Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“You mean I can live like a lump as long as my bankroll holds up?”
“Yes! And you can live well, even as a lump.”
“George. People around the world have no money and aren't ready to die because of it.
Some people value spirit more than money. In some cultures, comfort is set aside to better
seek spiritual light.” George sighed over irrelevance to strategic financial assessment.
“I think you know what I mean,” he said.
“I'm afraid your meaning may not be my meaning. I hope you learn the difference before
or after your money runs out. But fuck all the death talk, George. Make me some money.” So
we got down to oodles of moolah at last as the best distraction.
Strategic financial assessment felt like a hairpin turn near the pass. George shuffled mutual
funds with forgettable names, each one a letter or syllable different from the others. George
sold a shitload of some and bought a shitload of others and in no time the numbers rolled like
an electric meter with the AC on High Cool and the windows open. But gains felt like noth-
ing, because you must sell the little blips to realize the gain. Short of a sale, positions merely
improve. Was I in the position?
By the next quarter, positions weakened. George wailed, “Stay in!” I frankly didn't care.
I could stay in and watch my position improve or deteriorate and feel nothing either way.
The numbers rose and fell with numbing failure to change anything, to feel better or worse or
in the least consequential. And he could not say how these numbers representing an idea of
money could rise and fall and feel so ungodly different from the buck fifty an hour I turned on
hash slinging and pearl diving forty-five years ago. Those dollars had dynamic value, spend-
able on the celebration of life with a hard-driving downbeat on a blood surging rhythm and a
gang of friends discovering the world and ourselves.
How can things change so much and then poof, be gone? People stay hungry for meaning
and lasting value.
A surgery coming up would require anesthesia, which shuts down the five physical senses,
except for pulse and breath. The edge of death seemed a decent vantage point from which to
look into the abyss. The character of the void seemed obvious, but it seemed a good time to
look. Near-death experience commonly occurs above the scene, often with friends and family
gathered below in loving company, encouraging the near-deather to descend back to the body
to live a while longer.
The elevated view suggested a new sensory function engaged in passing. The unconscious
person could have imagined the scene from above and then remembered the scene, maybe.
A spirit has no eyes in the conventional sense but it might see by other sense. Dolphins “see”
with sonar, proving non-ocular vision. Why not humans?
“Is out-of-body experience possible under general anesthesia?” I asked the anesthetist
while rolling into the operating room, a harshly lit chamber with no windows and many in-
struments. Bacteria must have been discouraged by the freezing cold. I was.
