It is good to be perceptive, to be observant.  Many of us, who take photographs and share them, reveal certain detailed (and often unique) perceptions that we have… (that we are appreciative of).  To be perceptive is to be sensitive.  Even our cameras have a certain innate, intrinsic sensitivity, wherein they pick up (and convey) many of the intricacies that a scene or area displays.  To be a real human being, however, calls for much more sensitivity than what a mechanical camera is capable of.  Interestingly, there are many people who go through existence being perceptive in more of a mechanical, mechanistic, camera-like way.  They focus upon what others have directed them to focus upon; they capture (and hold) what they were developed to capture and hold.  Like digital cameras, they store the data and their depth is artificial; they assimilate and grasp according to the way they were programmed.  Their stored data depends exclusively upon imprinted patterns.

A truly insightful and reflective human being, on the other hand, may go far beyond a mere mechanical, superficial existence.  The depth of a truly insightful, reflective human being would be amazingly real and beyond mere simulation.  Real sensitivity has tremendous depth.  That depth and real love/real living may not be different things.  That depth shatters the separation between the viewer and the image.  That sensitivity helps others in profound ways (that are not merely what can be photographed… although photographing may be part of how that sensitivity shares).  That sensitivity penetrates far deeper than what any mechanical device can calculatingly and premeditatively (artificially) capture.

Last night, this movement was observing a science program on television concerning the universe.  A lot of top scientists were talking about where the universe was going.  They said that there is absolutely no evidence that there exists any eternity in the universe and that it is more than likely that everything will disappear entirely (and that is that).   Unfortunately, they don’t understand what certain wise individuals understand; they (to a very large extent) don’t understand their own minds, and they don’t know what most of the cosmos (such as dark energy) consists of.  If a mindlenscamera is constructed and programmed by the superficial, what it picks up and captures (to share) will often be rather superficial.  Sometimes superficial and two-dimensional is very nice and excellent to visit… but one wouldn’t want to exclusively live there.  Superficial snapshots from distortion impress most who are truly discerning and deep (only to a limited extent).  As for those scientists, well, unfortunately, they are very good at capturing and conveying what they’ve discovered from limitation.

So, what transforms beyond the limited focus of the camera-i… is real integrity.  Real, living integrity comes about only when the mind naturally becomes orderly beyond some dead blueprint or formulated mold.  When real integrity comes about, the universe and its deepest magic comes to you; you don’t have to seek it.  True integrity, which is wholeness, allows for (that deep order which is the entire universe) to flower within.  That brings true bliss and enlightenment.  The limited camera-i cannot do it, for what it perceives is little, separate snapshots here and there (according to some limited, manufactured programming).   When real wisdom occurs, then the camera-i doesn’t merely try to capture things (with what it focuses on)… because then its instrument is not separate from all the mystery that takes place in the world (and all the mystery that is beyond place).

Tree Frog on brownish house siding (blending in quite nicely). Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2015