Every wave of technological advancement has fundamentally altered our understanding of human life, the world, and our place within it.

Our current age is no exception. The past century has shown us that the same technologies that have fulfilled much of our material needs have also eroded the richness of the human experience. 

Despite our extraordinary scientific and technological progress, we continue to grapple with the same fundamental questions: How do we live well? How do we belong to one another and to the world? 

Historically, communities have played a central role in supporting individuals in their search for answers. But as technologies have enabled individuals to become more self-reliant, we’ve witnessed a fragmentation of communities that has led to a sense of collective disorientation and societal malaise.

At the heart of our inquiry is how community shapes the way people answer life’s deepest questions. While the paths to meaning are diverse, we believe there are common threads that define the spaces and communities most effective at fostering connection, meaning-making, and collective flourishing.

Inspired by the Latin concept of numina — the divine presence embedded within particular people, places, and principles — we are forming Numina, an applied research collective that studies remarkable communities to learn how to live well, together.

Our approach is rooted in collective inquiry and practice, guided by three aims:

1. Studying flourishing, time-tested communities: Immersing ourselves in communities that exemplify a particular perspective on the good life, learning from their rituals, principles, and practices for collective flourishing.

2. Crafting our own exploratory container in San Francisco: Organizing a local community informed by our research, where people can gather in service and fellowship, rooted in shared commitment to our locality.

3. Sharing our learnings: Translating our experiences into principles and tools that can transform cities from centers of consumption into places of nurturing relationships and deeper moral responsibility.

This work is not merely theoretical. As the poet Rilke urged, we aim to “live the questions.” We believe answers emerge not through detached analysis, but through sustained acts of care, devotion, and engagement with the complexities of life.

Ultimately, we seek to understand how we can arrive at a place of right relationship — with ourselves, each other, the natural world, and the technologies we create — and to undertake the ultimate endeavor of living up to it.

We invite you to join us in this adventure.