I realized there was a third mystery, hanging over all of it. Could something other than bad brain chemistry have been causing depression and anxiety in me, and in so many people all around me? If so—what could it be?

It was only a long time into talking with these social scientists that I realized every one of the social and psychological causes of depression and anxiety they have discovered has something in common. They are all forms of disconnection. They are all ways in which we have been cut off from something we innately need but seem to have lost along