I'm thinking of doing a "Past Fast"

[catherine]

I didn't realize cavemen, the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa were less then 150 years old.

I think art is different than photography when it comes to this type of thing. I agree it's very similar, but art is an interpretation of a visual experience and photography pretty much serves to capture the moment. (yes, yes, there are photographers like Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz who are artist-photographers, but the typical snapshot is not art.)

I also realized when listening to the TV while I was working and DH was watching TCM that I really do not like old movies. I think it's almost creepy to see people who are now dead on the screen as if they were Dorian Grey. Maybe this sounds really out there, but I just can't describe it. I find it depressing.

I've been envious of a friend who lost everything in a fire.

My mother lost everything--health, husband, home, all personal belongings--in one year. I never saw her more at peace. In fact, for 18 months she didn't have her memory, so case in point, she really went on a "past fast" and she came out just fine.

[catherine]

I think this says it nicely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSgr59PeYZQ

Just got a few minutes to look at this video, Xmac. Very cool. Interesting metaphor of our lives being like a movie, and the present moment being like a frame/scene in the movie.

"The present scene is all there is and it holds everything"

"Radical openness to the present scene."

"You don't 'do' yes [to the present scene] because you 'are' yes."

And you don't look at the movie and say it's wrong or there has been a mistake--the movie is the movie. "If in the present scene there is sadness, fear and doubt, from the perspective of the movie nothing has gone wrong. When you're watching the scene you don't have any sense that the movie itself is broken...it hasn't gone wrong. You don't tell the movie manager to come quick, there's something wrong with the movie. You understand that that scene could be the most important scene in the movie--it can't damage the movie. That's a metaphor for our lives. The cause of suffering is the sense that our lives have gone wrong. But that one scene can be part of the perfection of the movie. We try to press the forward button or the rewind button, there may be a longing to return to a previous scene... but all of this is part of the present scene--the present scene holds everything without judgement.. the present scene is a giant Yes."

That does say it nicely!
Thanks!