There is an opposite, and much healthier, philosophy to that:

Ubuntu ("I am because we are") - a Bantu African-origin value system bsed around the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity - a polar opposite to America's bleak individualism.

I first heard the word Ubuntu a few years ago, but have long held those beliefs because it's reflected in our almost-universal religious experience, from breaking bread together in Christianity to sharing sweets for Diwali to lighting lanterns together in Japan and Thailand. We are because we are together.

Humans survived this long because we co-operate. That's why rejection hurts so damn much: 50,000 years ago, rejection from the group meant certain death.

To be alive and to exist in this world means to embrace something decaying.

To love is to experience pain and loss and rejection and grief, and to hold someone's hand as they take their last breath, or sometimes their first.

That missing piece of the puzzle you allude to is connection - to whichever deity we serve, to the people in our lives, to our community, to nature, to life itself. No man is an island; we are cogs in a giant wheel that only turns when we recognise our responsibilities towards each other to keep that wheel turning.

Connection is the only thing that has ever kept us alive.