We’re missing the deeper issue. The biggest problem we face isn’t political or economic—it’s loneliness. In traditional societies, people were held by family, community, marriage, and religion—structures that left little room for isolation. In the modern West, those bonds have frayed. The old protections are gone, and loneliness has reached epidemic levels.
At its core, loneliness comes from disconnection—from ourselves and from the living energy of the world around us. That’s why we’re so addicted to noise, screens, shopping, distraction. We’re trying to fill a void we don’t understand.
Robert A. Johnson said the worst hell isn’t fire—it’s ice. It’s the frozen, lifeless state of being cut off from meaning and from others.
“Hell is the frozen place of unrelatedness, disconnectedness. Hell ice is worse than hellfire.“
Johnson describes three kinds of loneliness: for the past, for what has not yet come, and the deep loneliness of being near to something sacred. That last one—paradoxically—is the cure.