Sixty

On the other hand, if the young Sherpa were asked, if someone came up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and dragged him by force from his ideas regarding naval engineering and the foreign service, he would have a somewhat different vision. With a different focus. The young Sherpa would say that he sees himself as the agent of a transaction. A subject with a certain kind of knowledge, to whom laypeople turn in search of advice. An expert who possesses a certain set of skills the layperson lacks. Like a mechanic or a dentist? No. More like a teacher, someone overseeing a graduate thesis, or like a prostitute with particular expertise in sexual propaedeutics. From this perspective, the young Sherpa would say, an exchange takes place here: money for learning. You could even take it one step further and raise the analogy to religious heights. The Sherpas would be the illuminated, those chosen for their understanding, and it is their duty to show the way to the uninitiated, teach the process of ascesis, of unveiling. In this sense, the young Sherpa would argue, the monetary covenant is simply an imposition in the circulation of gifts. In order to accomplish the ascent, the tourist has to pay, not to fulfil a commercial requirement, but rather as penitence, as loss: the price of attaining understanding. If the tourist pays, it is because that pecuniary release is what sets him on the path to revelation.