The thing you don’t miss until it’s gone is what destroys systems, relationships, whole societies.
We always mattered to somebody (even negatively) inside traditional structures and virtue norms.
Stripping those away freed us from a real burden, but also uncoupled achievement from contentment: without the status those structures conferred, economic comfort and quality of life stopped being enough to feel like it mattered.
[from The Mattering Instinct]