra each time you click the shutter, you are the mirror of the Universe.

Gate Gate paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi svaha