As I ran the other morning, my thoughts turned to money: if I have more does that mean someone else has less? Are the poor nobler in spirit? Isn’t the infinite universe constantly creating new riches? What is money anyway? And so on — stray anxieties, prejudices, intuitions rising and falling with my labored breathing.
Rounding the corner, almost home, I assured myself that if I do what’s right for me — making a life as well as a living, with work born of necessity — I’ll get what I need. That’s when I saw the bill in the middle of the street. A dollar, I thought excitedly — what an auspicious sign. I stopped, bent down, and picked it up. It was a $100 bill.
Don Juan, the Yaqui sorcerer in the Carlos Castaneda books, talks about how the universe always gestures to us, in obvious and subtle ways. We don’t realize this, he says, because we look but don’t see.
Well, this I couldn’t miss. That piece of green-colored paper reminded me not to be stingily “realistic.” The source of money is the source of life itself, and is a mystery no economist or philosopher will fathom. Economic facts “make sense,” but faith in the process makes more sense.
If I were more “realistic,” this magazine wouldn’t exist, but this is the sixtieth issue. Finding it in your mailbox may not be as exciting as turning up a $100 bill, but to me it’s no less a miracle.
— Sy
