
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')rom my perspective, depression and loneliness amongst Americans may be as inevitable as lung cancer for smokers. No culture that devalues life, love, and meaning as profoundly as ours can produce a happy or unified populace. From the day we are born, our ability to love our selves and connect with others is subverted by a thousand barriers emplaced by cultural conditioning.
What are these barriers? They are ways of seeing our selves, others, and the world that lead to a sense of separation and aloneness. One very large such barrier is the conditioned habit of judgment. The respective machineries of education, religion, and media in various ways program us to judge our selves and others in a profoundly limited light. When we ask our selves, "Who am I? Who are my neighbors?" the answers we get are hopelessly distorted.