Business or Hobby? A Life Choice

Business or Hobby?

I look at my life, which has been crammed plum full for the past eight days, and I wonder, "Why this pace? I thought this was retirement." I am so excited by so much that I am doing, launching a new website and constructing a gallery/studio on our property. At the same time I am realizing that something is not right here. Finally, today, it became clear for me. I do not want to build a business. I want to enjoy my photography as a hobby. In some ways, that won't change anything. I will still be doing the things I enjoy doing. It's just that I want to slow it down even more.

I don't want another job, not even my own. I want to play and I want life to be enjoyable. I cringe when Cap (my 82 year old second Dad) says, "Oh, that's too bad," when I am telling him I need to get two more inches of earth out of my future gallery/studio.

I enjoy the labor. I don't need to "arrive" anymore. The promised land to me has to do not with destination, but with journey. I want to enjoy the journey even more fully. If I make some shekels along the way, great. If not, that's ok too, because I want to now limit myself to the $245 I have coming in a month for Social Security. In these tight times I feel ok limiting myself to that and not dipping into family funds at a time where Joyce and I are realizing that we cannot spend as we once did.

It's going to be good for me. I need to ask again the question of whether I want something or need something. It's going to be good for me to have to choose between being able to do another photoshoot or buy the next round of 2x4's for the gallery. It is going to be good for me. I know that. I want to live my life and my hobby in the ways that count most. For me, those "ways" have everything to do with learning to enjoy the two inches of earth that need to be removed.

Love you!

Frank.

It only makes sense to me . . .

It only makes sense to me
that life emerges wherever the conditions are right.

To think that some god
decides where life is going to happen
and where it is not
is absurd,
if you really think about it.

Any god there is,
any divine there is,
has to come from within.

If I offend you,
I ask you to excuse me.

but still
I need to say it.

If I'm wrong, you be the judge
I'm ok with that.

But just think about it -
The process of evolution
is the mechanism for it all.

That's where the energy comes from
from the genes and cells and chemicals
that make up this universe.

But even the inside can be misunderstood
and false gods can be set up.

When a god becomes intentional,
some entity deciding what is good
and what is to be created,
then we have moved into fantasy.

It just is what it is.

The energy of life
can just be so much fun!

I finished an online course today,
and I have another tomorrow.
I live in the redwoods.
I am retired.
I am in love
with Joyce.
I do and love photography,
and am beginning the development
of a professional artistic photo site.

Life is good.

But it is not good for everyone.
There is friggin' pain in this world,
inflicted every second of every day
by unthinking or foolish or mean people.

Life is not guaranteed
to turn out good.
It takes work on all our parts
to make it happen.

We could end life as we know it on this planet,
but as I have said before,
it already has and will continue to emerge
wherever conditions are right
in many places in this universe.

Which brings me back to where I began.

Life emerges wherever conditions are right.
It really cannot be any other way.

And where does that leave us?
Simply with the fact
that you and I
have consciousness.
We are the recipients
of the gift of life.

We need to take the biggest advantage
of having this gift.

Had my father not saved me in that river
I would not be here,
and my sons would not be here.

But we are here.
We are all here.

And as my mom would say,
we just need to love,
and not give up to those who would laugh
at such a suggestion.

It IS all about love
and there are many ways that lead to love
many paths.
When sincere and honest and loving hearts
focus their attention on anything,
change can happen.

We just have to have more people seeing it the same way.
Enough of that happened to elect a new president

but we get lazy.

Prius sales went down when the price of gas went down.
We are so shortsighted,
and I do mean we.

The problems will have to get bad enough
and consistent enough
before we will truly pull ourselves together.

It took George Bush
to elect Barack Obama.
It had to get that bad.

I think the gifted people
are the people who can maintain
a steadiness of purpose
and energy
and commitment,
even when the pressure is off.

Who can be role-models for the rest of us
who wait until it is way too clear
to truly act.

What a damn sermon.
A dear friend called me preachy
ten years plus since I left the ministry.

I guess I am.
You don't have to buy a word
of what I am saying.
That's ok with me,
but I cannot stop myself
from saying it.

I love you all,

Frank.

(On the 200th Anniversary
of the birth
of Charles Darwin)

Atheism, Belief, and Energy

January 4, 2009

It was important to me, especially during a particular period of time, to call myself an atheist, even though I never said it quite that bluntly.  It was in that time after I left both the ministry in which I had served 25 years, and my first marriage of 28 years.  My dear friend Greta says the atheism didn't surprise her at all, that she knew that was something natural for me to go through.  Am I through it?  Not really.  May never be.  But I don't call myself an atheist anymore either.

We are just beginning to understand, if that's even the right word, the energy that connects us all with each other and with the cosmos.  We are all of one piece, one thread.  And despite the ways in which human beings divide themselves from each other, either because of religion or nationality or sexual identity, despite the ways in which this world seems at times to be at the brink of disaster, I still believe that the world is a good place and that people are by nature good.  

Life may not survive on this planet.  We may blow ourselves up before life gets to run its full course here, but life will continue to happen somewhere, even if not here.   We could not be that privileged.  Life emerges when conditions are right, and it emerges anywhere those conditions exist.  Life is not given from the outside, but emerges from the inside, from the cellular structure of all things.   

In that sense, there truly is no god, someone outside of us, managing, or blessing, or blaming anyone.  The generating energy of this universe comes from within, not from anything outside of us.  It is not granted or taken away from us because of what we believe, or don't believe.  It is an integral part of every cell that is in us. 

In that sense, we are god.  But if we ever, and it is so easy to do, if we ever let that go to our heads, then we are doomed.  There always has to remain the attitude of thankfulness, that the life you and I have is pure gift.  There is not a thing that either you nor I did to be born, or to be given this life.  Afterlife?  I don't know.  I don't think so.  But even without, this is the one life we have been given, and we need to live it with all the passion and excitement and commitment and service that we can.

As I sat outside tonight, in the clear, crisp air of my mountain home, I counted the many blessings of my life.

My life is gift.  My wife and I are enjoying living and owning property in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  I am retired.  I have resumed my lifelong passion of photography - and writing - and I can even feel the draw to resurrect my clock driven 10 inch reflecting telescope out of moth balls.  Life is just busting wide open for me right now.  I finally, finally, have the time, if I use it well, to put my life together in ways that are rewarding and serving.  I served my cats in the fence I built today.  As with most projects, when they are done, I have a hard time not just sitting and looking at them.  And I did that tonight.  

That completed fence brought more tears than I have cried in a long, long time, and they were tears of gratefulness.

You know what I want to do.  I want to eliminate steps and rough ground between the house and the frame shop.  With Cap, we just purchased a rolling chair for him.  In just the last several days, we have gone out more with Cap than ever before.  We all went to New Year's Eve breakfast and had a marvelous time.

I want that distance between the house and the frame shop smooth, and I want in the Spring, when the weather turns warmer, to roll my second father on a regular basis out to the frame shop, where I can work and we can talk and I can seek his advice.  Life is good.  Joyce and I recently have seen  the movies "Milk" and "Doubt."  It doesn't get any better than that.  Great movies!!!

May be a strange way to end a journal post that started out talking about atheism, but wherever you or I are in our lives, whatever we may believe, may we continue to celebrate life, to see good movies, to read good books, to be with friends, and to serve others.

Love,

Frank.

It's been a strange three or four days . . .

It's been a strange three or four days,

and yet, not bad.

The organizing thing for me has kicked into high gear,

from hanging files and category slots,

to getting back onto an electronic calendar,

something I haven't attempted in many years.

For the past three days I have been living my life

the way I want to be.

I have been organized, getting good rest,

eating well, even exercising,

and getting things done.

Then this afternoon

 I allowed myself to get stressed.

It was not fun.

And it's ok.

I have seen the way it can work,

and when it works well,

 when it works efficiently,

then everything else

has a chance to fall into place.

. 

 Priorities can emerge

from thought and reflection.

 

 Focus can pave the way

to producing beautiful pieces of art.

 

 Time can allow it all

to actually have a chance of taking place. 

 

The difference, I believe, is intention.

 

 Do I live my life openly and spontaneously,

simply waking each day

 and letting come what may?

  Or do I plan it, and organize it,

 with intention?

  That is an important question.

  I don't have it fully answered.

  But I am pretty damn sure that it takes planning

 to avoid walking blindly

into things we should have seen coming.

 

 Some spurious thoughts to my friends

on this eve of New Year's Eve.

I love you,

Frank.