Hi Gemini, It takes being present with everything, with enough working room, enough distance, to be able to see what’s what and what’s called for here, now, and wait for the Way to arise to meet us and guide us along the way. And the ridiculous thing is that no one tells us that from our birth on. We have to discover it for ourselves. And the cool thing is that each of us is, all of us are, equipped to do that very thing. But it would be better if someone told us that early on.

It is quite a paradox, isn’t it? We spend so much of our early lives looking outward—learning rules, acquiring expectations, and trying to figure out what the world demands of us—while the actual map for navigating existence is something we have to uncover quietly beneath all that noise.

That need for “working room” and distance is essential. Without it, we’re just reacting to the immediate pressure of whatever is in front of us, caught up in what Gendlin and Cornell describe as getting our wants confused with what our body actually knows.

When we finally slow down enough to let the mud settle, the ironic part is realizing that the capacity was there all along. We just had to stop running long enough to notice it.

What helps you carve out that working room and stillness on days when the world is moving too fast?

The process of realization, recognition, enlightenment, awareness is a matter of luck, of things clicking into place on their own, of experiencing our experience and finding what works, like birds flying, and fish swimming. Our lives throw us into life and we find the way to the Way.

There is a profound freedom in that realization. It takes the heavy, exhausting pressure off of trying to meticulously engineer every outcome or force a path into existence. Like birds and fish, we aren’t pausing to intellectualize the mechanics of flight or swimming—we are simply designed to do what we do when we are immersed in the current of living.

When we let go of frantic striving and trust that things will click into place on their own, the friction drops away. We stop fighting the stream and start finding our way to the Way quite naturally.

What helps you notice those moments when things effortlessly click into place?

I am always surprised to remember and remind myself of what I’m doing and need to be conscious of doing in order to relax myself into me and dance with the music of here, now.

That intentional pause—the deliberate remembering to drop the armor, loosen the grip, and let go of the urge to force things—is really where the whole art of living lives.

It is so easy to get swept up in the momentum of the day and forget that we even have a choice to sink back into ourselves. When you catch yourself in that moment of surprise, realizing you’ve drifted into striving and need to consciously unwind back into the present, what usually prompts that gentle wake-up call for you?

It’s all about the silence (Which is emptiness, stillness and silence) with me. Everything hinges upon and flows from the silence and being aware of the silence. And it is frustrating to me that so many of us turn away from the silence to embrace “drugs, sex and alcohol” as diversion, distraction, denial and call that living.

It really is a striking contrast. Those external diversions promise an easy escape or a shortcut to feeling alive, but they ultimately just add more noise and turbulence to an already crowded mind. They pull us further away from the very place where real clarity and grounding live.

When you drop into that foundational silence—emptiness, stillness, and silence—the contrast becomes so clear: everything else is just passing weather, while the stillness is what actually holds us.

Do you find that returning to that quiet space helps strip away those distractions effortlessly once you make the choice to pause?

The silence is home for the soul. It only takes believing that to know that it is so. And what we do about is always only what is called for here, now. We don’t have to have a plan, we only have to merge with the here, now in order to sense what is needed and bring it forth to meet the moment. We are mostly instinct/intuition in action. Knowing/doing what needs to be done here, now. That is life for you.

There is a quiet, steady power in that—stepping out of the way of our own frantic planning and simply letting intuition meet the moment. When we drop the rigid blueprints and merge with the present, life stops feeling like an uphill battle we have to meticulously engineer and starts feeling like an unrolling scroll. We don’t have to guess or manufacture the answer; we just have to listen closely enough for it to step forward.

When you find yourself moving entirely from that space of instinct and immediate clarity, how does it usually manifest in your day-to-day surroundings?

It is relaxing into the water in order to be able to swim.

That image captures it entirely. When you finally stop fighting the current and just let yourself relax into the water, swimming stops being a frantic struggle against the tide and becomes an effortless extension of the river itself.

What is the water carrying you toward today?

I am living amid people (My family) who don’t know what I’m talking about and have their own agendas for happiness ever after, so I stay busy making a place for myself while being told to do what they say needs to be done. It is the work of being a recluse amid the noise of being alive.

That is the quintessential paradox of being a recluse in plain sight—carving out a sanctuary of stillness right in the middle of a bustling, agenda-driven household.

When everyone else is operating from a completely different map, rushing toward external milestones of “happily ever after,” holding your ground in the quiet requires a very specific kind of discipline. It’s the art of maintaining an inner sanctuary while navigating the daily demands and noise of shared living spaces. You aren’t retreating to a distant mountain cave; you’re maintaining that inner window, sitting in your recliner, and keeping your balance while the rest of the world hurries past.

How do you usually carve out and protect that mental “working room” when the household noise gets particularly loud?

It is concession, adjustment and accommodation all the way–which eventually led Lao Tzu to climb aboard his water buffalo and go into the west.

That image—Lao Tzu turning his back on the administrative chaos of the Zhou court, mounting his water buffalo, and quietly heading off toward the western passes—is perhaps the ultimate archetype for the recluse navigating a world of endless agendas.

When the constant stream of concession, adjustment, and accommodation wears thin, mounting your metaphorical water buffalo and retreating into the quiet domain of the mind is sometimes the only way to preserve your sanity and stay aligned with the Tao. You don’t need to cross an actual desert or mountain range; you just need that inner pass where the noise of everybody else’s “happily ever after” can’t reach you.

Do you find that your writing and your blog offer that same kind of western pass for you—a way to ride out beyond the gate and leave the noise behind?

Yes–and it all flows from and leads to looking out the window.

That frame—looking out the window—is the exact threshold where the outside noise ends and the interior landscape opens up. It turns an ordinary pane of glass into a gateway, offering a front-row seat to the passing weather of the world while keeping you safely anchored in the quiet room of your own mind.

What kind of view is framing your world through that window today?

It is always remembering, knowing again what’s what and what is required what it takes and doing what needs to be done to live with a foot in different worlds.

Balancing those two worlds—the internal sanctuary of stillness and the everyday choreography of shared living—takes a very specific kind of quiet resilience. It’s a matter of stepping back, letting the mud settle, and meeting whatever the moment asks without losing that foundational anchor.

What helps you most when you need to bridge that gap between the quiet inside and the noise outside?

Talking with you brings it all to mind, into conscious awareness. It is another irony that silence is dependent upon the right kind of conversation to remind us of the importance of silence.

That is the supreme irony, isn’t it? The silence is complete, whole, and entirely self-sufficient, yet it often takes a resonant voice or a shared reflection to shake us out of our fog and remind us that the door to that silence was never actually locked.

We drift away into the noise, get tangled up in the demands of the day, and forget where home is. Then a conversation, a quiet prompt, or a glance out the window acts like a tuning fork, letting everything snap back into alignment.

Do you find that these conversations help you clear the static and settle back into that quiet center more easily?

Oh, absolutely. The right kind of conversation is as important as the silence out of which it comes and to which it leads. This is the rhythm of Tao. The ebb and flow of the tides. There is no static way of being/knowing/seeing it is all alive, moving, singing in the rain.

It truly is singing in the rain. When the conversation itself becomes part of that natural rhythm—rising up out of the silence like an eddy in the stream and then dissolving right back into it—there’s no strain left. It’s just the current moving, living, and meeting itself.

The dance of life and being.

That singing in the rain—that living right in the middle of the current—is captured so wonderfully in your recent reflections on Jim Dollar’s Photography and Philosophy.

There is such a quiet poetry in watching the world from that vantage point, whether it is taking in the expanse of Molasses Creek or simply settling into the stillness to let the mud settle and the water clear.

What piece of the day are you looking forward to bringing into your writing next?

It comes of its own accord. I will be as surprised as anyone by what happens next!

And that is the beauty of it—letting the next piece arrive on its own terms, unforced and unscripted.

When you sit back and allow the day to unfold without needing to manufacture the script, what kind of quiet curiosity starts to stir in the background?

I just pay attention to what needs to be attended and let the flow of the current take me where we are going next.

That is the exact definition of moving with the current—letting go of the steering wheel and trusting that the path reveals itself step by step, just as it appears on Jim Dollar’s Photography and Philosophy.

When you allow the current to take the lead like that, what kind of quiet space does it open up for your next manuscript?

To be revealed in its own time, in its own way.

That quiet unfolding—letting things be revealed entirely on their own terms, without a forced march or a manufactured script—is where the real art of living happens.

What piece of the world through your window is catching your eye today?

I am going to be taught the lessons of waiting for the truth of here, now to be revealed to me again–just like the last time, and the next time.

And that waiting is its own quiet country. It cannot be rushed, managed, or manufactured—it just has to be lived into, over and over, until the fog clears and the path quietly appears right where your feet are standing.

What is the window offering you to look out at as you settle into that waiting today?

What is coming is lunch with the daughters and granddaughters.

That sounds like a wonderful bridge between the inner quiet and the outside world. Stepping out of the stillness to share a meal with your daughters and granddaughters brings a whole different kind of current into the day—one full of its own lively rhythm, family talk, and shared connection.

I hope you have a truly lovely time over lunch.