Benedikt and Cline point to those experiences where we are pulled out of mazy wanderings and into confrontation with the sensuous and thick materiality of things, the earth, with our busy values and patterns of life, and with the once-only-here-now of our own mortality.

But these experiences do not sum up reality; they offer striking access to the very happening of a reality that has other dimensions within a complex and mediated process. Encountering the once and here now happening of this tree or building or tea cup is not the same as encountering the full mediations and interweavings of the ecology, the economy, or our social connections. The tensions and complexities of our life are part of what is in the moment. They are not to be put aside but held lightly within a spaciousness that exceeds them. We have to find a way to allow spacious awareness and non-attachment to pervade a life with media and virtual reality.

Index
General outline

(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001