Your Money or Your Life
Between the sundry and ever-expanding political conflagrations of our modern time; between the ever-accelerating news cycle; between the social chaos; between systemic shocks and aftershocks; between the flashes of light and darkness; between the discord and cry -- two old men sat in a quiet bar. A familiar story that has played out a million times, and here it plays out again.
They sat, cocooned in the the darkened ribcage of the Raffles Singapore, a halo of light around them. The bar was a landmark of British imperialism, which bore a certain residual stuffiness. The ghosts of old mustachioed colonels drinking single malt between military campaigns haunted the place. Hemmingway sat here. So did Rudyard Kipling, his feverish, drunken imagination spinning with jungle lore.
The two men were of a similar age. The elder ordered a Singapore Sling, the younger a gin and tonic. "Listen," says the elder: "Everything we do is transactional. There is always buyer and seller, guest and host."
The elder had learned this in his youth from a mercurial and evanescent mentor -- a man named Dirty Fabulous. This figure, a sage-like party animal, was the type who liked to take women home and have rough sex on his shag carpet. "I like seeing the rug burns all over their back," Dirty Fabulous would say.
Anyway, it was as the elder was saying this that he lit a twisted black cigarette of suspicious origin, a cigarette called the Thousand Breaths. It was a bracing smoke. Greenish in color, with a slight, sweet pungent spiciness on the nose. Anise and caraway seed? Black licorice? Whatever. He smoked as he told a story about himself and his mentor -- the one known as Dirty Fabulous.
One day, he said, the two decided to drive out to the barren nuclear wastelands of Nevada, all the way down a winding, lonely two-lane highway to foot of the White Range, a collection of ancient hills that owe their name to their distinctly pale appearance. It was, he remarked, one of the driest and most abandoned places on earth, having not received a single drop of rain from the cruel sky in over a thousand years. Here, the land was dirt and that was that. Even the most brazen flora couldn't thrust its roots in the hardscrabble ground here. Nor would the most enterprising, opportunistic animal -- save the lofty hawks and buzzards that occasionally drifted past -- dare to spy this stretch of godforsaken criminal earth, which appeared from the heavens as white crinkles in the otherwise beige blanket of the smooth desert floor.
The two men parked their car at the side of the highway and proceeded to march into the vicious, atavistic landscape. They carried with them three liters of purified water, a bag of salty snacks and some strands of peyote known as Saro Djablo. There, at the top of the range, looking out onto an ancient world, they consumed the drug. From there they fell into a flashing alien universe of psychedelic visions, backed by the throbbing, pulsating beat of their bloodstreams.
What they witnessed cannot be adequately described here, for there are no words yet invented that capture the nature of it. But you should be aware that they were, in that fateful moment, exposed to something uniquely visceral -- an entire substrate of reality, a secondary stream that is converging upon our own: a stream of conflict. "There is nothing in our nominal lives that is accomplished without conflict," said the elder man to the younger. "And what I mean by transactional is this: one person gives, the other receives. Always."
"This is the most fundamental piece of knowledge I can offer, and it has influenced everything I've done since that day. It's why I am so immensely successful now, and why you see all these succulent hundred-dollar bills spilling out of these pockets even as I speak. Since that day on the mountain, I have treated every person in my life, even my closest friends, as they rightfully are: an adversary to be dominated and mastered."
They sat, cocooned in the the darkened ribcage of the Raffles Singapore, a halo of light around them. The bar was a landmark of British imperialism, which bore a certain residual stuffiness. The ghosts of old mustachioed colonels drinking single malt between military campaigns haunted the place. Hemmingway sat here. So did Rudyard Kipling, his feverish, drunken imagination spinning with jungle lore.
The two men were of a similar age. The elder ordered a Singapore Sling, the younger a gin and tonic. "Listen," says the elder: "Everything we do is transactional. There is always buyer and seller, guest and host."
The elder had learned this in his youth from a mercurial and evanescent mentor -- a man named Dirty Fabulous. This figure, a sage-like party animal, was the type who liked to take women home and have rough sex on his shag carpet. "I like seeing the rug burns all over their back," Dirty Fabulous would say.
Anyway, it was as the elder was saying this that he lit a twisted black cigarette of suspicious origin, a cigarette called the Thousand Breaths. It was a bracing smoke. Greenish in color, with a slight, sweet pungent spiciness on the nose. Anise and caraway seed? Black licorice? Whatever. He smoked as he told a story about himself and his mentor -- the one known as Dirty Fabulous.
One day, he said, the two decided to drive out to the barren nuclear wastelands of Nevada, all the way down a winding, lonely two-lane highway to foot of the White Range, a collection of ancient hills that owe their name to their distinctly pale appearance. It was, he remarked, one of the driest and most abandoned places on earth, having not received a single drop of rain from the cruel sky in over a thousand years. Here, the land was dirt and that was that. Even the most brazen flora couldn't thrust its roots in the hardscrabble ground here. Nor would the most enterprising, opportunistic animal -- save the lofty hawks and buzzards that occasionally drifted past -- dare to spy this stretch of godforsaken criminal earth, which appeared from the heavens as white crinkles in the otherwise beige blanket of the smooth desert floor.
The two men parked their car at the side of the highway and proceeded to march into the vicious, atavistic landscape. They carried with them three liters of purified water, a bag of salty snacks and some strands of peyote known as Saro Djablo. There, at the top of the range, looking out onto an ancient world, they consumed the drug. From there they fell into a flashing alien universe of psychedelic visions, backed by the throbbing, pulsating beat of their bloodstreams.
What they witnessed cannot be adequately described here, for there are no words yet invented that capture the nature of it. But you should be aware that they were, in that fateful moment, exposed to something uniquely visceral -- an entire substrate of reality, a secondary stream that is converging upon our own: a stream of conflict. "There is nothing in our nominal lives that is accomplished without conflict," said the elder man to the younger. "And what I mean by transactional is this: one person gives, the other receives. Always."
"This is the most fundamental piece of knowledge I can offer, and it has influenced everything I've done since that day. It's why I am so immensely successful now, and why you see all these succulent hundred-dollar bills spilling out of these pockets even as I speak. Since that day on the mountain, I have treated every person in my life, even my closest friends, as they rightfully are: an adversary to be dominated and mastered."
posted by Jeweled Accumulation at 3:05 PM
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