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

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Dear Future Human,

Spring has arrived. It always carries with it the gentle promise of hope. Not through grand gestures, but in subtle, persistent ways. The fragile greens of new leaves. A single flower, bright and tender, breaking through the greys of winter. The soft return of birdsong after months of silence that soon blossomed into joyful celebration. And in the hint of warmth in the air that beckoned us to come out and celebrate rebirth.

In my time, the seasons had started changing—becoming more unpredictable, extreme. I wonder what they are like in yours. I hope they’ve become gentler, or at least easier to live with.

So much of our lives are dictated by time—when we wake, when we sleep, when we eat, work, celebrate birthdays, and mark the milestones of birth and death. Time often becomes our master, carrying us forward so relentlessly that we forget the simple truth: life is not something that occurs in the future; it unfolds only in this 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. Each generation lives its “now” believing it to be permanent. 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 truly living in the present moment? Or are you, like many of us, living out a script—one shaped by societal values and expectations that are not your own? Are you aware of the ways your life may be governed by unconscious fears, resentments, and habitual patterns?

Do you also feel the need to control this precious gift of time—a brief slice of the present—that you were given? Do you still believe you have the ability to control it? Do you notice that your need to control time is ultimately controlling you?

In forty years of clinical work, I have seen this pattern in young children and elders alike. Their need for control is driven by a fear of being left out, rejected, or alone. Long before we learned to speak, our nervous systems learned which behaviors kept us connected, and which caused us to lose our bond.¹

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 much of the Western world, this drive has shifted toward mastering our social environments, the economic, political, and natural systems that shape our lives. For those fortunate enough to have grown up with their basic needs met, another need emerged: love and belonging.

This need has only recently begun to be understood as essential. In fact, for a child, attachment is survival; disconnection is experienced in the body as danger long before language emerges.

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 an imperfect model, shaped largely by Western, individualistic assumptions, it provides a useful framework to understand what happened next.

After World War II, much of the Western world secured basic survival needs.³ The younger generation of the 1960s was captivated by the ideals of love, freedom, and a sense of belonging. Adolescents, whose basic needs were effortlessly met, found freedom to question or reject the structures and values that had provided for their parents’ generation. They challenged unjust systems, expressing their values through rock and roll, social activism and altered states. They longed to build a society based on love, freedom, care, tolerance, and diversity.⁴

But, this movement was built on shaky ground. While people pursued the ideal vision of how society could be—and tasted deep connection and achieved some victories—they eventually had to face the realities of adulthood. They entered the workforce and took on adult responsibilities.

The path to true love and belonging had been opened, but without a supportive environment to sustain it, and within a society still steeped in the values of previous eras, this deeper need was hijacked. Because authentic connections were not stable, the psyche looked for other means to feel safe and worthy. Material success, fame, and substances filled the void, giving rise to the decadence of the 1980s and the self-centeredness of the 1990s.

They could not yet know that true fulfillment requires far more than ideals or aspiration. It demands self-awareness, unconditional love, and acceptance—both of ourselves and one another.⁵ This asks us to see and embrace ourselves as we are, which is neither simple nor easy. It demands clear intention and sustained effort.

What they didn’t yet understand was that our own neurobiology posed the barrier. Our brains evolved to survive immediate threat, not to support the deep self-reflection, emotional regulation, and perspective-taking required for connection. Consequently, the teachings—books, music, workshops, and various self-help programs—that emerged to guide us toward oneness, love, and belonging, could not succeed.

While we have built structured systems to support survival and safety needs, we have not developed a collective approach to address humanity’s neurobiological limits. Without this, the depth of consciousness needed for love and belonging cannot be reached.

Watch the obsession with social media likes, views, and followers; the pursuit of fame; the validation through external measures of success. Underneath all of these external drives lie deeper, more vulnerable needs: “Am I worthy of love? Do I belong?” Ultimately, much of our striving is an attempt to quiet that ache.⁶

The modern world only offers superficial solutions to these deeper needs, but none truly satisfy. Materialism, fame, and status cannot fill this 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 cycle manifests in addictions to drugs, food, sex, or power, all of which serve as attempts to numb the disconnection we experience.

We live in a runaway economy that attempts to fulfill our third-level needs by providing the resources that once fulfilled our first-level needs. The pursuit of material wealth—bigger houses, better cars, newer gadgets—dominates our society, yet it is never enough. The result is endless consumption without lasting fulfillment.⁷

To fulfill the fundamental needs for all humans, we must turn our attention to our higher-level needs—our longing for love, belonging, and true connection.⁸ These needs are essential, and we cannot wait for some distant evolutionary moment when our neurobiology or social structures are finally ready. Love, belonging, and connection must become the foundation of the next chapter of our human story.

We need to make the need for belonging visible, revealing it as a shared human need. Only then can we begin to appreciate how our early adaptive strategies are blocking the very connections we seek.

These invisible obstacles prevent us from experiencing our rooted selves and our innate interdependence. They cloud our perception and deprive us of knowing that we are part of something greater than our individual lives—the living, breathing evolutionary creative force that pulses through all of existence.

We are wired to connect—not only with each other, but with the greater intelligence that shapes all life.⁹ The task is to cultivate the environments, inner and outer, where this truth can take root.

Dear Future Human, I 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, Thought Co, May 2024.

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

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

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

6. NeuroLaunch Editorial Team, Seeking Validation Psychology: Understanding the Need for External Approval, NeuroLaunch, 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.

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