A few years ago, after my wife, Linda, and I dropped our twin daughters off at college, I walked through our front door and felt homesick in my own home. And it wasn’t just my children. All my relationships felt asunder. I had just lost my dad, was losing my mom, my marriage needed to be renegotiated, and my friendships needed to be remade.

I was hardly alone: Everyone I know was craving connection and feeling like we've abandoned our loved ones for our screens.

I went looking for solutions and found a startling story hiding in plain sight: the renaissance of ritual.

A generation into the loneliness epidemic, Americans are devising astonishing new ways to gather in real life. Fed up with isolation, polarization, and digital saturation, people are flocking to rituals — collective, voluntary activities that bring us together for shared purpose. Every day, from Boomers to Gen Z, people are reimagining how to mark life, love, health, and family — and forging thriving communities in the process.

This groundswell of collective meaning-making may be our best shot to counter the divisive algorithms and artificial intimacies of Big Tech. And every person, regardless of background, can join in.

The Ritual Renaissance

Rituals are the glue that holds society together. We have 300,000 years of evidence that when humans go through collective transitions, they hold joint celebrations, from baby namings to weddings to funerals. Yet today, we’ve abandoned many of these rituals. Can this threat to society be reversed?

To find out, I spent the last three years attending—and joining in—life rituals........

© Psychology Today