I'm a big fan of Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco's book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, where they visit what they call The Sacrifice Zones of America and report on the current state of our environmental calamity.

What is the emotion of an empty inbox? An unliked Post? An ignored dating app message? I think there's a great loneliness that much of our society is running from, and we search for relief in our phones and computers, our online communities, our social networks of friends.

In Nepal, I realized a certain part of my spiritual search had come to an end. I wasn't ever going to live in a Himalayan cave (I like electricity and a soft bed way too much), and I sure wasn't going to find enlightenment so easily.

You find this watered-down enlightenment sold in mass quantity at yoga studios, high-priced shamanism retreats, DJ-fueled Ecstatic Dance parties, ayahuasca ceremonies, and self-empowerment seminars. There's a hope for a quick fix - if only we have the money and right drugs for it.

Parents are already telling their kids about falling in love online - there's nothing "frightening" or "dystopian" about this. So, the critique doesn't work, because we already consider our dystopic state of affairs normal.

One of my central approaches to writing speculative fiction is to take an absurd situation, which we presently feel is normal, and then push it to an even further absurdity. It's only in this light that we can see the reflection of the disturbing state of our present-day affairs.

The problems we have with our current technology often reveal our own human foibles, and it's these new emotions of cyberspace which reveal our struggles.