A pharmacist in a small coastal town in Maine knew her community the way only someone embedded in it could. She knew who could afford their prescriptions and who could not. She discounted for some. Sold at cost for others. Her identity was measured through hard work and relationship, not possessions.

In The Truman Show, Jim Carrey's character lived inside a world where nothing was real. Every person in his life was performing a role. He was the only one who did not know. I have been thinking about how much of the world we now inhabit can feel like that.

A few years ago, I came across something I had written even earlier, on citizen participation, where I had mentioned artificial intelligence. I hadn't remembered writing it. It shocked me a little to find it.