The Common Thread: Systems Designed to Disconnect

This is the final piece in a series exploring how fear shows up in the American healthcare system. But as I sat with everything I'd been learning, a pattern kept emerging. One that extends far beyond healthcare.

A few weeks ago, I was visiting a friend in South Carolina. A man of profound integrity. At one point I told him I think the biggest challenge we have in the world right now is disconnection. He didn't hesitate. He agreed. And he said that when we're connected, we're powerful. Powerful as a unit, not as individuals.

For months I've been exploring different systems through the lens of love and fear. Healthcare. Capitalism. Prisons. Education. I didn't set out to find a common thread. But one keeps showing up. These systems disconnect us. From ourselves. From each other. From nature. From community. From the sources of love and healing that make us whole.

Healthcare separates us by class and keeps us tethered through fear of losing coverage. Capitalism, starting with enclosure in the 1500s, separated people from shared land and turned them into labor. Research shows that just thinking about money makes us more isolated. The prison system makes connection expensive and difficult, even though connection is what helps people heal. And a NASA-commissioned creativity study found that 98% of children aged three to five scored at the creative genius level. By adulthood, only 2% did. The system disconnects us from the creative genius we're born with.

If disconnection is what these systems produce, what would it look like to design from connection instead? I don't have the answers. But I think the questions matter.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org