The new ecology of modernity If money has become the medium of exchange for material goods, self-image has become the medium of exchange in modern social interactions. Lacking the intimate connection of small-scale ancestral societies, interactions today are mediated through an image of the person.  The ecology of modernity involves anonymous interactions at scale, within administratively complex bureaucracies. It shapes our environment — particularly our psychological environment — in a way that’s just as real as concrete structures and the natural world. We need to constantly reflect on and project ourselves into various situations across this landscape — whether at a place of work, buying something in a store, socialising at a bar, or performing civic duties at the voting booth. Much of the time, we are interacting with strangers, and even when not, we must still pay attention to how others — colleagues, friends and acquaintances — will perceive us. Just as one evaluates what something is worth by its price, the modern human now wonders what they (and others) are worth according to a projected image of self. In both cases, the medium is not the real thing, yet it absorbs our attention. Over time our very sense of self begins to form around this constantly projected, abstract image. Self-image no longer confines itself to simply being a medium of social exchange. It takes hold of the individual’s entire reality — becoming unconsciously internalised over time. Self-image and "I" become inseparable.

The Concept of Work Only with the counterpoint of an entirely different culture can we see just how peculiar OUR relationship to "work" is. The Inuktitut language has no concept of "work" that translates to anything we find in modernity. From my chat with the anthropologist Hugh Brody who lived with the Inuit in the 1970s and 80s