How do we distinguish our ordinary suffering from the unacceptable, and what do families and cultures and states do about it? Philosophical and ancient wisdom traditions are ready with insight, but schools don’t teach these domains. So we stretch the logic of accommodations far beyond what it can hold. We speak in the thinnest therapeutic language for all our troubles. We resign ourselves to the ever-receding goalposts that hold something like “belonging,” because we can’t imagine shoring up forms of life outside the machines-and-markets shape of the modern world.
It would be possible — and highly desirable — to build a large intellectual/practical project around this single insight. A project involving scholars, writers, artists, medical practitioners, and maybe especially therapists (who need the insights here more than almost anyone else). Jointly funded by the Templeton and Gates foundations.