Excess is the condition of modernity. We have too much of everything except absence, silence, emptiness, calm.

I open my laptop in the morning. Advisories from publications I admire, friends’ Facebook pages which lead me to other Facebooked acquaintances and their interests. Advertisements for shows and contests. Read this, see that. The news, spidering in all directions. Climate, justice, corruption demanding my concern. Amazon’s uncanny algorithms, selecting a few choice morsels, based on past purchases, anticipating my appetites. Within seconds, I’m flailing in a sea of ignorance not to drown! How can I be so clueless, insignificant! This cornucopia’s an avalanche. Slam the door. Quit surfing, checking. Spread a blank page.

Ahhh. That’s better. The snowfield invites my thoughts. What most concerns me? How to expend my precious moments? What might I contribute to the roar?

A century ago, one could envision oneself master of one’s stead. There were only so many books, no TV or Internet, the newspaper came once a day. Telephones jingled only occasionally, with pressing reports. One had time to talk with neighbors, whom one met. The world was still huge – infinite – but practically circumscribed.

How does today’s inexorable excess affect the human psyche?

I’m speculating here, extrapolating from experience, but my hunch is we tune out in self-defense, confine our attention to the voices most comforting, hunker into caves with our nearest chums. We labor not to know, lest our precarious sanity be overwhelmed, deputizing our judgment to supposed authorities, who may well be slicksters tangling us in their webs. You and I huddle here. Your presence gives me hope and, I hope, vice versa, that we are not alone.

Community begins with communications. If we do not meet others – and hear them – we cease to care about them. No one loves in the abstract, not really. We are herd animals, who pledge allegiance to one another only if heard.

This isolation from one another helps explain the collapse of our politics. I care – almost frantically – about the souls in my cave, but little about the rest. I confess this shamefacedly. I cannot comprehend or cope with my adversaries or they, I’m sure, with me. Sharing no common ground, we cannot converse or convince, only confront. This is not true of all, but it is of many, more and more, and antagonism sparks antagonism in reply. Nobody I know “turns the other cheek,” not really, though we may try.

Democracy depends on community: “we the people” must be a fact, not just a formula. We must combine and compromise for the benefit of all, caring for all, not just our tribe. Trump’s repeated vows to punish his opponents are antithetical to democracy. Our statutes are helpless to govern if we can’t get along. We will weaponize our rules to win our war, hammer our ploughshares into swords.

If this diagnosis is correct, how do we the people proceed?

I’m not optimistic. But neither can I be fatalistic, if only to preserve my mental health. If enough of us wake to our danger, maybe we can avert calamity, reinstating community as a precondition of freedom before it’s too late.

That means: to fix our state we must fix our souls. At root our cancer isn’t political, economic, educational, but spiritual. E pluribus unum: we must melt ourselves from many into one.

That means we all must preach to one another, each in our way: some with vocations, some with contributions, some with words.  We must remember, as Patrick Henry put it in his final speech, “United we stand, divided we fall.”

Our chance of success? Stay tuned.