A Chip of Ice

Ray Katz
4 min readApr 8, 2024

When you are thirsty, a chip of ice is paradise.

Photo by Hao Zhang on Unsplash

In December 2019, I was in the hospital. I had just had open heart surgery. Two pieces of my heart — the aorta and a valve — had been replaced. The surgery was successful, although I spent the entire next day on a respirator.

All the parts worked but not everything was working together. Another medical procedure fixed that. Then, while in recovery, in the ICU, I got a-fib. Just as the medical team started up the paddles, planning to shock my heart back into normal rhythm, it fixed itself.

I was tired and thirsty. I was also fearless. Nothing concerned me. I just wanted to do whatever the situation required of me. That’s all. That was everything. I wasn’t concerned about much else, and I didn’t want anything.

Except water. I was so dry.

You Need Perspective to Live

If you spend some time thinking about things, about our situation as a species, and about your own life, you might be able to gain a fresh perspective that empowers you to live more fully.

The situation is this:

We are all here, somewhat mysteriously, seemingly created by the semi-randomness of evolution. We live short finite lives, during which we have consciousness which enables us to look at the world and explore

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Ray Katz
Ray Katz

Written by Ray Katz

Internet pioneer. But I’m most interested in stabilizing the Earth’s climate and promoting our common humanity. WeAreSaners.org

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