Spending last week in Hawaii I thought a lot about shared culture. Commonalities and expressions of a particular space, time and people that bind (or unbind) us together. Places and ways that we are. Where we are. And that in the "we" and "where" there's an understanding of each other. Maybe that's what's so fascinatingly appealing about places like New York or Paris or the little fishing village, maybe it's the unspoken understanding. An understanding of the who rather than simply the where. Life sharing places that seem to express art rather than simply hold it.

Increasingly our culture is defined by media rather than community. Locales defined as tracts and models and buildings rather than people and expressions. Sprawling communities of consumerism. Residential shopping malls.

Sometimes we need to ask where we are and what weʻre known for. Maybe to surround ourselves with something different. And sometimes we just need to go out and create that different for ourselves. And for someone else.