Remember waiting in line with your parents? We ran off to explore, to play, to engage with the world through the clear prism of our senses. I have always been that child, leading others on hands and knees through the snow, mapping new polar bear trails with little mitten fists through the drifts. We were so confident in our stories, our worlds, but we were taught that someday we’d have to let them go, because there would be no one else to hold our place in line.

Seven billion of us now, all lined up – a globalized human system. Extend it further, eight billion, nine… Just as our math has gone beyond the scope of the human brain, so has our humanity. Our psychological resources are spread too thin. Efficiency has become a goal unto itself. And in its pursuit we have given our stories over to slick 2D screens, to scripted representations of a super-connected world full of conflicting complexities.

We can continue to overextend our thinking through technology, the way mathematicians eagerly hand over their equations to electronic brains. Or, we can capitalize on our growing ability to recruit like-minded villages, now that conforming to the societal paradigm of our immediate surroundings is no longer critical to our survival. Take the world back down to your senses, to the surface of your skin, and ask yourself: what sustains your system? READ MORE>>