"We are species built on tribe; yet we live increasingly alone in societies so vast and populous our ancestors would not recognize them; we are a species built on religious ritual to appease our existential angst, and yet we now live in a world where every individual has to create her own meaning from scratch."... (read more)
Our society is having a crisis of depression and anxiety not because of chemical imbalances in our brains, but because of spiritual imbalances in our lives. We have all become disconnected - from meaning and purpose, from useful work and meaningful values, but mainly, overwhelmingly, from one another.... (read more)
Why does loneliness cause depression and anxiety? Human beings evolved in Africa, where we lived in small hunter-gatherer tribes. You and I exist for one reason - because they figured out how to cooperate. They only made sense as a group. And every human instinct is honed not for life on your own, but for life like this, in a tribe.... (read more)
"A person living in a modern city or a suburb can, for the first time in history, go through an entire day - or an entire life - mostly encountering complete strangers."... (read more)