Fromm claims that the “deepest need of man” is “the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness.”2 This need is so strong, Fromm writes, that if it goes unmet, it will result in insanity. We need companionship—love—so badly that if we lack it, we will create the illusion of it, as Noland does with his volleyball named Wilson, just to survive.
