By Mark Doggett
I recently listened to a podcast interview with Arthur C. Brooks, a social scientist and happiness researcher, who identified what he believes is America’s deepest mental health crisis. It isn’t just anxiety or depression. It’s a crisis of meaning.
Despite rising living standards and instant access to information, more Americans report feelings of emptiness, confusion, and despair. Suicide and depression rates continue to climb, especially among young adults. Loneliness has become so pervasive that the U.S. Surgeon General has called it a national epidemic.
Brooks argues that many no longer feel their lives matter—that they have a purpose beyond achievement, comfort, or online affirmation. The problem isn’t that we have too little, but that we have too little to live for.
Philosophers have long warned of this emptiness. Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century French thinker, wrote that “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” When stripped of distraction, we’re forced to confront the void—the aching absence of meaning. We chase entertainment, not because it fulfills us, but because it helps us forget how lost we feel.
Søren Kierkegaard called this the sickness unto death—not physical illness, but despair born from not knowing who we are or why we exist. His answer was not intellectual, but spiritual: a leap of faith toward something greater than the self.
C.S. Lewis echoed this idea in the 20th century: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Our longing for ultimate meaning may not be a flaw, but a clue.
Yet today’s culture leaves little room for that kind of reflection. We prize achievement over contemplation, opinion over wisdom, and consumption over contribution. Social media offers identity and applause—but it’s fleeting. When the likes fade, we’re left with the same old questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is worth suffering for?
Brooks argues that real fulfillment comes from four pillars: faith, family, friendship, and work that serves others. Meaning isn’t something you find—it’s something you build. It demands commitment and sometimes sacrifice.
Importantly, Brooks doesn’t limit meaning to religion, but he affirms that spiritual life—however defined—is essential to human flourishing. You can’t fill a spiritual void with productivity or pleasure.
We are creatures of purpose. When disconnected from community, tradition, or a moral vision larger than ourselves, something essential erodes. That erosion is now visible in both personal and public life.
This doesn’t mean rejecting science or progress. It means recognizing that progress without purpose is just movement without direction. Therapy and medicine are valuable, but they can’t answer life’s biggest questions.
In a world flooded with noise, the most radical act may be to sit still—and ask what our longing is trying to tell us.
Not everything can be proven. Some truths are self-evident. The real crisis isn’t in the mind. It’s in the soul.
About Mark
Mark Doggett retired last year as a professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Western Kentucky University.