the grass is for rent but you cannot afford it. 

Has every era of American culture always felt like the “craziest one”? Are we caught in the cycle of news and movement of narrative or are we really in bad times? As many modern Philosophers have stated, we are caught in a spectacle in time, where our market economy proliferates an ever more sellable and stimulating news cycle. Akin to gaining a tolerance to a drug and moving on to other more powerful drugs.

The same is true for our other entertainment needs like TV, video games, and TikTok. More stimulation means more eyes, more clicks, more sales. These hyper fixations remove us further from what is actually around us.

You may have seen or heard the term “touch grass” used in common vernacular which expresses this sentiment subconsciously. Where do we touch this grass? A public park perhaps? 

In the past the grass was church, the grass was your local YMCA, the grass was workplaces. 

Where can we gather to engage each other and build community? 

What is communal now? The grass is unavailable, the grass is for rent but you cannot afford it. 

The communal space and the drive to gather is something that is not only lacking but causing huge societal problems. We are social creatures, and left to ourselves we perish. Build community or die.

Jared Gottschall

engineer of the future, building communities of tommorow