Kharma Offsets

Yesterday Tammy and I met many of our new neighbors at a social event organized by the president of the community association. There is an old rail line that is now only used as a scenic train ride for tourists. Our neighborhood association rented it for the evening. So in essence it was a rolling block party.

As is customary at such events, I got to talking to my new neighbor about my various outdoorsy interests. Of course seeing as we all live in Phoenicia, having "outdoorsy" on one's resume is not such an unusual trait. Nor is having unusual traits such an unusual trait in Phoenicia. I am quickly discovering it is ground zero for the artsy and intellectual set from New York City. The Sedona of the East coast. There is more Zen per square mile than any locale I have visited in the fifty United States. So when I say I don't like to mess with my Kharma, my fellow indwellers know of what I speak.

So my new friend suggested that I head over to one of the local ski slopes for a little down hill mountain bike adventure. For the price of a summer lift ticket you take your bike up the hill on the chair lift and then you only have to ride it downhill. A free ride sweatwise if you think like me. You do have to work somewhat, my new chum asserted. Not nearly enough to offset the bad kharma that would most assuredly come my way if I biked downhill without first biking uphill I thought.
"There are no free rides." I averred.
"Oh, but it isn't free. You have to pay for the lift ticket!" was the reply.
And that's when it hit me; Kharma offsets. Not at all unlike carbon offsets. It's Nirvana for the capitalists. Bourgeois Buddhism. If I can barter my way out of bad kismet with paper money then I have found my creed.