As young children, we don’t know how much the world has changed. We don’t know that the life we humans enjoyed for nearly all our time on this planet — a life shared in a village — has slipped away. And we have no idea that in its place, a single, towering force has risen: a global consumer culture, shaping every facet of how we live. (Smaldino, 2019)
So, when we cry in our cribs, our tiny voices cutting through the night air, we expect many hands to quickly rush in and gather us up. Just how quickly? According to anthropologist Nikhil Chaudhary and her team of researchers — who observed a hunter-gatherer tribe in the Republic of Congo and timed how fast villagers responded to children’s cries — within 25 seconds or less. (Chaudhary et al., 2024)
But in our world, our childhood bedroom often stays still, just four walls, empty air, and the ache of waiting. And, if someone does come, they’re often in a rush: distracted and half-there. Why? Because we’ve been left in the hands of two parents who are asked to do what an entire village once did: meet all our physical, emotional and relational needs, all on their own. It’s an impossible task. And yet, there they are, trying their best… and inevitably falling short. (Bridgers & Fox, 2024)
That’s the first reason we’re lonely: consumer culture has insisted families go it alone, discouraging them from growing their circle and sharing life’s load with others. There’s no village to help carry the weight. It’s strange, really, that consumer culture hands our parents a mug of coffee with the words World’s Best Dad & Mom written on it and says, Good luck! You just keep going as a tiny team of two overworked adults, holding up the house alone — one mortgage, three jobs, zero help.
Isolation in Corporate Culture
Our culture’s guidance is particularly odd when you realize consumer culture urges families to stay small but then hands companies a completely different set of instructions. Our culture stumbled upon something ancient and shared this guidance almost exclusively with the working world: People survived storms and scarcity by linking arms, pooling what they had, and growing together. So — companies of the world — don’t be that lone person by the fire. Bring people in. Share the load. Let the strength of many carry you forward. Build a village of sorts.
So, while companies begin like a family — just two to four people holding things together — they don’t stay that way for long. They grow the circle, like families once did. And by the time 20 or 30 people are on board, it feels less like a fragile family and more like a resilient village — sturdy and strong enough to keep each other, and the mission, afloat.
Yet… our time working in companies doesn’t feel much like our ancestors’ time in a welcoming village. It feels noticeably lonelier. Why? The trouble with companies is this: Consumer culture misguides the workplace by forgetting to pass down a second key piece of ancestral wisdom: Size only works when it’s met with mutuality, that life-affirming pact, ‘I’ll show up for you, and you’ll show up for me.’
Sure, companies love to talk mutuality — filling orientation binders with, You belong here. We’ve got you. But beneath those warm words, a cold truth hums: You belong here… until the numbers say otherwise. We’ve got you… until the next round of layoffs.
And we feel it.
That’s why, at work, we quickly stop offering our full selves. We offer enough to get by, but not all we can bring — not the whole of who we are. Because we won’t give our whole heart in the harvest when we know we’ll be left behind in the drought. (Tumelo & Donald, 2025)
So, the workplace companies promise us — that warm, human workplace where You belong here — dissolves into the kind of space we know all too well: that place where we keep our heads down and hearts closed, just making it through each day, working for the weekend. It’s no wonder we’re lonely.
Searching for Community Through Hobbies
So off we go — signing up for pottery classes, attending writing workshops, joining pickleball leagues, and planting tomatoes in shared gardens. We may say we’re looking for fun or fitness or learning, but underneath it, we’re all hoping for something more: kindness, compassion, mutuality, and, most of all, that warm sense of home. We want to be a part of something real — to find our people.
But while these groups keep us busy, they don’t bring us close. They hum with energy, but they lack intimacy, because…
Our culture makes it clear how we’re supposed to show up for these groups. We should do what we’ve always done — smile, nod, slide into our well-worn roles, and tuck our true selves away. And, again, the part of us longing for real connection hides away. It’s so easy to disappear. It’s so easy to feel lonely. (Snyder, 1974)
We need a new kind of group.
How Things Finally Change
We need a group that strives for something more honest — something that doesn’t shy away from our messy, beautiful humanity; something that calls us to belong, not just participate.
It’s the sort of group that creates its own culture, one freed from the social limitations of our consumer culture, where we can speak openly and honestly, meet one another with a gentle, caring stance, and experience an ongoing emotional closeness.
That’s why I propose each of us find and become a part of an interpersonal process group — the sort of group where, each week for two hours, a circle gathers — five to twelve members held by the steady presence of a seasoned therapist.
Here, we tell the truth. We speak what’s hard to say. We open up to feedback. And we learn from each other in real time. (Yalom, 2020).
It’s that group where, in a few weeks’ time, the room becomes safe enough for our long-held, trauma-soaked stories to surface. And when we share them, the group doesn’t just hear our words — they hear the tremble in our voice, the hidden grief in our posture, and the weight in our silence.
We might brace for what we’ve always known in response: judgment, silence, maybe even shame. But what meets us after our sharing is the still, compassionate stance of our group members — soft eyes, steady hearts. And in that gentle reversal, in that unexpected grace, something inside us begins to mend.
It’s the sort of group we can keep coming back to, week after week, until slowly, over several months, we‘ve done something extraordinary. We’ve built a village culture.
In just two hours at a time, we can craft a new way of being together that runs deeper than anything our consumer culture teaches. We can craft a group where we don’t just know each other’s names — we know each other’s stories, each other’s hearts.
