The disenchanted investigation of empirical and psychological phenomena, the canny co-creation of an evolving world, the death of (our conceptions about) God - all of these are stations, or rather nodes, of the path. The network path only blossoms when we accept that we will not transcend the sometimes agonizing disjunctions between our various structures of belief and practice. We will not simply sew up the conflicts between faith and skepticism, the stones and the stories, the incandescence of the absolute and the mundane absurdity of an everyday life growing more bizarre and frightful by the minute. Instead, these tensions and conflicts become dynamic and creative forces, calling us to face others with an openness that does not seek to control or assimilate them to whatever point of view we happen to hold. By replacing the need for a common ground with an acceptance and even celebration of our common groundlessness, the network path might creatively integrate these gaps and lacunae without always trying to fill them in. You can no more banish the noise on this network than you can banish the void from a cup - nor would you want to. You just attend to the chaos that comes until something unexpected blossoms: a dilation in the mind, a dawning in the heart, and a shared breathing with beings so deep it reaches down to sinew.
Erik Davis, Techgnosis
