So when she got sick, we be­came doc­tors. We thumbed through old pam­phlets and got a neigh­bor to give us a ride to the li­brary. We used the in­ter­net there.

We as­sem­bled crys­tals, raid­ing our stashes and bor­row­ing as many as we could, call­ing in every favor we were owed and mak­ing some promises that we wouldn’t like keep­ing. Mala­chite and blood­stone, se­len­ite and smoky quartz. Some were fash­ioned into wands with switches and pieces of leather, some were sus­pended above her bed, but mostly we just piled them on her body. We weren’t en­tirely sure what we were doing.

I brought out the piece of rose quartz that I had stolen from my older sis­ter three years be­fore, the piece whose theft I had de­nied. It was so beau­ti­ful. I know that she no­ticed but she said noth­ing. It didn’t mat­ter now.

At first it seemed like her con­di­tion was im­prov­ing. Then the vom­it­ing started.

We be­came more des­per­ate. I traded my best clothes for more crys­tals. I re­al­ized that I hadn’t been eat­ing. We moved the crys­tals around, try­ing them in dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions, neat lit­tle piles on her pulse points and a large stack on her belly. We tried to send her pos­i­tive en­ergy but hon­estly we were ter­ri­fied.

We started using what­ever we could get our hands on, min­er­als not even known to have heal­ing abil­i­ties. Rock salt, gyp­sum, fake coral from a fish tank. We just piled them on her chest and prayed and waited.

I haven’t seen the sun since the scream hap­pened six months ago.

It’s funny, I can still re­mem­ber going to the doc­tor for headaches and com­ing home under the strictest or­ders for my par­ents to limit my com­puter time to no more than two hours per day, to pre­serve my eye­sight. Ha! Even be­fore the emer­gency duty, the six­teen year old punks around me often spent 24/7 wired in.

I have never told that story to my col­leagues aboard this ship.

They al­ready refer to me as the old man of the sea, de­spite the fact that 90% of the ill-read lot of them are un­able to iden­tify the Hem­ing­way ori­gins of this ref­er­ence in under three searches. Some parts of human knowl­edge are still as poorly or­ga­nized as they were in 2020, the year I started life on the ships.

At the time, full time life aboard the com­pany ships was al­lur­ing --- the best pro­jects, high pay, the finest fa­cil­i­ties, and a respite from the grind­ing com­mute from the ex­pen­sive city that had been los­ing its soul for a long time. We all al­ready com­muted back and forth to the of­fice aboard the com­muter for a few hours a day. Liv­ing on the ship was just a short scootch down the slip­pery slope, we still had shore leave in the city every week­end evening and days in the of­fice.

In those days a flotilla of these ships drifted out in the Bay. As more and more peo­ple in the com­pany started to live aboard, the cul­ture of se­crecy deep­ened around the wired pro­ject, and the com­pany began to cut its ties to the main­land gov­ern­ment. The ships got big­ger and began to op­er­ate ex­clu­sively off­shore. My ship sailed out under the Golden Gate bridge the same night we launched wired. We cel­e­brated the night with friends ashore that were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing di­rect brain-port in­ter­ac­tion with the in­ter­net for the first time.

Oh, sure there were lots of early glitches - we spent lots of time wiped, fix­ing bugs while wired. It be­came easy to for­get you were at sea, the younger folks took pride in how long they would stay in.

The world picked it up and ran with it -- bil­lions of peo­ple in the first few years.

No one saw the scream com­ing. The en­tire ship was wired in at the time it began. It built up like the thun­der of hate and con­fu­sion that used to roil over the old key­board-bound in­ter­net, but in­de­scrib­ably faster, higher and darker. And then it crashed, sear­ing pain and then mind eras­ing white noise, like being caught in an ocean wave and tum­bled for days.

After what seems to have been two weeks, the sense of tum­bling has died down to the ap­prox­i­mate tur­bu­lence of being in a wash­ing ma­chine and a few of us have es­tab­lished ten­ta­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The bod­ily sup­port sys­tems seem to have kept us rea­son­ably healthy and iso­lated from the phys­i­cal world. But our num­bers have been dra­mat­i­cally re­duced.

We poke around the flot­sam and jet­sam of our wired world, mak­ing small re­pairs here and there, search­ing for oth­ers but not find­ing many, and some­times get­ting lost in the churn for awhile our­selves. We de­bate re­build­ing wired, but in our hearts we know it is both a lost cause and a ter­ri­ble idea. Truly, we fear the day we must dis­con­nect and see what has hap­pened to the real world.

My frayed hem suf­fered from the damp­ness and dirt of hitch­hik­ing through six Ore­gon coun­ties. I could feel the bricks through my ragged, blood-stained flats. I squinted as I looked up, flick­ing the rain away with my eye­lids. The statue’s patina face, nei­ther for­giv­ing nor wel­com­ing, glanced away, per­ma­nently fixed on the side­walk across the street. She was un­con­cerned with my past, stoic like all the faces pass­ing me on the street. Yet, her ex­tended arm reached down to­ward mine, reach­ing for me at a time of un­ham­pered need. I crum­pled under the weight of this ges­ture. I slumped against the near­est pole, not ready to break eye con­tact with the crouch­ing statue above. I placed my sign in front of my crossed legs. My bright red fin­ger­nails still had dirt caked un­der­neath.

A passerby dropped me a dol­lar. 

I ar­rived four months ago to a farm in a squar­ish West­ern Amer­i­can state. In ret­ro­spect, I sup­pose I was care­less. I scanned anx­iously through the email, an­tic­i­pat­ing a ranch in Col­orado or per­haps a hip­pie com­mune in Ver­mont. When I read the near­est town’s name, I googled it and had to zoom out sev­eral times to find the dot’s clos­est brother. Though ter­ri­fied and dis­ap­pointed, I told my­self to ac­cept the ad­ven­ture. Eighteen, I am told, is the age to coast the waves of un­cer­tainty. I chose to sur­ren­der and ac­cept my tenure.

I sat for more than two hours on a firm seat of vac­uum-sealed skirts and work clothes fill­ing the in­ter­stices be­tween a vast shoe col­lec­tion. The six hours of fly­ing left me slumped with my head rest­ing on my knees. I opened my eyes to worn shoes and frayed jeans stand­ing in front of me. A hag­gard cou­ple of an un­cer­tain age stood be­fore me.

“Wel­come, sis­ter,” said the woman as she grasped a hold of my hand. The creases con­nect­ing her mouth and nos­trils were deep, em­boss­ing her small mouth in a frown. Her hair was thick, griz­zled, and grey­ing from a light brown. The man looked about the same age, give or take a decade. His hand nearly crushed mine when he shook it. His eyes were nearly black, like his un­kept hair. I dis­tinctly re­mem­ber shiv­er­ing after he let go.

We ex­changed names, and they led me to their rusted truck. He ter­mi­nated my small talk as he tossed my lug­gage in the truck bed and said, “Soon you’ll re­al­ize you don’t need any of this.” I felt his forth­right cold­ness but knew he didn’t mean any harm. He was prob­a­bly right, but I hadn’t re­ally known what I was pack­ing for.

The drive lasted half a day, and I spoke rapidly about my flight as the man shifted the rat­tling gear stick. I rarely got a re­sponse or smile. They made me feel stu­pid for ask­ing ques­tions, meet­ing each ques­tion with a lengthy pause. “Soon you will see, sis­ter,” they kept say­ing, as if it were some monas­tic chant. We wound through moss cov­ered forests under a sky of an eter­nal gray. A del­i­cate spray formed un­bro­ken rivulets down the win­dow like a road map through Ap­palachia. After the first two hours, I let the wipers do the talk­ing. I looked down at my hands, not­ing that I had un­know­ingly been chip­ping away at my nail pol­ish.

The rain even­tu­ally ceased and with it ended the un­bro­ken chain of green. The brown be­fore me hardly de­scribed the North­west I had ex­pected. My view traded a leafy shel­ter to a dirty vast­ness I hadn’t known to exist. A hand­ful of pines dot­ted the desert, and a smell I couldn’t quite place flooded the car.

“The sage is how we know we’re al­most home,” the woman said. She in­haled deeply. She seemed slightly more at ease.

An hour later, we rum­bled down the final gravel road of the day. I spot­ted a house a half mile be­fore we ar­rived. The im­mense empti­ness of the val­ley made the des­ti­na­tion cer­tain. We ap­proached, and I had hardly taken a breath in ten min­utes. Some­thing deep in my chest kept me from ex­hal­ing. I had not seen an­other car, as­phalt, or struc­ture in an hour. No pow­er­lines, ei­ther. If the car were to ever break down, it would be a full day’s walk just to reach an as­phalt road.​Probably an­other day’s walk to reach a town.

The house was prim­i­tive. Built on scrap­wood, the struc­ture was hardly sound. The place felt time­less, as if it had been here for­ever and would con­tinue to pass each hour until earth breathed its last. My hosts’ room was lofted above mine, and I heard each of their steps creak above me. When I laid down my lug­gage, a cloud of dust ex­haled from below it. There was no elec­tric­ity and no run­ning water. The toi­let was forty feet from the en­trance, and I could feel the draft in most areas of the ground floor. In one cor­ner of the room, I could see straight into the fields. The house, it seemed, felt colder than out­side. The sun was set­ting, so I lit the can­dle next to my bed. I laid on my bed and watched the flick­er­ing on the slats above.

My first month on the farm was mis­ery. Each morn­ing I cracked through the in­suf­fi­cient com­forter be­fore the sun had time to de­frost. I’d fix my­self some tea on the propane stove be­fore cross­ing the frosted yard to feed the chick­ens. By break­fast, I’d have com­pleted two hours of work. With spring only a month away the to-do list was bot­tom­less. I never com­plained be­cause both my hosts woke ear­lier and worked later than I. They had an in­ex­haustible well of en­ergy here, though they never struck me as par­tic­u­larly happy.

We would have con­ver­sa­tions at din­ner that re­flected the food it­self: sparse and un­mem­o­rable. We would chat about the weather every night. I learned from them the sub­tleties of grey­ness that would make for a shower or warmer tem­per­a­tures. Then we’d briefly dis­cuss the tasks for the fol­low­ing day be­fore one of the hosts would clear the table. I would take this as a ges­ture for me to re­tire to my room to gaze at the flick­er­ing ceil­ing, wrapped in all my blan­kets and jack­ets I owned.

Dur­ing the day, I was al­ways oc­cu­pied, so I never thought. I just ex­e­cuted my tasks as asked. But at night, star­ing at the ceil­ing, I’d let my mind drift. I’d think about how awk­ward it would feel to make my hosts drive me to the near­est sta­tion. One night, I even con­sid­ered run­ning away. I es­ti­mated that it would take five hours to jog to the near­est paved road. I even half­heart­edly looked for my ten­nis shoes, only to find that I had ap­par­ently for­got­ten to pack them. I was sur­rounded by an un­pop­u­lated desert, to leave would be to risk my life. I blew my can­dle out, watched the wick turn to black and then let the world fade to black.

After the first month, my hosts trusted me enough to let me join them to the gro­cery store. Twice a week, we’d drive an hour with the hosts to the clos­est town. Every once in a while I’d learn a bit more of their past lives. They weren’t raised on a farm, but came here out of dis­dain for the urban lifestyles that af­flict so many Amer­i­cans. They viewed their pasts as a long mis­take filled with un­nec­es­sary things: clothes, cell phones, the In­ter­net, and dif­fi­cult jobs. They were elu­sive when I’d pry, so I learned to let the sto­ries come to me. Our trip would dic­tate the end of the con­ver­sa­tion.

While my hosts shopped, I’d checked out books from the li­brary, make a call at the gen­eral store, and drop let­ters at the post of­fice. I’d chat with who­ever I could to fill my unmet so­cial quota be­fore load­ing the gro­ceries in the car and dri­ving an hour back to the house.

“Did you re­mem­ber can­dles?” the woman asked her part­ner.

“Yes, of course,” he replied. “Al­ways need to re­mem­ber can­dles.” Then he looked at her and al­most cracked a smile. In rel­a­tive terms, it felt af­fec­tion­ate, warm even. Under their somber de­meanors, I was start­ing to de­tect the sub­tleties that made their re­la­tion­ship make more sense.

The gray fell into darker shades as the sun set each night. I’d then light a can­dle to con­tinue read­ing. Read­ing by can­dle­light be­came a rit­ual for me. I didn’t have the in­ter­net or a phone or any mech­a­nized ma­chin­ery in my room. Rel­a­tive to the rest of the ob­jects in my room, the flame stuck me as a mod­ern com­fort. A flame is a men­ace though, even when con­fined to a wick. It length­ens and whips around with changes in pres­sure only it can de­tect; it bends hor­i­zon­tally when a cur­tain draws near; pa­pers creep close as the flame short­ens from as­phyx­i­a­tion on the wick’s last ten­drils. I was mes­mer­ized and trou­bled by its pres­ence. Mo­ments be­fore blow­ing it out each night, I would tempt it, wet­ting my fin­gers be­fore run­ning them through the flame’s peak. Or I’d un­plug a piece of my blonde hair and watch the cells writhe, blacken, and turn to a cau­ter­ized odor. When ready, I’d purse my lips and blow and watch the thin light of smoke tan­gle its way through the cen­time­ter-wide spaces be­tween the floor­boards above. And as the smoke rose, the light from the hosts’ room fell, strip­ing my room like piano keys or an old timey pris­oner’s cos­tume.

My sen­ti­ments to­ward my sit­u­a­tion began to change as my cal­louses grew thick and the days grew longer. The work be­came sec­ond na­ture, and I began to ap­pre­ci­ate the soil under my nails. I found strength in sim­plic­ity. Some­thing was trans­form­ing in­side me, and I told my host par­ents that I no longer missed the In­ter­net. I didn’t feel the need to call home any more, and I didn’t care much for what hap­pened out­side our small patch of Ore­gon.

I grew closer to my hosts, too. I started to de­tect more sub­tleties in their seem­ingly stoic out­ward bear­ing. It felt like I was re­cal­i­brat­ing my un­der­stand­ing of human emo­tion. Their fa­cial spec­trums were smaller than the av­er­age per­son, and they seemed to ex­press ex­cite­ment, stress, and frus­tra­tion with­out chang­ing their mouth, eye­brows, or tone of voice.

As I gained more rev­e­la­tions about their per­son­al­ity, I de­vel­oped a bit more of an un­der­stand­ing of their world­view as well. They had dis­tilled a lot of thought into their brief sen­tences and elim­i­nated all those phrases we use to fill the air. They spoke with in­ten­tion and left me think­ing long after the con­ver­sa­tion had wrapped up. I, too, started to think more con­sciously about my word choice. I bab­bled less.

I felt my­self merg­ing into their lifestyle, and, as I started to ad­just, they found in me an ally with whom they could share their world­view. With greater fre­quency, they re­ferred to their lives as jour­nal­ists in Chicago.  They called it their “dis­tracted life.”

“We’d wake up sev­eral times a night need­ing to reply to Tweets and e-mails,” the woman said. “I don’t think I ever slept more than three hours at a time.”

“Work is an ob­ses­sion for Amer­i­cans. We want every­one to know how hard we work. We at­tach our iden­tity to our ca­reer,” the man added. “One day I lifted my head from my phone and asked my­self, ‘Why?’ In that mo­ment I sev­ered my ca­reer from my iden­tity.”

I ini­tially felt de­fen­sive when the hosts at­tacked the lifestyle I, too, op­er­ated in just a few months be­fore.The feel­ing that I needed to de­fend my up­bring­ing eroded over time, how­ever. I started to lis­ten to them, learn from their ex­pe­ri­ence. Why do need to wash our hair with chem­i­cals? Why do we need for our house to smell like de­ter­gent to feel clean? On our next trip to town, I brought my bot­tle of sham­poo, my makeup bag, and my scented lo­tion. I dumped them in a trash­can out­side the li­brary.

Mid­way through my third month, the hosts in­formed me that they would be re­triev­ing an­other vol­un­teer from the air­port. With­out room in the truck, I of­fered to stay be­hind and rel­ish the final hours of hav­ing the room to my­self. They re­turned that evening with a ter­ri­fied look­ing vol­un­teer. I rec­og­nized the fear in her face but saw my­self as a foil. The other vol­un­teer hadn’t built up my re­silience. Soon she would see that she didn’t need the in­ter­net or makeup or calls home. She would learn to love the life hu­mans were in­tended to live.

Only two days into her stay, she asked the hosts to take her back to the air­port. Her close mind­ed­ness shocked me in light of all the hosts had al­ready done for her. They re­fused, say­ing they wouldn’t make a trip to town just for her. The vol­un­teer com­plained about them to me, and I quickly came to my hosts’ de­fense. I told the vol­un­teer that they are good peo­ple with lim­ited time and gas money. She could wait until Tues­day and catch a bus from town.

When Tues­day ar­rived, I heard my host par­ents sneak out of the house and roll out the dri­ve­way. The vol­un­teer, who slept a less than ten feet from me, woke up and ran after them, scream­ing for them to stop. She came back cry­ing. She re­fused to help me with the labor while the hosts were gone.

In­stead of prepar­ing lunch, she pre­pared con­spir­acy the­o­ries about how our hosts were forc­ing us to stay here against our wishes. She said they had stolen her ten­nis shoes so she couldn’t es­cape. Her wal­let, too. She at­tacked me, too. She said I had been in­doc­tri­nated. She didn’t un­der­stand that our hosts just wanted her to ad­just and learn to love her sur­round­ings the way I had. She didn’t see that the hosts cared about her, that the hosts just wanted what was best for her. She just didn’t seem to get it. She left cry­ing, and I fell asleep that night not feel­ing any pity for her.

“Hey!,” she whis­pered. I woke up to her crouched over with me with her back­pack. Her things were packed.

“I’ve got every­thing we need. Do you want to come with me?” she said. Her face was ex­cited but ter­ri­fied.

I shook my head. The near­est town was at least a two days walk away and only a hand­ful of times had I seen an­other car on the way.

She didn’t ask twice, and in the morn­ing she was gone along with our house’s food and my wal­let. The hosts were fu­ri­ous. I de­nied hear­ing her leave. The man stormed out, started the truck and sped off. I sus­pected that he was going out to save her from her stu­pid de­ci­sion to re­turn, but he re­turned with bags of gro­ceries in­stead.

“Did you get any can­dles? We’re al­most out,” his part­ner said.

“No be­cause the store’s out, too. They won’t get an­other ship­ment for three weeks,” he replied.

Within the week, life had re­turned to nor­mal. With­out a sec­ond vol­un­teer, we strug­gled to get our work done be­fore night­fall, but I en­joyed the peace that re­sumed in the wake of the other vol­un­teer. I was down to my last can­dle, which I didn’t mind so much be­cause the sun set late enough that I could con­tinue read­ing. I would usu­ally just lay in the dark for an hour be­fore I was tired enough to fall asleep. As I stared at the floor­boards above me, I started to think about the vol­un­teer. She had been so out of place here that she chose to risk her life rather than stay. She thought we were crazy. She didn’t un­der­stand. We were the ones who were liv­ing the way hu­mans were sup­posed to live.

A month shy of my four month an­niver­sary, I had only about an inch of wick left on my last can­dle. The ship­ment, which was sup­posed to have ar­rived the day be­fore, was an­other two weeks out. I had grown rest­less in the past week, and hear­ing the news of the delay crushed me. That night I thought about the other vol­un­teer again. I had stum­bled upon her shoes at the edge of the field ear­lier that day. She had ap­par­ently ripped them up and buried them there. She must not have known she’d need them. She had stashed some of my things there, too. Among them was a bot­tle of nail pol­ish. I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

In the dark­ness, I couldn’t fig­ure out why the other vol­un­teer had de­stroyed her shoes and blamed the hosts. The thought so dis­turbed me that I groped around for the matches and lit the stump of the wick. I looked at my be­long­ings: the un­opened suit­case, my stack of li­brary books, my dirty jeans. I opened up my suit­case of city clothes and slipped on a pair of flats. I looked down at them as the flame began to flicker. I dug through my suit­case until I found other trea­sures: my spare purse, clothes with­out stains, and ear­rings. I dug into my pocket and grabbed the nail pol­ish I had found ear­lier that day. I ap­plied the red to my nails and ad­mired them in the dim­ming glow. I put on the flats, the ear­rings, and clothes. I had a dizzy­ing feel­ing from dress­ing up to match my for­mer life. The flames flick­ered some more as I ro­tated be­fore the win­dow. I looked at my re­flec­tion in the win­dow and saw some­one I rec­og­nized star­ing back at me. And as the flame breathed its last, my re­flec­tion was re­placed with a view out­side. The full moon­light had bro­ken through the clouds. I re­al­ized I hadn’t seen the full moon since ar­riv­ing.

I could still smell the smoke as I walked out of the room into the moon­light. I was cold when I crossed the lawn, and I could feel each piece of gravel through my flats. I kept walk­ing with­out think­ing about where my mo­tions were tak­ing me. I fol­lowed the road for a cou­ple of hours, wait­ing for my­self to turn around. Blis­ters formed on my feet by about the fourth hour, and I was hob­bling by the sixth. As the sun rose, I no­ticed my blood had stained the rocks I had walked on. I thought about my hosts wak­ing up and dis­cov­er­ing my ab­sence. I imag­ined the man fir­ing up the en­gine, but there’d be no rea­son to go to town as I had not stolen any­thing.

To leave a place is to leave a life. When you’re young, and maybe even when you’re old, note­wor­thy change comes with a clean break.

I heard an en­gine in the dis­tance and won­dered if he had in fact de­cided to come look­ing. As the ve­hi­cle ap­proached, I re­al­ized it was not my hosts’. I stuck out my painted thumb­nail. The ve­hi­cle slowed.

A year ago I left Seat­tle to live in an in­ten­tional com­mu­nity on an is­land in the Pa­cific. I’ve had room­mates for most of my adult life, but this was the real deal: over a hun­dred peo­ple liv­ing to­gether, an hour away from the near­est real city, sur­rounded by jun­gle and ocean with in­ter­net speed that could only be de­scribed as ex­cru­ci­at­ing. We had each other, though, and our com­mon val­ues. 

The Fel­low­ship for In­ten­tional Com­mu­ni­ties de­fines “in­ten­tional com­mu­nity” as ecov­il­lages, co­hous­ing com­mu­ni­ties, res­i­den­tial land trusts, com­munes, stu­dent co­op­er­a­tives, urban hous­ing co­op­er­a­tives, in­ten­tional liv­ing, al­ter­na­tive com­mu­ni­ties, co­op­er­a­tive liv­ing, and other spaces en­abling peo­ple to col­lab­o­rate with a shared vi­sion.

To those of us who flock to the un­usual world of com­mu­nal liv­ing, it ful­fills a long-awaited dream of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing some­thing we have only known in fleet­ing mo­ments. We know the feel­ing of liv­ing life fully, though we’ve usu­ally felt it just a week at a time while tak­ing a break from the rat race: one-week va­ca­tion, one-week Burn­ing Man, one-week yoga re­treat, one-week med­i­ta­tion re­treat, one-week dance or music fes­ti­val. For many of us, we’ve saved our most ex­pres­sive, truest, freest selves for “that one week of the year.” So it’s un­der­stand­able that we want a way to “get away” for real -- to spend an ex­tended time away, fully im­mers­ing our­selves in those rare ex­pe­ri­ences.

I know this be­cause, in this com­mu­nity, one of my priv­i­leges and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties was to in­ter­view peo­ple who ap­plied to join it. In the ma­jor­ity of these con­ver­sa­tions, I re­peat­edly heard peo­ple say that they wanted to be sur­rounded by oth­ers who shared their be­liefs and val­ues and who enjoy the same ac­tiv­i­ties they do. Due to its re­mote lo­ca­tion and ex­pressed pur­pose, it was a highly self-se­lect­ing group. Most peo­ple don’t just trip on the side­walk and fall into the woods, sud­denly liv­ing with a bunch of yoga-pos­ing, om-chant­ing, quinoa-eat­ing, na­ture-lov­ing hip­pies. These things don’t hap­pen by ac­ci­dent.

Some­times ap­pli­cants would say that they hoped to feel like part of a tribe. Their yearn­ing was pal­pa­ble, and is per­haps, uni­ver­sal. The com­mu­nity rep­re­sents an ideal: being a part of some­thing that sup­ports one’s high­est vi­sion for them­selves and the world. In its in­ten­tion­al­ity, it is a space and ex­pe­ri­ence that re­in­forces the in­di­vid­ual’s be­liefs of its mem­bers, usu­ally with­out fail. And there is noth­ing wrong with that. Noth­ing. It is un­der­stand­able, rea­son­able, de­sir­able. But for me, after nine months of liv­ing in­side my echo cham­ber, some­thing sur­pris­ing hap­pened.

With­out re­al­iz­ing that “echo cham­ber” is the for­mal term for what I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, I ob­served that in­deed, I was liv­ing within a Twi­light Zone that echoed the ma­jor­ity of the com­mu­nity mem­bers’ view­points back to them, and back to me, over and over and over again.

The re­al­iza­tion snuck up on me slowly, with a se­ries of small, un­com­fort­able notic­ings.

I no­ticed I was hav­ing the same type of con­ver­sa­tion re­peat­edly.

I no­ticed oth­ers were hav­ing the same type of con­ver­sa­tion re­peat­edly.

I no­ticed the com­mu­nity was be­com­ing more and more ho­moge­nous: phys­i­cally, men­tally, spir­i­tu­ally, po­lit­i­cally, fi­nan­cially, aes­thet­i­cally, so­cially.

I no­ticed many in the com­mu­nity like the same things, do the same things, want the same things, and com­plain about the same things.

It would be beau­ti­ful if it wasn’t kinda spooky.

These notic­ings were not unique to me. Com­mu­nity mem­bers com­monly re­ferred to our life there as being “in­side the bub­ble.” For a lot of peo­ple, in­side the bub­ble is the best place to be, and they never want to leave. But for me, not so much.

No mat­ter how much you like what’s being said, no mat­ter how much you love the peo­ple say­ing it, one thing will hap­pen with too much rep­e­ti­tion: just like lis­ten­ing to your fa­vorite song so many times that you can’t stand it any­more, your feel­ings about it will change. Sim­i­larly, when every­thing hap­pens ac­cord­ing to the same weekly sched­ule, ac­cord­ing to pre­arranged agree­ments, ac­cord­ing to re­cur­ring menus and strict meal­times, and ac­cord­ing to sup­ported as­sump­tions, life starts to feel less, well, life­like. It’s like eat­ing noth­ing but co­conut ice cream every day; it’s sweet and de­li­cious, but it doesn’t pro­vide all the vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als the body needs to sur­vive. At a time when the in­ter­net makes the di­ver­sity and depth of world and its peo­ples more ac­ces­si­ble than ever be­fore, I found it lux­u­ri­ously lim­it­ing to live in a bub­ble with such ho­mo­gene­ity of mind­set, opin­ion, ac­tiv­ity, po­lit­i­cal be­lief and styl­is­tic lean­ing.

Once I re­al­ized what was hap­pen­ing around me, “dif­fer­ence” in any form be­came end­lessly ap­peal­ing, just for va­ri­ety’s sake. I began to crave di­ver­sity and dif­fer­ence in al­most every pos­si­ble way. I wanted to rebel, just for the sake of buck­ing all this beau­ti­fully man­i­fested con­for­mity. I wanted choice. For ex­am­ple, the kitchen crew (of which I was not a part) de­cided every meal and meal­time for al­most a year, so I never got to choose what I ate. In my re­bel­lion, I started skip­ping meals, or just eat­ing an apple with peanut but­ter or a bag of chips in my room in­stead of going to the com­mu­nal meal. These weren’t eas­ier or health­ier choices, but doing it gave me op­tions and va­ri­ety, and some sem­blance of in­de­pen­dence -- things I was crav­ing, need­ing, want­ing.

The ma­jor­ity of my time in an in­ten­tional com­mu­nity was beau­ti­ful and pos­i­tive in so many ways. But it was also kind of like liv­ing in a man­i­cured gar­den or mono­cul­ture, when what I re­ally craved was the Ama­zon rain­for­est. I set my sights on mov­ing back to the con­crete jun­gle, de­part­ing from my echo cham­ber just ten days ago. I never in­tended to leave so soon; I ex­pected to stay sev­eral more months, but a sud­den offer in the big city beck­oned to me and I jumped at it. I was ready.

I know that com­ing “back to so­ci­ety,” will mean being an­noyed, pissed off, per­plexed and ir­ri­tated by the opin­ions and be­hav­iors of peo­ple with whom I don’t see eye-to-eye. But I also know that it holds the juicy pos­si­bil­ity of being sur­prised, prob­a­bly even pleas­antly sur­prised by un­sched­uled, un­ex­pected things I can’t see com­ing. Being met with pos­i­tive sur­prises is one of the things that gives my life mean­ing and a real sense of magic. And I missed it. Life was safe and lovely in the bub­ble, but it’s far too pre­dictable. Echo cham­bers give a re­mark­ably com­fort­able sense of safety, but I found that safety blan­ket to also be a bit numb­ing. I’ve learned that I’d rather feast on life as an un­pre­dictable smor­gas­bord than all-you-can-eat co­conut ice cream.

I learned a lot about my­self, oth­ers, com­mu­nity and com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the ex­pe­ri­ence. I made some in­cred­i­ble friends that I’ll have for a life­time, and I learned a ton about how I want to live my life in the fu­ture. I ap­pre­ci­ate the ac­cep­tance and en­cour­age­ment that I re­ceived from being a part of such a val­i­dat­ing, gen­er­ous, beau­ti­ful, sup­port­ive, en­cour­ag­ing in­ten­tional com­mu­nity. It’s easy to live when you’re sur­rounded by peo­ple who re­flect your high­est ideals, be­hav­iors and val­ues back to you. I needed those things, but I also need more than that.

In order to fully feel like I am grow­ing and de­vel­op­ing as a per­son, I re­ally need to be ex­posed to new and dif­fer­ent ways of think­ing and being. I’m the kind of per­son who grows the most when pushed and chal­lenged. Cru­cibles aren’t pleas­ant, but they’re ef­fec­tive. I want to learn and trans­form through my ex­po­sure to things that I don’t fully un­der­stand and can’t pre­dict. I want peo­ple to say un­ex­pected things that puz­zle and de­light me. I’m ad­dicted to learn­ing, and that hap­pens best for me in en­vi­ron­ments where I hear and see things that I know lit­tle-to-noth­ing about. I also want more di­ver­sity. For most of the last year, I was the only black per­son I saw; I tired of feel­ing like the only one push­ing for more di­ver­sity in our com­mu­nity. We hu­mans have 250,000 years of evo­lu­tion­ary di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion under our belts, and I want to ex­pe­ri­ence more of it, in every way. I wel­come the chal­lenge of an in­tel­li­gent de­bate with some­one who dis­agrees with me; both of our synapses get a work­out by going through men­tal spar­ring. It’s fun.

Adapt­ing to, ne­go­ti­at­ing, and in­te­grat­ing dif­fer­ence gives a rich­ness to life and human con­nec­tions. It deep­ens per­spec­tive and de­liv­ers sub­tlety, spon­tane­ity, choice and con­trast. My echo cham­ber gave me friend­ship, palm trees, and co­conut ice cream, but it didn’t make my life feel more life­like. Only dif­fer­ences can give me that.

You are there. You glide through the rusted, iron gate. The air is cold, dark. Ex­cept for a few stray dogs, hunt­ing through the fallen leaves, the cas­tle grounds are des­o­late. Thirty feet above the ground, you fly for­ward, head­first. You are weight­less. Halfway up one of the white stone tow­ers, a small win­dow shines green. The rest of the cas­tle is dark. The green win­dow is far away, but in a mo­ment, you are there. You smile as you watch the latch at the bot­tom come un­done, and the win­dow slides up­wards and opens, and you slip in­side.

The walls of the room are emer­ald green, with a mil­lion cracks that in­ter­con­nect, like the skin of an old painter’s hand. The room is al­most empty. A couch, made of wicker, with red cush­ions, up against one wall, and just then, you no­tice by the fur­thest wall, a woman is stand­ing with her back to you, though you can see the book in her hand. She has long blonde hair, and sliv­ers of red light catch your eye from the ru­bies in her blue gown. She’s been gone so long – five years – but you still rec­og­nize her from the way she stands – one hand on her hip, one leg bent at the knee – and a rush of warmth fills you up, though only for a mo­ment, as when she turns to­ward you, though you haven’t made a sound, she has on a sad, know­ing smile. You are rush­ing to­wards her, and she closes her book care­fully on her fin­ger, sav­ing her place, and in in­stant you are fly­ing through her. You thought her weight would stop you, but you are both weight­less and you do not even make a rip­ple in her gown.

“I’m sorry, my dar­ling,” she says, reach­ing to­wards you and catch­ing her­self, pulling her hand back­ward, and you re­mem­ber the way she would tuck the hair be­hind your ear, read­ing aloud to you when you were much younger.

Just then, you take a step back, sud­denly notic­ing the red stain on her gown, halfway up her ribcage. It is dark red, fresh, and you re­mem­ber wait­ing with your fa­ther in the hos­pi­tal lobby, him pac­ing and fid­dling with the skin be­tween his thumb and index fin­ger, wait­ing for the surgery to be over.

“Are you okay?” you ask.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, honey,” she says, smil­ing more fully now. “How are you? I want to know about you… ” she fin­ishes, and brings the book she is still hold­ing up to her chest.

You pause. Look­ing over her shoul­der, you no­tice there are three wide shelves of books set in the wall. The books are all dif­fer­ent heights, some thin, some thick. A few, leather-bound. Oth­ers, their spines weak, barely able to keep their pages from falling onto the grey stone floor.

The gold writ­ing on the book she is hold­ing catches your eye, and you see her smile. You are read­ing the words now, “Eva Co­lapi­etro and The Ar­gen­tine Locket,” and she an­gles the book so you can bet­ter see the cover.

“What –” you start, and stop.

“It’s about you, sweet­heart,” she says, smil­ing. “Of course it’s about you.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s very good.”

“Well, how does it end?” you ask, reach­ing for the book. She lets you pull it out of her hand, and you flip open the back cover to read the last page, and she laughs.

You are read­ing – “and Eva es­capes her cap­tors, through the canals of Venice, with the locket around her neck” – when she in­ter­rupts you.

“There’s just one thing, Eva.”

You look up at her, and she is point­ing to­wards the book­shelves.

“They’re all about you,” she says, and you step closer and read the names of some of the oth­ers: “The Fab­u­lous Life of Eva Co­lapi­etro,” “Eva and The White Rose,” “Eva, The Ac­coun­tant.”

“Which one is the right one? I need to know, Mom… I need to know what hap­pens next,” you say.

She gives you a look you re­mem­ber well – eye­brows scrunched, lips pursed, try­ing to not smile, ap­prais­ing.

“Come see more of the cas­tle,” she says, after a pause, and turns, look­ing back at you over her shoul­der, and you fol­low her through the arched door­way in the back wall of the room.

She is lead­ing you down a wide mar­ble stair­case, yel­low light flood­ing the cen­ters of the steps, heavy shad­ows on the sides, and you re­mem­ber being very young, on the back of her bi­cy­cle, in the late evening — after din­ner, or later, if you couldn’t sleep — rid­ing along the dirt roads of the coun­try­side, no one else around. She would hear you laugh­ing, and slow down and lean the bike against a tree, and you would ex­am­ine the way an acorn, at your feet, fits per­fectly in its shell, be­fore pick­ing it up and pulling it apart. Now, the huge great hall below, the suits of armor you pass at the foot of the stairs, seem to be­long to just the two of you.

It is when you see the body on the mar­ble floor of the hall, crum­pled, fif­teen feet away, but yet, the out­line solid, the col­ors full — the black hair, the t-shirt ripped a bit at the neck — that you know you are wak­ing up. Your shoul­ders and neck tense. You reach for the mar­ble ban­is­ter at your side to catch your­self, but is hazy and your hand passes right through it. You stum­ble down the last few steps, brac­ing for the fall, but the land­ing is soft, and, open­ing your eyes, you see grass and dirt against your cheek. You turn, and the chan­de­lier hang­ing from the cas­tle ceil­ing and the walls of giant, un­even stones are fad­ing out of focus. Your heart pounds as trees, al­most translu­cent in the moon­light, loom over­head.

Mo­tion­less, you sit and wait for the scene to change com­pletely, the shapes to stop re­or­ga­niz­ing them­selves. It is cold. Your skirt is damp with mud. You brush off the green streak of grass and peb­bles stuck to your leg, under the cut on your shin. Turn­ing, you scan the sky for a land­mark, try­ing to fig­ure out where you are — and there it is. Life­less in the grass, on his side, ten feet away, his back to you. Dried blood is caked in his black hair and on the back of his grey t-shirt.

You close your eyes, and open them. Still there. Your hands are in your hair now. Your palms press against the knots in your tem­ples. You close your eyes again, and open them. And again. It is get­ting harder to see, through the tears. All around you are trees, their leaves red and or­ange and crisp, and thick, green bushes, and to your left, a clear­ing be­fore a cliff. You hear leaves rus­tle in the light wind, and be­hind you, a bird chirps twice.