1. What do we want?

As humans, we want less isolation and more conviviality. Less busyness and more raw life. More adventure. As Hakim Bey writes, "All experience is mediated," but:

"mediation takes place by degrees. Some experiences (smell, taste, sexual pleasure, etc.) are less mediated than others (reading a book, looking through a telescope, listening to a record). Some media, especially "live" arts such as dance, theater, musical or bardic performance, are less mediated than others such as TV, CDS, Virtual Reality... Improv music played by friends at home is less "alienated" than music played "live" at the Met or music played through media (whether PBS or MTV or Walkman). In fact, an argument could be made that music distributed free or at cost on cassette via mail is LESS alienated than live music played at some huge We Are the World spectacle or Las Vegas niteclub, even though the latter is live music played to a live audience (or at least so it appears), while the former is recorded music consumed by distant & even anonymous listeners."

We want a less mediated, less alienated, more real experience of life.

2. What prevents us from getting what we want?

So why don't we have it already? What is this force that puts a layer of glass in between ourselves and our bodies, our lives and the lives of others, our to-do list and the life of the hunter, the warrior, the ninja?

I suggest it has something to do with the economic system. I suggest that capitalism is ready to fulfill all of our needs but this most basic one, our need for connection and viscerality. In fact, the market is antagonistic to human connection. I describe why I think so in Appendix A.

3. So we have to build it ourselves.