A securities attorney in Palo Alto, California, told me this story over a glass of wine. I knew she had worked with many remarkable entrepreneurs, but I had no idea how far afield some of her colleagues had gone. It may be that for some investors, participation in the venture capital community leads to ventures of soul, in ways that are often hidden, so that they might be more effective.
Once there was a woman who made her living by selling places in heaven, as one would sell reserved seats. Since heaven is eternal, the interest was high; but since she could not guarantee the seats, the price was negotiable.
If she just could guarantee the seats, she felt sure of prosperity. And so our entrepreneur, who had the most detailed, outrageous aspirations, and wanted simply to do her work as well as she could, set off upon a quest to make herself the woman who could provide such assurance. After many a journey to the ends of the earth (some of which did not require her to leave her house); after talking to many a wayfarer of boisterous sagacity (even though these conversations were sometimes no more than a few whispered phrases); after reading whole skiesful of poetry, until the words on the page danced, until the words went off in a pyrotechnics of meaning (even though this is how everybody reads anyway); after taking lovers whose ministrations on clear summer days set off through her flesh prolonged and remarkable displays of heat lightning (even though this had been her habit in any case for some years); after all these ordinary efforts, she came into a calm and exact knowledge of the configuration of heaven.
Unfortunately, it proved harder than ever to sell her seats, which she could now guarantee with aplomb. Those who had spiritual interests of their own did not want her seats, because they knew she had obtained her knowledge by trying to become a better businesswoman—and who could become wise with such vile and crude motivations? And others turned her away because if there was no risk in their purchases, they had no interest; it just wasn’t thrilling enough. Yet others rejected her because she was an independent woman who had her own sources of wealth and life, and that angered them. But most of them turned her away because in order to purchase a guaranteed seat, they had to become more like her—focused, efficient, businesslike. This they were unwilling to do, because they had all learned long ago in school that commerce and soul have nothing to do with one another.
From these difficulties our entrepreneur came to understand the confusions in economic and metaphysical affairs, and the general decline in professionalism that resulted: people thought that buying and selling was a matter of calculation and survival, and not simultaneously a matter of subtle reckoning and invisible purposes.
She did, incidentally, one thing even more baffling to her customers. Sometimes, instead of selling the seats, she gave them away—but only to those who could afford them.