The issue is not whether a world infused by or even composed of
technology is any more or less real than one in which nature
dominates. What matters is not the habitat, but the life, and life is
a far greater thing than habitat, though it is always subject to it.
Where does the life exist? Not in the fortuitous arrangement of atoms,
or the dynamics of their interactions, or even in the organism itself.
No, the life exists because the organism responds to its environment;
it exists in the exchange between the organism and its environment; it
consists wholly of relationship.

One of the aspects in which human life seems to distinguish itself
from the rest of nature is that its deepest currents require a choice
to live in them. You can go through this world well-fed, successful,
acceptable to the hive, without once risking your hide and feeling the
wild grace of surrender. As the old man with the microphone says in
Richard Linklater's Slacker, "The necessary beauty in life is in
giving yourself to it completely. Only later will it clarify itself
and become coherent."

The question for me, by which I mean the thing I've got to find the
answer for, is how (and if) technology can contribute to my presence
in the world, to being open and responsive. Bikes are definitely in.
But the stuff that lets you be in ten places at once ain't doing
anything good for me.