Letter 3: Longing to Belong

“The hunger to belong is at the heart of our nature. Cut off from others, we atrophy and turn in on ourselves.”— John O'Donohue

---

Dear Future Human,

Spring has arrived. It always brought with it the gentle promise of hope. Not through grand gestures, but in subtle, persistent ways. The fragile greens of new leaves, after months steeped in cold and stillness. The soft return of birdsong after months of silence that soon blossomed into full-throated celebration. And the hint of warmth in the air that beckoned us to come out and celebrate rebirth.

The seasons had already begun to shift in my time. I wonder what they are like in yours—hopefully something gentle, or at least bearable.

So much of our lives are dictated by time—when we wake, when we sleep, when we eat, work, take vacations, celebrate birthdays, and mark the milestones of birth and death. Time often becomes our master, pulling us along so relentlessly that we forget the simple truth: life occurs only in this now.

Life is not something waiting in the distance; it unfolds moment by moment. A lifetime is nothing more than a series of individual nows—days accumulating into weeks, years, and decades. In this way, your lifetime is no different from those who came before you—your parents, your great-great-grandparents over a century ago. Each generation lived their “now” with the belief that their reality was ultimate, just as we do today. And yet, they are gone. Soon enough, we will be gone too.

I can’t hope to understand what your life looks like in the future. But I wonder: Are you living in the now? Is it your life? Or are invisible fears, resentments, and thought patterns, of which you have no awareness, running your life?

Do you also need to control this precious gift of time—a single slice of present—that you were given? Do you still believe you have the ability to control it? Are you even aware that the need to control it—and even worse, control the future—in fact controls you?

Through my experience working with people from all walks of life, I have come to recognize a recurring theme that runs through almost all of them: the need for control. This need shows up both in the relentless pursuit of control and the deep-rooted fear of its absence. “A belief in one’s ability to exert control over the environment… is essential for an individual’s well-being.”¹ However, this drive often becomes a compulsion, constraining their openness to constructive criticism, learning and acceptance. I’ve observed it in children, adolescents, adults, and even the elderly—some holding tightly to the illusion of control until their very last breath.

In today's world, the need for control is no longer just about mastering our physical environment for survival—though in many regions, it remains crucial. In the Western world, however, this drive has shifted toward mastering our social environments, as well as, the economic, political, and natural systems that influence our lives. For those fortunate enough to have grown up with their basic needs for food and safety met, a different set of fundamental concerns emerged—the need for love and belonging.

You may be familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which suggests that as one level of need is fulfilled, we move upward to the next.² While there are well-founded critiques of this model—especially given that it was largely shaped by Western, individualistic perspectives—I am drawing upon it here more as a general framework to illustrate the progression of individual and social development.

After World War II, much of the Western world transitioned beyond the immediate struggle for food and safety, as those needs were largely secured.³ With this shift, a new focus emerged: the pursuit of love and belonging, ushered in by the Baby Boomer generation. Since then, we have been collectively striving to fulfill this deeper emotional and social need.

The young generation of the 1960s was captivated by the possibility of love, care, and a sense of belonging. Adolescents, whose basic needs were now effortlessly met by their society, found the freedom to question or even reject the structures and values that had provided order and stability to their parents’ generation. In this climate, they rebelled against what they saw as rigid systems of conformity and injustice. They expressed their newfound values through songs of love, art, rock and roll, civil rights activism, women’s rights movements, anti-war protests, and the pursuit of altered states through drugs. They envisioned a society built on love, freedom, care, tolerance, and the acceptance of diversity.⁴

However, this movement for love and belonging lacked a strong foundation. It was a temporary high, fueled by drugs and the various civil rights and social victories. Though the desire for deep connection had been awakened, the generation that carried it forward eventually had to face the realities of adulthood. Entering the workforce and confronting everyday survival, they shifted their focus back to meeting more immediate, material needs. The path to true love and belonging had been opened, but without a supportive environment to nurture it—and within a society still steeped in the values of previous eras—this deeper need was easily hijacked. Materialism, fame, and drug abuse, ultimately fueled the void, giving rise to the decadence of the 1980s and the self-centeredness of the 1990s. We could not know that true fulfillment of the need for love and belonging can only come through self-awareness, unconditional love, and acceptance—both of ourselves and one another.⁵ It requires the ability to see and embrace ourselves as we are, a process that is neither simple nor easy. It demands strong intentions and sustained effort. While books, music, workshops, and various self-help modalities have sought to guide us back to the ideals of oneness, love, and belonging, we have yet to invest in designing and building a methodical, structured approach to achieving this goal on a societal level—something we did successfully for the first two levels of human need: survival and safety/security.

Today, we find ourselves caught in an endless cycle of questioning: “Do you love me?” “Do you see me?” “Am I enough?” “Do I love myself?” This quiet desperation plays out everywhere, reflected in our obsession with social media likes, views, and followers, in our positions in social and professional hierarchies, and the validation we seek through external measures of success. Yet, beneath all these surface-level validations lie deeper, more vulnerable questions: “Am I worthy of love? Do I belong?” In the end, much of our striving is simply an attempt to alleviate that ache.⁶

The modern world, however, mostly offers superficial solutions to these deeper needs—ones that ultimately leave us feeling unfulfilled. Materialism, fame, and status cannot fill this empty void. Money cannot buy love, and so we find ourselves in an endless pursuit of always needing more—more validation, more recognition, more distractions. The same cycle manifests in addictions to drugs, food, sex, or power, all of which serve as ways to numb the excruciating disconnection and inner void we collectively experience.

At present, we live in a runaway economy that attempts to fulfill our deeply felt, yet largely unconscious, third-level needs by providing more and more of the resources that once fulfilled our lower level needs. The pursuit of material wealth—bigger houses, better cars, newer gadgets, temporary hedonistic pleasures, and the pursuit of status—dominates our society, yet it is never enough. In the process, we consume vast resources, create tremendous waste, and continue to widen the gap between what we seek and what truly fulfills us.⁷

It has taken thousands of years for human societies, at least in principle, to commit to meet the human needs of survival and safety. Most of our leaders now, at least publicly, condemn policies and actions that threaten these basic needs. And yet, for all our progress, we remain only at the very beginning of our human journey. Meeting basic needs is essential, but it is far from sufficient. If we are ever to fulfill the most fundamental needs for all humans, we must turn our attention to our higher-level needs—our innate longing for love, belonging, and true connection.⁸ These higher needs are not luxuries, nor can we wait for some distant moment when our neurology or social structures are finally ready. The time to engage them is now. Love, belonging, and connection must become the foundation of the next chapter of our human story.

We must make this need visible to ourselves and to each other, lifting it out of the private realm of individual longing and recognizing it as a vital necessity for our collective well-being. Only then can we begin to see clearly how the neurological and psychological barriers—born from early adaptive strategies—stand in the way of experiencing the connections we so desperately seek.

These invisible obstacles prevent us from feeling deeply rooted in ourselves, from recognizing our innate interdependence with one another, and from belonging to something greater than our individual lives—the living, breathing evolutionary creative force that pulses through all of existence.

If we are to heal the pervasive sense of isolation that haunts modern life, we must first see how profoundly we are wired to connect—not only with each other, but with the greater intelligence that shapes and sustains all life.⁹ Our task now is to awaken to this truth and to consciously cultivate the environments—inner and outer—where it can finally take root.

Dear Future Human, I only hope the following letters will succeed in making the invisible more visible and offer you a map, with tangible tools and insights to guide you through the mysterious and wondrous maze of life.

With humility and prayer for a better future,

Ronit

1. Lauren A Leotti, Sheena S Iyengar, and Kevin N Ochsner, Born to Choose: The Origins and Value of the Need for Control, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, October 2010.

2. Elizabeth Hopper, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Explained, May 2024.

3. Endless Wars, Post-World War II Economy Booms with Soldiers Return to U.S., December 2015.

4. Carnegie Hall, The 60s: The Years that Changed America, January 2017.

5. Branden Collinsworth, How to Love Yourself in a World That Says You’re Not Enough, TEDx, January 2023.

6. NeuroLaunch, Seeking Validation Psychology: Understanding the Need for External Approval, September 2024.

7. Tim Kasser, The High Price of Materialism, The Center for a New American Dream, December 2011.

8. Shane Parrish, Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, Farnam Street, retrieved May 2025.

9. Alan Watts, We are Nature, DogsGoWoof Productions, September 2019.