Monday, June 10, 2019
I had befriended a cabbie of Middle Eastern origin who was now bedridden, and from time to time I’d visit him in his apartment in midtown Manhattan. On this occasion he told me a parable, or a joke, or whatever you want to call it, about a spiritual seeker who decides he’s transcended whatever there is to learn in his holy book, so he burns it. “But he should have just put it up on a shelf,” the cabbie said. “What’s wrong with burning it?” he asked. I answered, and he spoke the words with me: You can’t unburn it. I hugged him and wished him well. Now I had to figure out how to get home, and I was in London, not New York City, and home was Paris.