“Not at all,” Thomas said, leaning into this challenge with such relish that he actually shoved the table an inch in my direction, rattling our water glasses. “But with all due respect, Charlotte, I think you may be the exception, here. Most of us are desperate for raw experience. We work in offices, dealing with intangibles; we go to lunch and talk to other people surrounded by intangibles. No one actually makes anything anymore, and our so-called experiences are about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro on our two-week vacations or snapping a picture of the Dalai Lama in Central Park. But we’re so powerfully aware of all the stuff we’re missing! It creates this frustration, this craving to get out of ourselves. TV tries to satisfy that, books, movies—they try, but they’re all so lame—so mediated! They’re just not real enough.