A human being needs meaning the same way the body needs protein, but the modern world replaces meaning with endless novelty because novelty is easier to sell and easier to control. In practice this means you get micro-bursts of dopamine — new content, new purchases, new distractions, new “goals” — none of which satisfy the deeper hunger for purpose, belonging, and direction, so you keep chasing tiny highs instead of building a life that actually anchors you. Technology and consumer culture learned to mimic the emotional signature of meaning: intensity, stimulation, small peaks of excitement — and people mistake these manufactured spikes for aliveness because they’ve forgotten what real meaning feels like. Men collapse into achievement and escapism; women collapse into over-care, self-improvement loops, and aesthetic life-curation — both paths are just different flavors of the same starvation. The blade cuts deepest when you realize the emptiness isn’t a personal flaw — it’s the inevitable outcome of living on spiritual fast food.